Craving My Dad's Best Friend

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urse plants and animals do communicate; they listen, make sounds and respond predictably, but they cannot SPEAK; neither can they WRITE. Although language has much in common with communication, they cann

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pattern of sounds or words functioning together in a predictable manner. Language is a symbolic system made up of units,

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uns in context and the combination of words to form sentences. Consequ

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mbols such as goat or monkey have the same meaning to all users of English worldwide. There are three types of signs that stand for an object. In the first place, if the sign shares a physical resemblance with the object, it is called an icon. Secondly, if the relation is physical pr

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certain words as fit and proper and others as not. This can be reinforced with an example of the word mother. In Swahili it is called mama, but in Georgian it is dada. All the words an

f its 'chairness'. Convention made them so. The arbitrariness is further appreciated through words that are often referred to as onomatopoeic. Such words are partly iconic in that their sound is some way resembles what they re

is Productiv

f fairy tales and novels often employ the vehicle of language to express the imagination of their hearts. The creative potentia

e is Cultu

eople, it helps to learn their language as the acquisition of the language of a community invariably l

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mic. Words and expressions change with time. For instance in Old English, 'fiftyn', 'ofer' and 'uppan' have metamorphosed to fifte

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ation of capability of language. It establishes the fact that every person has all the organs of speech which language environment will compel him/her to use

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re persons who change their roles as speaker/listener or listener/speaker in a speech act. Language is one of the few phenomena in l

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another. This is why when we erroneously substitute one sound with another; we can cause problems for our listeners. Some Nigerian users of English famously use /f/ instead of /v/

THE FUNCTIO

ctions than we care to understand. The follow

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communication or information but serves the purpose of social solidarity and well being. Examples include exchange of pleasant

identities and a sense

cio-cultural and religious groups (e.g. "Pr

her formulaic expressions that show

on of ex

f expressing human consciousness, encounters, problems and favours. Such experiences are best shared with mem

(it involves the use

written narrations (including p

( e.g. use of adverbs of time, relative clauses

of informat

of instruction, commands, orders or persuasion. Language is used by educators, politicians and relig

g (formation and use of nouns, nomin

en involves the use of complex sentences; specific verb forms, modal auxilia

evaluating (declarative sen

tion (types of

ns (e.g. use of

nd likes (e.g. sub

ials, campaign, propaganda and persuasive u

e power of language. All actions taken at family, community and national levels are expressed in a language that is understoo

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ions. In the African traditional setting, the culture, norms and practices of a people are memorised by poets and praise singe

ths, marriage

inutes and rep

judiciary are kept in the form of minutes, repo

and ce

and scores of other ceremonial activities which are considered important to the human communitie

ents at ceremonies (e.

nted government functionaries like

onvocation ceremoni

e by a new ambassador to the head

ning of n

rituals and

f viewpoints, tho

ical, and other ideological thoughts and feelings must of necessity be formulated in a person's language. Good and bad, positive and negative thoughts are developed using language. If it were not so, our generation

of verbs with the future tense, modal auxiliary verbs

ing and drawing conclusions (often involves the use of adjec

icle

s context, language functions to form a cohesive relation between two sentences in a discourse. It is worthy of note here that any human language should provide the ideational function of expressing the content of the speaker's experience. It s

t (songs, jo

storytel

k writi

s been effectively summarised by Michael Hal

ing people facts

ning personal relation

s within a text. For example, clarifying, summarisin