Language: An Identity & Behaviour

The metaphor of ‗Language‘ symbolizes a way or method, it means it represents a person‘s psychological behaviour and bent in the process of interpersonal communication. It is said that man is nothing but communication. The word communication defines ‗language‘ as verbal and non-verbal web of relative process of earthly representation. But, language in its denotative shape represents a material dynamism of ‗signifier‘ for ‗signified‘, though arbitrarily conceived and created. Language is a precious gift conferred on human beings, by which human being sets apart from other living things. And, they have ability to use language for their complex mode of expression of objectives and emotions to mark their earthly existence of material steps and stages. They have interwoven their personal, social and professional world of construct and imagination through language, the only but best medium to connect and culture. Their complete social being is built by language of their communication. Language not only help them form a community of identity and culture, but it cooperates them to share, to exchange and to bring them together for their desired result and regime.

Following conversation between Ravi and Ramesh would bring out an inference of social relationship and sense of meaning. Ravi: Hey, why are you buying this costly gift? Ramesh: For my sweetheart, Rose. Ravi: I know, I know. I just want to get it confirmed. With this conversation, though we don‘t know who Ravi and Ramesh are, the inference is clearly drawn by us. The focus on ‗costly gift‘ and ‗sweetheart‘ help us understand the love affair between Ravi and his girlfriend. The role of language is clear in this conversation, though it doesn‘t matter whether they are in good terms with each other or whether they are best friend, or whether they are colleagues, friends or relatives of each other. But language has signalled a mode of expression to cooperate and control of understanding. We also don‘t know what type of people they are or where they are from. It is language which is conveying meaning to different culturally conscious and language known people. Language is inseparable part of our life, so far as we are human beings. Scientific investigation proves how language develops our culture and social significance in their respective language speaking group. Linguistic community has certain and specific features of interpersonal communication within the same community and outside the community. Children learn their mother tongue without being taught and shape their further ability and achievement through communication, which sets their behaviour and bonding, grounding them in a particular social community for competence and competitions. This shows that language learning is innate. In the 1980s in Nicaragua, deaf children were brought together in the school to learn language. Attempts were made to teach them Spanish, but in vain. They were surprisingly observed that children were using their hands and gestures to communicate with each other. Later, linguists were invited to observe their ‗language of communication‘, which they had skilfully developed for their communication. This gave birth to a new language, Nicaraguan Sign Language. Language is already structured and ubiquitous, and ‗we humans are born to use it‘, though later studies interprets how signifier and

dynamic deconstruction comes from language and happens in language. Language functions as identity and hence language, nobody can claim, cannot be considered or approved as pure and impure language, for all languages have their own existence and excellence, denotations and connotations, grammar and punctuations, metaphor and metonymy, and finally a ‗meaning‘ to be accepted and rejected. Basically, language we use for interpersonal reactions and relations as it is a common ground either of acceptance or rejection, of liking and disliking. Language contribute our psychological domain into a material form of utterances. Language is a medium to connect and continue with progress and process. It is a cooperative symbolism of sharing and exchanging, in which we lead each other to cooperate wherever we are, either at home, at shopping mall, or at workplace, resulting in ‗personal and social liberty‘. For example, in an official meeting, language proves a cooperative activity to reach the final outcome, analysing all the responses of the members participated in. ‗Pickering and Garrod (2004) argue that we achieve our conversational coordination by virtue of our ability to interactively align each other‘s actions at different levels of language use: lexicon (i.e., words and expressions), syntax (i.e., grammatical rules for arranging words and expressions together), as well as speech rate and accent. They also suggest that these interpersonal alignments at different levels of language use can activate similar situation models in the minds of those who are engaged in a conversation.‘ With this, conversational common ground of expression is dynamic as it is evolving continuously with new ideas, thoughts, meanings and imagination. Emotional experiences are verbalized in conversation and empathised and sympathised, which bring out mental well-being of a person or a group of persons as it is widely said ‗caring is sharing and vice-versa‘. Stability of emotions is necessary for psychological well-being and language helps control all the way. It is not necessarily which language we speak, but what we ‗speak‘ does matter for socializing our social being.

Yoshihisa Kashima aptly writes, ―Language and language use constitute a central ingredient of human psychology. Language is an essential tool that enables us to live the kind of life we do. Can you imagine a world in which machines are built, farms are cultivated, and goods and services are transported to our household without language? Is it possible for us to make laws and regulations, negotiate contracts, and enforce agreements and settle disputes without talking? Much of contemporary human civilization wouldn‘t have been possible without the human ability to develop and use language. Like the Tower of Babel, globalized world.‖

1. Branigan, H. P., Pickering, M. J., & Cleland, A. A. (2000). Syntactic co-ordination in dialogue. Cognition. 2. Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 3. Dunbar, R. I. M., Marriott, A., & Duncan, N. D. C. (1997). Human conversational behaviour. Human Nature. 4. Fussell, S. R., & Krauss, R. M. (1992). Coordination of knowledge in communication: Effects of speakers‘ assumptions about what others know. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 5. Halberstadt, J. (2003). The paradox of emotion attribution: Explanation biases perceptual memory for emotional expressions. Current Directions in Psychological Science.

Assistant Professor of English, GES‘s Dr. T. K. Tope Arts & Commerce College, Parel, Mumbai-12