Tema-1 “ LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATION: ORAL AND WRITTEN ...

We must point out that language is not just a “subject” in the sense of a package of
knowledge. It is not just a set of information and insights. It is a fundamental part of
being human. Traditional approaches used to treat a language as if it were a free-standing
package of knowledge by analysing and observing it. Many of us learnt a language that way.
But this process is a very abstract one and experience has shown that it does not appeal to
everyone. To learn to use a language at all well for ourselves rather than for textbook
purposes, most of us have to become involved in it as an experience. We have to make it a
human event not just a set of information. We do this by using it for real communication,
for genuine giving and receiving of messages.
* Now that we have introduced this particular topic we are going to deal with the study of
language as Communication, its functions and the concept of communicative competence.
The word language has prompted many definitions. For example;
Sapir said that “ language is a purely human and non instinctive method of commicating
ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols “.
Hall defined language as “ the institution whereby humans communicate and interact with
each other by means of habitually used oral-auditory symbols “