 grew up in the 80s using words like grody and gag me with a spoon and tubular right these are expressions that we don't use anymore because language and verbal communication like so many other aspects of life is a living thing and it changes over time and and there are things that we can understand about language that will help us as we try and understand the role of verbal communication and language specifically in the communication process so let's take a look today at the nature of language and just some fundamental principles that govern our use of language and development of language so first of all we need to understand that language is symbolic it just represents an idea or an object it's not magical or anything else it just it just represents something else so if I were to say the words or spell out the word tiger TIGER we would automatically think of this big cat right with stripes and things not because the word tiger was sent down from on high or has magical qualities but just because we've agreed in English that the word tiger and the letters when they're put in that order represent this big cat this beautiful big cat right so that's what we mean when we say language is symbolic that it just represents something else so all language is symbolic then all communication really is symbolic we have the same thing with not just words but with images as well so it's not just verbal communication but when we're driving we see these things we know what they mean they represent something else again they're they're created by people but they represent a different idea and expressions have the same thing we say Netflix and chill even I know what that means right it doesn't mean you're gonna watch Netflix and just hang out and relax it represents a different idea so language is symbolic it's representative of something else language is also arbitrary for the most part there's no real connection between the symbols and what they represent they're just thrown together we just create things and it's mostly arbitrary now you know for example why do we call a cow a cow wise it's not called a fork or a car or a light or an airplane just because that's what we decided it was going to be called somebody back in the days of this is going to be a cow and it's spelled like this and everybody else agreed right so now we call it a cow it's it's arbitrary there's no real connection between this object or this animal and the word that represents it now this is mostly true now not all language is arbitrary sometimes language does represent the thing that it it or it's supposed to sound like the thing that it represents right so when we see an explosion bang right bang is a word that's supposed to mimic or imitate what that it represents that's what we call onomatopoeia the same when you when you think of the sound that a bee makes when it's flying around buzzes buzz that's an onomatopoeia it's supposed to sound like the thing that it represents we saw songs on back in the day too if you ever watch the old Batman shows and they put up those words on the screen pow and bang and those types of words are onomatopoeia they're supposed to sound like the thing that they are but for the most part language is just a randomly connected string of letters or or image you know whatever it's it's just symbolic again and it's mostly arbitrary language is also governed by rules there's specific rules that oversee the use of language and the structure of language and things so so some of those different rules include things like phonological rules which have to do with the way that that language sounds the way that each letter in the in the combination of those letter sounds when I was younger we actually learned to spell by using something on phonics which had to do with phonological rules right we would sound things out apple aids for apple apples so how do we spell that using those constituent sounds because language has those different phonological rules and every language is different now they how they use those rules and how they develop those rules and what those rules are right but we have these pronunciation rules essentially the way that the words are pronounced given the different collection of symbols and letters that we're using we also have syntactic rules which have to do with the way the language is structured so the way the words show up in a sentence for example we can extend this a little bit into grammar it's not technically grammar but we could think we oftentimes you know classify this as well having to do with grammar and punctuation capitalization things like that but really it has to do with the structure of words so in english for example we were describing a vehicle we might say the big red car those descriptive words big and red would go before the noun whereas in spanish it would be the english direct translation would be the car big and red they put those descriptive words after the noun which in some ways is more logical but that's not how we do it in english one famous violator of syntactic rules was yoda from the star wars world right he was constantly changing the the structure of the sentence and he was violating those syntactic rules one of the things that made him makes him a memorable character so syntax has to do with the structure of language and we also have semantic rules which is essentially the meaning behind these words how the different how we use words differently and they have different meanings right so you know for example if we would in where i'm from we call this a pop other places they call it a soda and how do we apply these words and the meaning of these words they have different meanings right if i said pop to somebody who's from a different part of the country they might not think of this item right they would think of something else whereas if somebody says soda i really have to think for a second about what's it so okay they mean a pop and translate that but we just have different meanings for different words based on our own experiences and and so we call things different things so for example one more example is that in southern india i live in indiana but in southern i live in northern india i was in southern india at one point and i mentioned to somebody that my head was getting cold and they said i should go get my toboggan what to me a toboggan is a sled that you right now it's a specific kind of sled that you that you use in the snow and things and so i thought what is toboggan going to do for me with having you know the top of my head being cold and come to find out when they say toboggan they meant what i would call a sock hat or some people call a beanie right that's what they the word they they use the word toboggan completely differently so the word toboggan has a different meaning for us those are semantic rules how we apply meaning to language and then finally we have these pragmatic rules which is just has to do with how language is used in everyday life the application of language in a practical sense is pragmatic rules so every language has rules whether you're talking about english spanish pig latin whatever there are rules to that language and they they fall in these categories of all kinds of different rules that are established for for different languages language is also subjective that means that it's it can be slightly different for each person so every word has two different types of meaning it has first a denotative meaning which is what we would call like a dictionary meaning the dictionary definition of that word so every word has this if we were to look it up in the dictionary what would it mean so no matter who you are as long as you're you know using the same language and have the same sort of base dictionary it has that denotative meaning what it actually means in the in the specific literal sense every word though also has this connotative meaning which is more figurative it's subjective it's it's dependent on that person's interpretation and can be different from person to person so so it has a you know based on your frame of reference based on your knowledge your experience your your history your where your culture all those things go into the blender and make up your frame of reference which affects how you view a word and what that word specifically means for you so it has to do with your interpretation and that's where language is subjective it's dependent on the interpretation or meaning given to it by that specific person we can see this represented in Ogden and Richards semantic triangle right and the semantic triangle is essentially just a triangle but it has those three points right and it points to first the symbol itself so if we were to take a look at the symbol home this collection of letters again it's arbitrary it's symbolic but this collection of h o m e when it's put in that order makes up the word home if we were to look that up in the dictionary we would find that a home you know in English and in most english-speaking countries would be something like this would be a building with walls and windows and a door and it's where you live right it's a dwelling it's a structure and a building where people live and make their residents that's the denotative definition now for some people though when they think of home they think of positive things they think of you know that's where their family is at home is where the heart is and that's where things are comfortable and good and safe right but we could ask somebody else that same symbol h o m e and we would have the same denotative definition it's a structure it's a dwelling where you live but for some people the word home wouldn't represent those positive fuzzy things it would be home is where you know people argue home is not safe home is um not such a pleasant environment so it would have a different meaning for that person then right so that's the connotative meaning the subjective meaning for that person we could take another word just as an example and say baseball right then that's a collection of of letters it creates that symbol and denotatively it would mean both the ball in the game so it would mean a baseball the ball it has a specific circumference and weight and so forth and then the game is one player at nine in the field three strikes four balls and so forth if we were to look at baseball in the dictionary that's what we would find but then when you ask each person you know what does baseball mean to you what do you think and when you when you hear the word baseball what what meaning does it have for you some people would say it's great i love baseball it makes me think of playing baseball as a kid and we're going to watch my kids play baseball makes me think of going to the ballpark with my family it makes me think positive things and i love watching baseball it could be any of those things or some of those things and other people would say hey baseball it's boring i don't like going it makes me think going to the field and having to spend all day watching somebody else play baseball and so forth so every person is going to attach a slightly different meaning to the word baseball that's the subjective connotative meaning so every word though is subjective every word has that connotative meaning and we need to keep that in mind as communicators that the meaning that word has for us could be different for other people it will have that denotative meaning but it could have also a different connotative meaning subjective meaning language is also created by and specific to a particular culture we see this not only in terms of the fact that we have different languages across the world right we see that we have english and spanish and chinese and and swahili and so forth all these different languages created by and specific to that culture that's also true though across time as we pointed out earlier english has not remained the same over time here in the united states back in the 80s like i said we use words like like tubular and grody and expressions like gag me with a spoon that don't get used anymore right they're different now because it was specific to that culture here's some other pop slang of the 2000s for example we don't use these words really as much anymore in latin at least not in something other than an ironic sense we don't really say bootylicious or we don't say awesome sauce which is too bad because i really like that one but it's it's gone out of style because it was particular to that context and that culture and it's bound to that and language changes over time so now that we have a better sense and a better foundation for language better understanding of of the nature of language we can really start to look at how language impacts us and verbal communication impacts us and and and then how we can improve our use of verbal communication and language as communicators if you have any questions about the nature of language or anything else related to communication i hope you'll send me an email i'd really love to hear from you that way and in the meantime i hope that you will consider these principles of language these these foundational elements of the nature of language in in the way that we think about language in the way that we use language as a whole as part of our efforts as a communicator