Language - Communication, Grammar, Culture

language

Table of Contents

Introduction
Characteristics of language
- Definitions of language
- Historical attitudes toward language
- Ways of studying language
  - Phonetics and phonology
  - Grammar
  - Semantics
Language variants
- Dialects
- Jargon
- Pidgins and creoles
- Nonverbal language
  - Sign language
  - Paralinguistics
  - Symbolic and computer language
Physiological and physical basis of speech
- Speech production
- Language acquisition
Meaning and style in language
- Types of meaning
  - Structural, or grammatical, meaning
  - Lexical meaning
- Semantic flexibility
  - General and specific designations
  - Neologisms
- Language and conceptualization
- Style
Language and culture
- Transmission of language and culture
- Language and social differentiation and assimilation
- The control of language for cultural ends
  - Second-language learning
  - Nationalistic influences on language
  - Translation
  - Messages and codes
- Language learning
  - Bilingualism
  - Literacy
- Written language
  - Evolution of writing systems
  - Spelling
  - Written versus spoken languages
Linguistic change
- Diversification of languages
  - Changes through time
  - Changes through geographical movement
  - Tendencies against change
- Language typology

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It has been seen that language is much more than the external expression and communication of internal thoughts formulated independently of their verbalization. In demonstrating the inadequacy and inappropriateness of such a view of language, attention has already been drawn to the ways in which one’s native language is intimately and in all sorts of details related to the rest of one’s life in a community and to smaller groups within that community. This is true of all peoples and all languages; it is a universal fact about language. Anthropologists speak of the relations between language and culture. It is ...(100 of 25352 words)

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