Defining Language and/or Communication

Abstract

All the attempts that I have made to request some definitions of language from a few students in a lecture situation as anentry behaviour to an undergraduate introductory course on language or linguistics have met with some difficulty. This is owing to the fact that such definitions of language do not just have much in common with, but also differ from  communication. Yet, there is no line of distinction, more often than not, that is drawn between the two major concepts. As a linguist and a lecturer, I have been very worried quite often concerning not just the content of what I lecture, but also how what I lecture is received and understood by students. In this paper, I examined a number of definitions of language and communication. Firstly, I made an attempt to set apart the characteristics of each of the two concepts. Secondly, and by drawing upon the individual characteristics, I drew the required differences between them. Such a necessary distinction assists the learner, pedagogically, to see each concept clearly as well as set them apart from each other.