THE CONCEPT OF LANGUAGE.

"Language" is a very broad term. There is no one meaning of the term "language", neither univocal nor essential. This means that we cannot have one and univocal meaning of language in its application as a term. Ludwig Wittgenstein described language in terms "of family resemblance." (1)

"Language", understood in this sense, already possesses a level of a certain broadness, and elasticity, i.e. without definite confines as an essence. It is similar to that of the term "game". The term "game" can be applied to all kinds of games that are different from each other because of their respective rules. For example, the rules of basketball game is different from that of pingpong, and others. But the term "game" is applied to all of them. "Language" is also similar to "game". There is no univocal meaning in its application, because gestures, facial expressions, the mode of moving, etc. they also are "expressions", "communication", and "signs": all these are modes of speaking.

The various treatments of diverse sciences on "language" today are evidences of its broadness. The meaning of "language" in our contemporary use would depend on the context of diverse sciences of "text", of "interpretation", and of "language". Let us take for example the method of structural analysis developed by Sausurre in general linguistic. This linguistic structural analysis was also applied in cultural anthropology, in sociology, psychology. The method of structural analysis is even extended to rites, family relations, religion, and individual and social human behaviour - a "language".

Largely, hermeneutics and formal logic have also contributed in a way to the meaning of the term "language". Hermeneutics will be treated more elaborately in our course in Contemporary philosophy.

Every human activity, whatever type it may be, can only be understood in terms of expression and of linguistic communication. This is the beginning of the use of the term "language". Language is always used for some understanding. Thus, all human behaviour and any of its realisation, every human "production" is a sign, a linguistic expression. This is really putting the consideration of language in a larger perspective. That is why for Umberto Eco, Philosophy of language and general semantics become therefore the philosophy of culture.(2)

Based on the above, a transcendental use of the term "language", similar to that of the terms "to think" and "thought" is not anymore difficult: All reality is considered in as much as it is "speakable". In this sense, to be spoken of is a transcendental property of being. Even, "being real" or it signifies "being said" or at least "being speakable".(3) So the reality consists, at least in its intimate essence in being said. The act of existence is an act of speaking.(4) This is the metaphysics of speaking.

Language is treated by diverse disciplines:

• Acoustics (physics)
• Physiology (biology)
• Linguistics
• Psychology
• Sociology

All these sciences treat language under a specific and limited aspect. But given that the term "language" has acquired a meaning so broad, of which we have spoken so far, the "language phenomenon" can not be treated anymore only by specific sciences, but in terms of its totality. Language becomes necessarily the object of philosophy. In which case, philosophy treats language under a universal aspect and as such.

A DEFINITION of LANGUAGE:

Language is an institutional system of signs, with the finality of communication among conscious subjects, on the objective reality.

2 - The Central Meaning, Primary of the Term "Language".

"Primary meaning" here means in the logical sense, i.e. that which logically ought to be presupposed in order to know the other secondary meanings.(5) The primary meaning of the term "language" takes the common use of this word in language.(6)

Human language, vocal and sonorous, natural and conceptual, exists in multiple form.

To insist essentially that the primary meaning must be the lingua in their multiple existence, we refer this to the plurality of the human language, not the mother language, which enjoys only a psychological priority. The language that I only know, knowing that my language is one among other languages, it renders me an account of the conventionality not necessary, but properly essential of linguistic sign.

From this acceptance of the term "language", there are fundamental distinctions of the linguistic phenomenon. In the case of natural language, the distinctions on the nature the following aspects because of the acceptance of broader term "language", but also of the term "sign" and "meaning" etc. These are by intent in a way more sophisticated.

3 - The "Parts" of the Linguistic Phenomenon:

• Sign - that which in case of translation from a "lingua" to another is different, but which in the diversity of pronunciation, it is not different, but the same, i.e. identical.
• Meaning - that which in case of translation from one "lingua" to another, it is not different but the same, i.e. identical.
• The Signified thing - that of which speaks itself in the intersubjective mode, presupposing that it speaks of something in as much as it is. Not every act of speaking constitutes a speaking of something. But every proposition linguistically expressed is an act of speaking something.
• The System of Signification - the language, i.e. institutional system of signs potential and a priori, for the communication between conscious subjects on objective reality.
• The Signifying Action - the speaking.
• The Signifying Subject - the human person who speaks: he/she is real and is an element of the linguistic phenomenon only in as much as there are also other subjects speaking with me.(7)

1. One question that is raised in considering the nature of language is whether human languages are or can be private? There are several positions on this regard. For instance, Locke holds that we can speak of language being private. Although he did not make an explicit position on this, but his elaboration on meanings and ideas would point to this conclusion. All meanings are ideas, and ideas are of the speaker’s mind. The ideas are unique to that person and accessible only to that person.

The purpose therefore of language, for Locke, is to make each person’s private, invisible thoughts known to others.

In difference to Locke, L. Wittgenstein holds that there is no private language, i.e. language as spoken by only one person. Linguistic communication is rule-governed behaviour in the context of a linguistic community. It does not make sense to say that someone is following a rule unless there is some way of judging whether the rule has been broken or followed.

1. Another consideration is to think of language as a formal system that correlates sentences of meanings in a systematic way. Language is taken in the context of a linguistic community. It is a social phenomenon, in which utterances initiates behaviour and allows people to understand the beliefs and desires of each other. According to David Lewis, the linguistic community uses the formal system as a means of communication.
2. Another perspective is looking at language as a component of the mind. This is the mentalism of Noam Chomsky. Language is sub-system of the mind/brain, a certain component of the human brain. Thus, linguistic is a branch of the brain science. There is an objectively true description of it, at least in general. Following Chomsky, we therefore speak of a universal grammar.

NOTES:

1. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigation, gg. 65-67, 108, cf. Also 77, 164, 179.
2. Umberto Eco, Trattato di Semiotica Generale, pp. 42
3. Carlo Huber, Zeichen Gottes - Zeichen der Freiheit; in Wilhelm Sandfuchs, Die Kirche, Echter 1987. P.14
4. In the philosophical consideration of the Stoics on the logos, and the following elaboration in Christian theology, departing from the Prologue of St. John’s gospel and from the first chapter of the Genesis, the idea is not totally dissimilar.
5. Not all analogous terms have primary meaning. In certain cases various meanings of a term are logically equal. There where a determined meaning of a term is logically primary with respect to other secondary meanings, the structure of this analogy is not always of the same type, ex. An analogy of attribution or of proportionality. These systems of analogy would be elaborated specifically through the analogy of the term "essere" and they cannot be transferred to all other types of analogy.
6. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigation, g. 43: "For a large class - though not for all- in which we employ the word "meaning". It can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in language."
7. Here there is a fundamental difference between a philosophical analysis of the phenomenon of speaking and of thinking: The "cogito" carries immediately only to the proper I; speaking implies immediately a plurality of subjects, a linguistic community. Cf. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigation, gg. 269, 275 - on the impossibility of a private language.
8. Cf. A.P. Martinich, ed., The Philosophy of Language (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 493-499