CHAPTER 2 LANGUAGE AS A MEANS OF COMMUNICATION The Nature of Language Language is a system of arbitrary, productive, dynamic, various, and human

vocal symbol used by human being to carry out their social affairs. System. It is formed by a number of components and can be formulated. We will think that the sentence has a good system although it has a missing component. My mother fry a ... in .... But you might think this sentence as an incorrect sentence of English, fry a... mother my in... Vocal (sound). We can pronounce the symbol. Each symbol represent a thing. Arbitrary. The relationship between the symbol and signified is not obligatory, it can changes, and it cannot be explained why the symbol refers to such thing. If it is obligatory, there will not be an utterance like horse, jaran, paard, etc. Productive. The number of word always increases. Dinamis. The language can change in the form of phonology, morphology, or syntax. We will not find the sentence: Know ye this man?. But we will often find Do you know this man? Having Variation. Although a language has a certain pattern, it may different in phonology, morphology, syntax, or lexicon. The Javanese language in Surabaya, Banyumas, Semarang, and Yogyakarta can be different in phonology, morphology, and lexicon. Human (Adj.). Language as a means or verbal communication is only possessed by human being, animal s and plants do not. The Function of Language Language has some functions based on some viewpoints. From the speakers viewpoint, language has personal or emotive function. Through language, the speaker shows his/her emotions (e.g. sad, happy, angry, etc) From the listeners viewpoint, it has directive or instrumental function. It functions to control the listeners behavior. It does not only make the listener doing something, but also doing something as what the speaker wants. From the contacts between the speaker and listeners viewpoint, it has phatics, interactional, or interpersonal function. The phatic function of language is that which keeps the channels of communication open. Phatic communication is a term used by the British-Polish anthropologist Malinowski to refer to communication between people which is not intended to seek or convey information but has the social function of establishing or maintaining social contact. Phatic is language such as greetings, that is used primarily for maintaining social contact and interpersonal relationships, rather than for exchanging information. For example, Nice day, isnt it?, How are you?, How do you do?, Hows life?, What's up?, Hey, man, how's it going?, etc. From the topics of speech viewpoint, it functions referential, representational, cognitive, denotative, or informative. We can use language to talk about the object or event in our surroundings. The sentences The students are studying, and Our new buildings are painted yellow show that the language has referential function. From the code used in communication viewpoint, it functions methalingual or methalinguistics. In this case, we use language to discuss language itself. From the message conveyed in communication viewpoint, it has imaginative or poetics speech function. It can function to express our true or imaginative thought, idea, or feeling.

The Nature of Communication Communication is a process by which information is exchange between individuals through a common system of symbols, signs, or behavior. From the definition, it can be said that there are three components that must exist in communication process, i.e. 1) message sender and receiver or participants, 2) information being communicated, and 3) instruments used in communication. Based on the instruments used, communication is distinguished into two kinds: verbal and non-verbal communication. Non-verbal communication does not use language as the means of communication. It uses signs (traffic signs, pictures, sounds), gestures, etc. The Process of Communication Using Language The process of language-communication can be described as the following.

In every language-communication, there are always two participants, sender and receiver of message. Message is utterance (usually in the form of sentences) used to convey idea, thought, suggestion, etc. Every language-communication process is initialed with the process that the sender formulates something he/she wants to utter in the form of idea or thought frame. The process is called as semantics encoding. Those ideas are then formulated into grammatical sentences. The process in which the idea is changed into grammatical sentences is called grammatical encoding. After being formulated into grammatical sentences, those ideas are then uttered. The process is called phonological encoding. The utterance is then comprehended or decoded by the receiver or listener. The process is called decoding. The next process is the listener receives or comprehends the sound (phonological decoding), then the grammatical sentences (grammatical decoding), and the meaning of the message (semantics decoding). There are two kinds of language-communication: one-way and two ways communication. One-way communication means in the communication process, the speaker or sender remains as the sender and the listener or receiver remains as the receiver. In twoways communication, the position of sender and receiver is interchangeable. The Pecularity of (Human) Language Human language is different with animal language. Human language has some peculiarities. The language can go to any directions, but the receiver can know precisely where the language sound comes from. Language symbol in the form of sound can easily go after being pronounced. It is different signs or other symbols. That is why we need to keep the language in written

form. There is an interchangeability process within the participants in languagecommunication. In using language, humans do not need a big power or energy to produce language, but it can give a very big effect. Sound symbols in language-communication is meaningful or refers to a certain thing. The relationship between language symbol and its meaning is not determined by the connection between them, but it is determined by the speakers in the language community. Language as a means of human communication can be segmented into smaller units: sentences, words, morphemes, and phonemes. Human language is fundamentally creative. Human language can be used to talk about, not only present situation, but also past and future events. We can use language to analyze the language itself. Etc.