Explain the characteristics of language.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Sharing meaning can be difficult because we speak different languages and use different dialects and idiolects than those with whom we are communicating. Sharing meaning can also be difficult because language is arbitrary, abstract, and constantly changing. In any language, the words used to represent things are arbitrary symbols. There is not necessarily a literal connection between a word and the thing it represents. For a word to have meaning, it must be recognized by members of the language or speech community as standing for a particular object, idea, or feeling. The word dog is nothing more than three letters used together unless members of a community agree that it stands for a certain four-legged animal. Different speech communities within a language community may use different words to represent the same phenomenon. For example, the storage compartment of an automobile is called a trunkin the United States and a boot in England. Not only is language arbitrary, but it is also abstract. For example, in the United States, the word petis commonly understood to be an animal kept for companionship. Still, if a person simply refers to a "pet", someone may think of a dog, cat, snake, bird, or hamster. Even if the person specifically mentions the cat, the other person still might think of cats of various breeds, sizes, colors, and temperaments. New words are constantly being invented and existing words abandoned or assigned new meanings. For example, the words that have been invented to represent new technologies such as texting, Googling, cyberbullying, sexting, tweeting, retweeting, netiquette, webinar, emoticon, and blogging. Some words become obsolete because the thing they represent is no longer used. For example, today we use photo copiers and computers to make multiple copies of print documents rather than mimeographs(low-cost printing presses) and stencils. Sometimes the meanings of existing words change. For example, in the United States, gay once meant happy and only that. Today, its more common usage references one’s sexual orientation.