Quote collection: language
10 Jul 2017 | last updated on 10 Jul 2017 | all notes
Definition by “example”, in chronological order.
It appears to me almost beyond dispute that language is a phenomenon of imitation: … the tyranny of usage in itself, suffices to show at one glance its imitative character
Language is a purely human and noninstinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions, and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols. […] Language may be looked upon as an instrument capable of running a gamut of psychic uses.
Language is activity, chiefly social activity undertaken in order to get into touch with other individuals and communicate to them one’s thoughts, feelings and will.
Language, like a living organism, is subject to (synchronic) variability and to permanent (diachronic) alteration.
If language were a tool, then language, too, would deteriorate and wear out … But language is not a commodity, nor is it a tool or an instrument, it is not an object at all; it is nothing other than its use. Language is language use. (Fritz Mauthner in Bredeck 1992, 86) </footer>
Language is a shared set of conventions for mapping meanings to utterances.
Language is both a biological and a cultural phenomenon.
Language is a biological trait that radically changed the performance of one species and the appearance of the planet.
Language is our legacy.
Language is a symbolic, culturally transmitted system of communication, which is learnt through the inference of meaning.
Language is a complex dynamical system that is shaped not just through biological evolution but by the way it is used in a social context.
Language is an example of collective behavior, and it is a type of collective behavior for which people are highly adapted. … Language provides a canonical example of a complex system: robust, adaptable, and self-assembling.
In this article it is argued that language can be seen as a dynamic system, i.e. a set of variables that interact over time, and that language development can be seen as a dynamic process.
Human language is based on grammatical rules.
Natural languages comprise elaborate systems of rules that enable one speaker to communicate with another.
Language is coordination.
Language is a complex adaptive system: Speakers are agents who interact with each other, and their past and current interactions feed into speakers’ future behavior in complex ways.
Language is one of the most prominent examples of complex systems.
Language is a fundamentally social complex system, exhibiting organization at multiple spatial, temporal and structural levels (Beckner et al., 2009)
In our view, for the purposes of scientific understanding, language should be understood as a particular computational cognitive system, implemented neurally, that cannot be equated with an excessively expansive notion of “language as communication”
Language, that is, the linguistic behavior of a speech community…
References
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