DHS JC2 Mid-Year GP Paper 1 2012

Q: Discuss the importance of language.

Subject: the importance of language

Context: Open

Qualifier: Nil

Dealing with the concept of “importance (of X)”:

Consider the effect/impact of X on life as we know it (general); daily life (specific); or compare between societies with and without X to see how much (or little) life has improved with X.

Possible options (scale of importance):

Pick ONE:

Interesting	Meh				Interesting
Anathema	Inconvenient	Unimportant	Convenient	Important	Crucial/Critical

Hint: if life without X is unimaginably awful, and life with X is fantastic, then X is pretty important

Life sucks -> X -> life’s great!

Corollary: if life without X is fantastic, and life with X is unimaginably awful, then we’re better off getting rid of X (anathema)

Life sucks <- X <- life’s great!

Discuss the importance of language.

“Language” Etymology:

Langue (Fr.) = “tongue” (En.) implies the assumption that language is primarily a spoken medium of making sounds to convey or communicate information from animal to animal, person to person and in special cases, person to animal and vice versa.

Function:

Language is used by social animals to coordinate cooperative activity. Language enables the sender to encode thought into a decodable package of information received as a message to be acted upon by the recipient. Despite the above assumption that language is spoken, messages may be carried on a number of different media, not necessarily via the tongue alone.

Methodology:

Among animals, language transfer is not necessarily spoken. Insects such as ants communicate via chemical contact to identify friend or foe or to locate resources; bees use complex movements (often equated as “dance” by humans studying “beehive-iour” lol) to map flight paths to and from the hive. Other more advanced animals communicate by pheromones to identify mates and moods; visually-dependent animals incorporate gestures into their repertoire to stimulate the fight or flight response in the recipient of the message; even more sophisticated animals vocalize their messages, using sonic waves as a medium to coordinate activity beyond line-of-sight.

Human language:

However, it is among human beings that language is most effectively used as a medium of social cooperation. The reason the word “language” derives from the idea of the tongue is because we have taken the use of vocalized messages and standardized specific vocal sounds to represent specific meanings (i.e., a vocabulary), and have devised a particular way of stringing these specific sounds into a code that is easily understood by fellow members of our community in such a way as to minimize misunderstanding or miscommunication (i.e., a grammar or syntax).

By being precise in communicating specific ideas among one another, our ability to utilize language has allowed us to develop complex thought; to solve problems through imagination and creativity; to articulate a common vision; to engage and direct synergistic action; and motivate group members to stay coherent and committed to the group’s goals. Without language, we human beings would never have been able to dominate the planet as successfully as we have today.

Developing complex thought:

Among all the other animals on the planet, human beings are the ones most enabled to act upon their thoughts. While animals are likely to experience emotional responses to their states of being, only humans can act on them in such a way as to vastly improve our circumstances. Human language goes beyond an ability to name simple objects and actions that everyone who speaks the same language understands. With language we are able to share abstract (i.e., non-tangible) ideas with one another in order to do something with or about them. Ideas such as ‘love’ have no tangible correspondent in the physical world. Animal instinct simply activates a mating response, the purpose of which is to form a bond with another of the same species for the purpose of procreation, and sometimes even to perform certain duties in order to raise the next generation. Having a language that codifies ‘love’ allows us to experience more than just the basic procreative need but also to extend the emotional response towards actually caring for another fellow being in a self-sacrificial way, which is what is required to raise human young and give them the best chance of survival.

But beyond our basic needs, human language helps us to identify and understand abstractions such as ‘power’; ‘justice’; and ‘freedom’ which have shaped human development till the present day. With animals, life is a day-to-day experience. Survival requires skill and providence to find enough food to get by or become food for another animal to get by. Animals have no means to question the fairness of their situation and so there is little the individual animal can do to change it. But because language allows human beings to understand and appreciate what is going on around them, we are able to envision undesirable situations as problems and work on solutions to overcome them. To solve the problem of insufficient resources, we articulated a power structure that we could work under, cooperating as an efficient resource gathering entity. Like other social animals, we initially organized ourselves under a chain-of-command hierarchy in which the Alpha male distributed the resources gathered, keeping most for himself and his cronies. But unlike animals, we grew dissatisfied with this uneven system and over time argued for and experimented with fairer systems of resource distribution and policy making (such as Communism and Democracy), ensuring even closer cooperation and cohesion among human communities – although Communism turned out perhaps too idealistic to function as intended.

Problem-solving:

Language allows us to analyse problems and experiment with solutions. Unlike animals which have to adapt and change with their environment in order to survive, human beings are able to both adapt to our environment as well as change the environment to suit us. Solutions to problems often entail converting or adapting one or more resources into something else. The processes of resource acquisition, transformation and implementation have to be first conceptualized and then passed on, especially if cooperation with others is required. From counting crop cycles and astronomical events to eventually building skyscrapers and blasting off to touch the heavenly bodies themselves, language helps us pass on ideas of mathematics and science (which are problem-solving languages of their own) coupled with imagination and vision to each other, enabling us to work together to make them happen.

Towards a common vision:

Human beings have succeeded because we are able to communicate shared and mutually-beneficial goals and cooperate with each other to achieve them. Some communication strings are so memorable that they remain relevant to us as guiding principles even though they may have been articulated millennia ago. Some of our earliest writings such as the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh and the Egyptian Book of the Dead have echoed through other authoritative texts such as the Bible and form the basis of our values and even laws today. Recent quotations such as John F Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”; Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind”; and Malcolm X’s “I have a dream…” still point humanity forward, constantly reminding us of what we can accomplish together as we collectively dream of a brighter tomorrow. We hear the words, and we believe that one person’s vision can and does apply to us all.

Working together:

Galvanizing support for a common cause is one thing, but achieving it often requires the synergy of many different contributors performing very precise tasks. Ants and termites can build very impressive structures within their environment; weaver birds can be very intricate with their nest building skills; but because there is very little task differentiation within the species, the structures do not vary much from generation to generation. An anthill looks very much like another anthill, one bird’s nest looks very much like another. They perform the same function in exactly the same way. But because different human beings deal with different materials; possess different skills in using such materials; and can put together a standardized plan of cooperation; everyone knows what expertise each has to employ, in what sequence, by when. Facilitated by language, we can accomplish different tasks to meet very specific needs, and still allow others to adapt and experiment with newer and better ways to solve similar problems – or even new problems – just by passing on the experience to them second-hand.

Motivation:

Unfortunately, human success is still heavily dependent on human work. Work, being the expense of either physical or mental exertion, or both, is a resource that we would prefer to minimize the contribution of. For this reason, the best leaders use the power of language to encourage solidarity in hard times; to reinforce belief that effort will be rewarded; to remind everyone of the common vision; and to reassure everyone that we are all in it together. Such was the eloquence of Winston Churchill’s speech that British forces would resolutely “fight on the beaches…. [and] never surrender” to the invading Nazi forces in World War II, although all he had to offer the British people were “blood toil, tears and sweat” and ultimately, a chance for survival. Despite the lack of a guarantee, or perhaps because of it, Churchill’s use of very simple, uncompromising language that his audience could understand and get behind, encouraged them to continue fighting for their country against all odds.

Language today:

Language has transformed from a personal medium of information transfer to a medium that has a global reach thanks to the new communications technologies that have emerged in recent years. These technologies have greatly enhanced our human capability to travel, trade and as a result, influence the rest of the world. Because certain cultures developed and exploited these technologies earlier, they have been able to dominate most of the global information exchange with a bias towards certain common languages. Today, the dominant languages are Mandarin Chinese, Spanish and English and these languages are in high demand as second languages of people who do not speak them as native tongues. Because each of these main languages also cart along a baggage of their cultural roots, there is a concern that non-native speakers of these languages will abandon their own cultural roots as they adopt these new languages as a means to integrate into the global community. Traditional Gaelic, for example, is considered a dying language; and many immigrant Asian parents and grandparents lament that by the third or fourth generation, few linguistic or even cultural ties remain with their country of origin. Even in Asia itself, there is the worry of youths becoming “Westernized” while a growing language and values gap develops between the generations.

But as the rest of the world catches up with technology, there has been a recent resurgence of world languages that are working their way towards the mainstream. Though Asia has picked up Western rhythms and movement, the Japanese and Korean cultures have adapted these styles and pushed back, and through J-pop (e.g., Puffy on Cartoon Network heading the animated series “Hi-Hi Puffy Ami Yumi”) and K-pop music (e.g., the Wonder Girls’ “Nobody” and recently PSY’s “Gangnam Style”); animated (“Robotech”, “Transformers”) and live-action drama (“Meteor Garden” Ed: sue me, I’m old. Find your own examples!); and other forms of global exposure including tourism and trade in exotic food, cheap cars and consumer electronics; Asian innovation is making it interesting for the West to desire a broader ability to appreciate the Japanese and Korean languages and cultures as well.

Conclusion:

While most animal species communicate is one form or another, human beings have developed language into a fine art. As we developed tools, techniques and strategies on our rise up the food chain, we required more and more precise ways to communicate our thoughts and ideas to one another. Communication precision meant that we could cooperate and coordinate our collective efforts with great efficiency, allowing us to specialize in differentiated skillsets. Combining our different skills helped us adapt better to our environment, tailoring specific solutions to specific problems and learning from each other’s experience without having to go through them ourselves. While language minimizes misunderstanding, it is not foolproof. Mistakes do frequently occur between people who do not speak the same language, and so the need to communicate across cultures – as we are capable of doing today – requires the learning of many different languages. As we grow in understanding of the various languages around us, we have seen the reduction of violent conflict between cultures that they represent – at least among those that count themselves as relevant and influential in the global environment. Perhaps to extend this trend, world peace could be achieved when all languages are equally respected and all cultures are committed to making themselves relevant to the global community. Ed: But I’m not going to hold my breath while that happens.

By Xmac2006 (10 Sept 2012)