What is language?

Language is the most important aspect in the life of all beings.

We use language to express inner thoughts and emotions, make sense of complex and abstract thought, to learn to communicate with others, to fulfill our wants and needs, as well as to establish rules and maintain our culture. Language can be defined as verbal, physical, biologically innate, and a basic form of communication. Behaviourists often define language as a learned behaviour involving a stimulus and a response.(Ormrod,1995) Often times they will refer to language as verbal behaviour, which is language that includes gestures and body movements as well as spoken word. ( Pierce,& Eplin,1999)

When we define language we have to be careful not to exclude symbols, gestures,or motions. This is because if we exclude these from our definition, we will be denying the language of the deaf community. All human languages share basic characteristics, some of which are organizational rules and infinite generativity. Infinite Generativity is the ability to produce an infinite number of sentences using a limited set of rules and words. ( Santrock,& Mitterer, 2001)