Seminar 2 What is language?

Home reading:
I. Hill, A. "What Is Language? in Hogins, J.B. & E. Yarber (eds). 1969. Language. An
Introductory Reader. New York, Evanston, London: Harper & Row Publishers, p. 36-46.
1. What are the 'basic assumptions' given in the first section ("Some Basic Assumptions") of the
text? How many of them there are? What is (are) the purpose (-s) of presenting them?
2. What are the defining characteristics of language? How do you understand each of them?
3. Why is it emphasised that language is 'a set of sounds'? What does each word ('set' and
'sound') imply about language?
4. What does it mean that language is arbitrary? What exactly in language is unpredictable? How
does this quality of unpredictability relate to the fact that language is systematic
(=predictable?)?
5. In what way does the symbolism of the human language differ from the other types of
'symbolism' discussed in the article?
6. What is meant by the statement that language is 'complete'? How would you rephrase it?
7. Does the author provide a definition of language? Can you highlight it in the text? How
would you rephrase it in your own words?
8. What does the last section of text state? What is the purpose of this section?
9. Read the text once more and highlight expressions which introduce:
an example;
an argument.
10. Highlight (as many as you can find) repetitions of the same statements. What, do you think,
is the purpose of such repetitions?
11. Try to outline the text. Doing this task, ignore the formal indications of a presumable outline
(such as 'first', 'second', etc.) and focus on the content of the text. Does your outline fit into
the formally outlined structure?
II. Gray, Ernest W. "What Language Is?", in Hogins, J.B. & E. Yarber (eds). 1969. Language.
An Introductory Reader. New York, Evanston, London: Harper & Row Publishers, p. 70-72.
1. How many definitions does the text provide? How do you know these are definitions?
2. Are all of the given definitions those of language? What are the others? Can you name a
pattern by which these definitions follow one another?
3. Compare the two texts. Show as many differences between them as you can find. Is the
purpose of these two texts different? How do their formal features contribute to the purpose
of each of them?

VOCABULARY STUDY. Look up the given words and phrases in an English-English dictionary,
give their definitions. Illustrate them in the sentences of your own:
Text 1.
Page 36: designate, preliminary, respond, accurate, transparent, phenomena/phenomenon, subject to
sth, verification, to cast light;
Page 37: trivial, proceed, vocal cords, truism, to be apt to do sth, preliterate, to be in a
minority/majority;
Page 38: to drive the point home, contradiction, to put off, a denial, semantic analysis;
Page 39: manual, arbitrary, injunction, mew;
Page 40: suffusion, recurrent, entity, substitution;
Page 41: infinite, platitude, stimulus/stimuli, drool, phenomenon/phenomena, elaborate;
Page 42: to be (in)capable of doing sth, procrastinate, unmannerly, random: randomly, at random,
elaborate/elaborated, undergo, eke out;
Page 43: automobile, expansible, efficiency, cumbersome;
Page 44: to take sth for granted, solely, readily, fundamentally, deprive, dispensable, purposeful,
disclaimer;
Page 45: corollary, indoctrination;
Page 46: to be aware of, pitfall, inevitable, to denounce, to strive.
Text 2.
Page 70: intent, depreciate, versatility;
Page 71: inherent, impediment, unaccustomed/accustomed, insuperable, resemblance/resemble;
Page 72: puzzling, acquaintance, to transfer.