Language

INTRODUCTION Let me first define Language, Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication. The scientific study of language in any of its senses is called linguistics. Psycholinguistics or Psychology of Language is the study of the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language. Initial forays into psycholinguistics were largely philosophical ventures, due mainly to a lack of cohesive data on how the human brain functioned. Modern research makes use of biology, neuroscience, cognitive science, linguistics, and information theory to study how the brain processes language. If talking about language as a general concept, it refers to the cognitive faculty that enables human to learn and use systems of communications. Below are the different definitions of language according to the use: * Language as a mental faculty, organ or instinct- in this definition, language is seen as the mental faculty that allows us, humans, to take on linguistic behavior. It stresses the universality of language to all humans and the biological basis of the human capacity for language as a unique development of the human brain. These were widely applied by studies of language within a cognitive science framework and in neurolinguistics. * Language as a formal symbolic system- language is a formal system of signs gathered by grammatical rules of combination to communicate its meaning. This tells us the fact that human languages can be described as closed structural systems consisting of rules that relate particular meanings. * Language as a tool for communication- this defines language as a system of communication that enables humans to cooperate. Social functions of languages and the fact that humans use it to express themselves and to manipulate objects in their environment.