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Zusammenfassung von How Language Works

Name: How Language Works
Rating: 4.4 (88 reviews)
Author: David Crystal

David Crystal

How Babies Babble, Words Change Meaning, and Languages Live or Die

4.4 (88 Bewertungen)

20 Min.

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Language

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How Language Works
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What’s in it for me? Uncover the mysterious ways in which language is born, evolves, and even dies!

It’s been said that language is one of the main attributes that sets human beings apart from other species. No other creature on Earth has evolved a means of communication as sophisticated as human speech. But where did it come from? And how do we learn to go from baby talk to complex sentences that can describe everything from the tiniest detail to the most abstract idea? Come to think of it, why are there so many languages out there?

Language is so essential to our lives, it’s a wonder why we know so little about it. It defines us both as a society and as individuals. You can find out so much about a person by the way they speak and write.

These blinks help you understand what language is, how we use it, and how it defines us. They explore the intricate structure of human language, the steps we all take to learn how to use it, and how language is constantly evolving with the ever-changing world.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

why teenagers can’t always understand sportscasters;
how palm trees helped linguists define an ancient language; and
what we can do to protect dying languages.

Language is an organized system of communication focused on productivity and duality of structure.

These blinks are all about language. But what does that mean? What exactly is language? Well, for most of us, language can mean many different things.

We try to read a person’s mood using “body language.” We teach our kids not to use “bad language.” If we want to agree with a good idea, sometimes we’ll say, “Now you’re talking my language!”

But when professional linguists discuss language, they mean something very specific.

The key message here is: Language is an organized system of communication focused on productivity and duality of structure.

Now, the terms productivity and duality of structure are pretty abstract. It’s hard to get an idea of what they actually mean. So let’s break them down, starting with productivity.

Productivity means that a language can be built upon and used to express an infinite number of ideas. Just think about how you can build a sentence. It’s possible to create a sentence that goes on forever. All you have to do is simply keep using the word “and.” This is an example of productivity in action.

Or consider another example. We can take the building blocks of a language – it’s words, phrases and sentences – and use them to create new words which express new inventions and concepts. Every year, the world’s leading dictionaries make international news by formally inducting new words and phrases, like “traumatology” and “gig economy” into the lexicon. And every day, we create unique combinations of words to form sentences that express our thoughts, ideas, and emotions. The majority of these sentences combine words in ways they’ve never been used before and never will again. That’s pretty remarkable!

So, that’s productivity. Now what about duality of structure?

Duality of structure breaks language down into smaller building blocks. All languages can be broken down into one of two categories. The first is the meaningful elements of individual words, and the second is the distinctive but meaningless elements of individual sounds.

Take the letters “G” “E” and “T”. Individually, the letters have no meaning. But combine them together and you’ve created the word “get,” a word with a clear meaning. This is the duality of structure, and it is unique to human language. The communication we see between animals does not have duality of structure. A dog can’t build a sentence or even a word out of multiple barks.

So, that’s what language is. In the next blink, we’ll look at how we use it to communicate.

Language is primarily expressed through speech and writing.

So, now we have an idea of what language actually is. But how is it expressed? How do we use language to communicate with each other?

The key message in this blink is: Language is primarily expressed through speech and writing.

The basic rules of language are learned at a very young age and are built upon for the rest of our lives.

When we start to pick apart a language to study its rules, it can seem impossibly complicated. Maybe you remember struggling to analyze sentences in grammar class. But – even without a grammar class -- we’ve all learned these fundamental rules. Just speak to almost anyone. From a pretty early age, we can all carry on a coherent conversation.

How does this happen?

From the moment of its creation, language has been in a constant state of evolution.

One of the most common misconceptions about language is that it’s fixed, or that it’s structured around a strict set of rules. We get this idea from the so-called “grammar police,” who pounce on every little mistake like it’s the downfall of civilization. In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. Our languages are constantly changing. If they don’t, they die.

The key message here is: From the moment of its creation, language has been in a constant state of evolution.

Language families are valuable tools that provide insight into the earliest days of humankind.

We’ve talked a lot about language, but we haven’t really discussed where it came from. Which was the first language? And did all languages develop from the same source?

The questions of where language comes from and why it evolves aren’t just academic ones. Exploring these issues can help us answer why there are so many languages in the first place. To better understand questions like these, historical linguists have classified the world’s languages into what are called language families. Linguists systematically compare and contrast different languages to determine how, or if, they are related and to find a potential common source or parent language.

Multilingualism is the normal human condition.

If language is one of the defining characteristics that makes us human, our specific language is one of the key attributes that defines us as individuals. The language we speak carries a lot of information about where we come from, our social status, and even the values and ideals we hold most dear. This is one of the biggest reasons why language remains such a volatile political issue.

But the language – or should we say languages – we speak doesn’t define us to just one place or one identity.

Endangered languages can be revitalized through concerted community efforts.

A language dies with the last person who speaks it. When we lose a language, we lose a specific cultural identity. We may lose invaluable scientific information related to folk medicine or anthropology. For these and other reasons, it’s vitally important to protect and preserve these endangered languages.

The key message here is: Endangered languages can be revitalized through concerted community efforts.

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Worum geht es in How Language Works?

How Language Works (2005) unlocks the secrets of how and why we communicate. Language is one of the defining characteristics that makes humans human. But because it’s such a fundamental concept, we rarely take the time to think about where it comes from or how it evolves. These blinks examine the historical and personal origins of language and the many different ways it affects our daily lives.

Wer How Language Works lesen sollte

Language lovers curious to learn how language works
Those who appreciate the vast diversity of languages in the world
People concerned about endangered or extinct languages

Über den Autor

David Crystal is one of the world’s leading linguistic scholars. He has written or co-written dozens of books on the subject of language, including The Stories of English and Shakespeare’s Words. In 1995, he was awarded the Order of the British Empire for services to the English language.

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