Both scholars and communicators operate on the premise that language is structured in an orderly fashion. An alternative view is that language is organized in a random fashion. Clearly, however, communicators treat language as tightly structured. A...

Language What is a "language"? Is it an internal component of a speaker's mind, or is it wholly dependent on our external behavior? Is it a matter of social practice, or are languages to be viewed as independently existing abstract...

Language is the most human of all human abilities. It may be the defining characteristic of Homo sapiens. Wherever humans exist, language exists. Although no one knows the precise number of languages in the world, there are at least 3,000 and as many...

Contemporary research on language and gender takes into account an awareness of culture, multilingualism and gender, on language performance, preference and development. Notions of language as performance have transformed the Saussurian perspective of...

Vehicle for the expression or exchanging of thoughts, concepts, knowledge, and information as well as the fixing and transmission of experience and knowledge. It is based on cognitive processes, subject to societal factors and subject to historical...

Language shapes cultural identity and bonds political communities. In Western European states such as Belgium and Switzerland distinct linguistic communities are given political representation. In other regions minority linguistic groups, such as in...

System of conventional spoken or written symbols used by people in a shared culture to communicate with each other. A language both reflects and affects a culture's way of thinking, and changes in a culture influence the development of its language....

West Africa may also be envisaged as a tapestry of language and ethnicity which predates colonialization. Three distinct language families are represented, each found also outside West Africa: in the North, Nilo-Saharan includes both Kanuri and...

If two languages say the same thing, it is not the same thing. (Roman) The inhabitants of earth have many tongues, those of Heaven have one. (Roman) Wherever you go, speak the language of that place. (Chinese) Who knows the tongues is at home...

A system of symbols, usual verbal (although non-verbal communication might be conceived of as a form of language) which expresses ideas, knowledge, feelings, sensations, values and beliefs, and so...

// n. 1. A natural language. 2. A formal...

A language is a system of visual, auditory, or tactile symbols of communication and the rules used to manipulate them. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon. Though commonly used as a means of communication among...