The notion of 'language' in actual language use

• Authors: Banczerowski Janusz
• Languages of publication: HU

Abstracts

EN

The aim of this paper is to present human language - not as a kind of abstract system but as something designed to establish the conditions of human existence. Language cannot exist outside its concrete speakers. Hence, the concept of language as a tool is totally unacceptable. Man is a creature that is naturally determined by language. Language is not some kind of appendage to humans but their constitutive feature, a relevant ingredient to their cognitive apparatus or program. Human language should not be equated with, or sought within, complete utterances that our linguistic mechanism creates. In the author's opinion, the smallest components of language use are fragments of communication. Fragments of communication are indivisible units that can be directly detected in the process of language use and are primary holistic segments of linguistic reality irrespective of their internal structure or schema of production. The internal syntactic, semantic, or morphological structures that can be attributed to them by logico-syntactic or etymological analysis, or indeed the origin of the words making them up, are irrelevant or marginal for everyday language use, even though researchers may take a certain metalinguistic, historical, or intellectual interest in such structures.

Keywords

EN

COGNITIVE FUNCTION OF LANGUAGE; LANGUAGE AS HUMANS' CONSTITUTIVE FEATURE; LANGUAGE AS FUNCTION OF HUMAN BRAIN; NEUROLINGUISTICS

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Committee on Hungarian Linguistics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Magyar Nyelvor (Hungarian Language Guardian)
• Year: 2008
• Volume: 132
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 129-150
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Banczerowski Janusz

• Janusz Banczerowski, no address given, contact the journal editor

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

10HUAAAA07909