Study guide: Language Concepts and Communication

📋 Course Outline

1. Language Meaning and Importance
2. Core Characteristics of Language
3. National Language Development
4. First and Second Languages
5. Registers and Language Varieties
6. Levels and Social Identity
7. Language Functions in Society

📖 1. Language Meaning and Importance

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Language: a system of symbols made of sounds or written letters that people associate with meanings they want to communicate to others

★ Must-know

• Language is the most important means and connection in human interaction because it communicates ideas, feelings, information, culture, and reasoning in spoken or written forms. - Lachica, 1998

Further detail

• The word language came from the word “lengua,” whose literal meaning is tongue and language.

• Language functions as a vehicle for information, an instrument of communication and cultural transmission, and a symbol of freedom.

💡 Memory Hook

Language enables meaning → understanding → social connection.

📖 2. Core Characteristics of Language

★ Must-know

• Language is arbitrary because a community selects and organizes sounds through agreement rather than through an inherent connection between sound and meaning.

• Language is cultural, dynamic, creative, unique, communicative, human, and capable of borrowing from other languages.

• Language forms meaningful units by combining sounds into words, words into phrases or sentences, and sentences into discourse or expression.

Further detail

• Language is spoken through speech organs including the lips, tongue, vocal cords, palate, and throat.

💡 Memory Hook

S-A-C-C-D-C-U-H: systematic, spoken, arbitrary, cultural, dynamic, creative, unique, human, borrowing.

📖 3. National Language Development

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• National language: the language established by a national government for government use and communication with its citizens

★ Must-know

• Nepal has Nepali as its national language although it has 123 languages, while the Philippines has Filipino as its national language under the 1987 Constitution.

• Tagalog was changed to Pilipino under Executive Act No. 7 of 1959 and later became Filipino under Article XIV, Sections 6–9 of the 1987 Constitution.

Further detail

• The Philippine national language was called Tagalog under Executive Order No. 134 of 1937 after a committee led by Jaime C. de Veyra studied Philippine native languages.

• Tagalog was selected because it was used in Manila, had a rich vocabulary and the most developed literature, was widely used, was easy to learn and pronounce, and resembled many local languages or dialects.

💡 Memory Hook

Tagalog → Pilipino → Filipino

📖 4. First and Second Languages

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• First language: the native language acquired from birth through the individual’s family and linguistic community, and it is also called the mother tongue or indigenous language
• Second language: a language learned after the first language through school or interaction with people who can use it, rather than acquired naturally at home

📝 Essential Points

• A linguistic community is a group living in one place that uses one language and shares understanding, relationships, and interaction.

• In the Philippines, mother tongue is also a subject from Grades 1 to 3 and serves as a medium for better learning and understanding of a second language.

💡 Memory Hook

First language is acquired naturally at home; second language is learned afterward through school or interaction.

📖 5. Registers and Language Varieties

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Register: a person’s way or style of speaking according to the person’s activity, occupation, or social situation

★ Must-know

• A dialect is a regional variety used by people in the same place, while an idiolect is the individual speech pattern of one person.

• A sociolect is a language variety associated with a social group, while an ethnolect contains words that identify an ethnic group.

• Creole develops from pidgin and mixed languages or cultures, becomes the main language of a specific place, and has native speakers, complete vocabulary, and patterned grammar.

Further detail

📌 An ecolect is used within a household, while pidgin is a temporary contact language formed by people with different languages and no common medium.

• The named sociolects are:
  • Beki or Gay Lingo
  • Conyo
  • Jejemon

💡 Memory Hook

Register follows the activity or profession; language variety follows the speaker’s group or community.

📖 6. Levels and Social Identity

📝 Essential Points

📌 Formal language is recognized and used by most people in a community, country, or place, whereas informal language is used in everyday communication.

• Formal language includes national or common language, used in education, news, politics, religion, and social communication, and literary language, which uses symbolism, figurative language, hints, and deep meanings.

• Informal language includes regional language, slang, and colloquial language, including shortened words and Taglish formed by combining Tagalog and English.

💡 Memory Hook

Formal language is widely recognized; informal language belongs to everyday and group usage.

📖 7. Language Functions in Society

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Interactional function: M.A.K. Halliday, 1973 - The interactional function establishes and maintains social relationships through greetings, jokes, messages, phone calls, and personal letters.
• Instrumental function: M.A.K. Halliday, 1973 - The instrumental function uses language to satisfy needs, communicate requests, or give orders, such as in applications and business letters.
• Regulatory function: M.A.K. Halliday, 1973 - The regulatory function controls or guides another person’s behavior through directions, reminders, warnings, instructions, or signs such as “No Trespassing.”

📝 Essential Points

• Halliday identifies these functions of language (M.A.K. Halliday, 1973):

  • interactional
  • instrumental
  • regulatory
  • personal
  • imaginative
  • informative
  • heuristic

• The personal, imaginative, informative, and heuristic functions express personal feelings, communicate creative imagination, provide information or knowledge, and seek information respectively. - M.A.K. Halliday, 1973

💡 Memory Hook

I-I-R-P-I-I-H: interaksiyonal, instrumental, regulatori, personal, imahinatibo, impormatibo, heuristik.

📊 Synthesis Tables

Language Varieties Compared