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Human language is the spoken word, the oral utterance of ideas and thoughts by
means of speech sounds. It is a communiqué that arises from man's need to
verbalize and to objectify himself. Linguists, philosophers, psychologists and
other researchers have all been instrumental in our understanding of what language is, and
how it is learnt and used. Their studies show that language has a complex structure and that
its use entails varied, interacting mental operations. Language faculty is not a "module of
the mind" (Carruthers and Jill, 1998, p. 108); rather it concurs with vital cognition; hence, it
is genetic and internalized and it "is an innate capacity represented in the mind in a
system of cognitive conception of language" (Hirschberg and Hirschberg, 1999, p. 10). It
validates the view that human beings are second to none in possessing natural and intrinsic
language and support the argument that our thoughts, which are distinctly human, require
language. It is evident that sentence has inherent meaning determined by linguistic guidelines
and that the language user has specific linguistic faculty as it is spoken in a "set of
sentences" (Matthews, 1993, p. 129). If language is a biologically entrenched phenomenon, it
activates within the nature of linguistic codes and connects sounds and words with the
mental calculation to decide the form and meaning of sentences. Hirschkop and Shepherd
say "language is heteroglottic" (1989, p. 5), by which they propose that language has
stylistic form with syntactic and lexical patterns, which greatly enhance the ability of humans
to converse and symbolize aspects of language. Speech is an explicit entity of man, a
vehicle and mode of expression. Sociolinguists view language as a means of interface, and
functional conversation occurs when people take on language associated tasks to effectuate
specific goal to inform others, to inquire for information, to express the elusive delight and
to maneuver ahead. "Language indexes information/relationship, negotiation/ratification,
and group harmony vs. individual welfare" (Kakava, 2000, p. 262). It is a historical legacy
of the group, the product of long recurrent social usage, and from functional point of
view, language is a free choice of words for "intentional action" (Caplan, 1994, p. 3);
therefore, it is externalized. Since language is closely linked with the nature of man it allows us
to presume that language is chiefly a cultural or social outcome and must be understood
as such. By this mechanism of arrangement none could have progressed without each
other and they grew by being perpetually interactive. Language is a prerequisite of
cogent thought, culture and civilization, creation and subsequent action, a constant
interaction between sensory knowledge and conceptual reflection.
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