What is Language? What is Language Lab?

WHAT IS LANGUAGE ?

Language is a system of communication by written or spoken words, which is used by the people of a particular country or area. It is used for communication by word of mouth. The mental faculty or power of vocal communication. The cognitive processes involved in producing and understanding linguistic communication.

What is

‘Language Laboratory’?

A ‘Language Laboratory’ is a room in a school or college that contains special equipment to help students learn foreign languages by listening to tapes or CDs, watching videos, recording themselves, etc.

Types of

‘Language Laboratory’?

Audio System Language Lab.

Audio Active System Language Lab.

Audio Active Comparative System Language Lab.

Audio Active Comparative with Controls Language Lab.

Audio-Visual Multi-Media Language Lab.

Computerised Langauge Lab.

Logograms & Alphabets

The oldest forms of writing used pictures or symbols for whole words. These are called Logograms.
The major systems are Hieroglyphs (picture writing used by Ancient Egyptian), Mayan Glyphs (drawings representing words) and Cuniform (wedge shaped characters used by Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite and Persian). These are examples that are no longer used. The modern languages of China (e.g., Mandarin, Cantonese) and Japanese are still written using logograms called Chinese Characters (or Kanji in Japanese). Chinese writing requires the use and knowledge of thousands of separate characters.
The alphabet is the common writing system based on symbols determined by sounds rather than words. In an alphabet, each symbol represents a single sound. The Latin alphabet used by much of the world has between about 24 and 40 symbols depending on the language.
The alphabet was invented in Ugarit (in Syria) during the 2nd Millennium BC. This Ugarit Alphabet was derived from a previous Cuniform writing system. The Ugarit Alphabet slowly evolved into the Phoenician, alphabet of the eastern Mediterranean region. Phoenician slowly evolved into Hebrew and Arabic.
Moving West from its area of origin, the Phoenician alphabet spread to Carthage as the Punic Alphabet. It was also adapted to form the Greek Alphabet.
Greek was adopted by the Etruscans and adapted for their alphabet and from there became the Latin alphabet of the Roman Empire. The Latin alphabet has now spread around the world to such an extent that many people refer to it as the alphabet.

What is Grammar?

Grammar is a study of the laws of a language that makes sense of the words. It is the branch of linguistics that deals with syntax and morphology (and sometimes also deals with semantics)

COMMUNICATION

55 % Body Language

38 % Voice Culture

07 % Words /Sentences

The process of communicating what you are feeling or thinking by the way you place and move your body rather than by words. Kinesics is the category of non-verbal symbols created by the body.

Type of Kinesics are:

Gestures - Gesticulations - Facial Expressions
Eye Contact - Appearance (Dress & Persona)

VOICE CULTURE

Voice - Tone - Pitch
Pronunciation - Speed - Mode
soft - polite - smooth - clear - swift - modulated

Instrumental (to get what you want / need)
Regulatory (to command or alter other’s behaviour)
Personal ( to express feelings / thoughts)
Interpersonal (to relate to others)
Heuristisc (to explore and learn)
Imaginative (to explore alternatives beyond the here and now.)
Informative (to convey information)
"Language is purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desire by means of a system of voluntarily produced sound symbols." (Edward Sapir)