Re-Evaluating the Social, Cultural and Philosophical Function of Language

Abstract

A distinguishing characteristic of Dasein is his ability to communicate through the use of word. This characteristic in all cultural and philosophical assessment is the business of human anthropology which is both reflective and philosophical. But the business and function of philosophy is ontology or the investigation of Dasein. The function of philosophy reflects on experience, but experience so to speak contradicts the resulting system; a new philosophy that arises taking into account what the former ignored; and forging ahead into the unknown what is reflective as well as contemplative. This enterprise becomes the pattern of development in the history of philosophy and Cultural Revolution. The cultural business and function of language has no counterpart in animal worldview. Man as animal rationale is both cultural and linguistic. As the name goes, language is described as organized system of symbols that is used to express and receive meanings (Cropper, 2003). Unique to Homo sapiens, language appears inseparable to human nature and a feature of human intelligence. Contrarily to human intelligence, the acquisition, comprehension, or expression of spoken or written language by man is social, cultural and philosophical. Adopting Darwinian perspective, language offers a bold synthesis to human and natural sciences. This is the more reason why philosophers, psychologists, counselors, social workers, psychiatrists, health care practitioners, scientists, researchers, all perform their task through the power of the word. The power of the word classically called “phonetic competence” reflects a social pressure for vocal imitation, learning, and other forms of social interaction and transmission. The American Speech and Hearing Association use five subsystems for language: Phonology (sound), Morphology (word forms), Syntax (word order and sentence structure), Semantics (word and sentence meaning) and finally Pragmatics (social use of language). Phonology is the sound system of language and the linguistic rules that governs sound combinations.The ability of a child to have phonological awareness of likeness and differences in sound is fundamental to the development of speech patterns. This may be related to later reading and writing skills. Morphology so to speak is the linguistic system that governs the structure of words and the construction of word forms from the basic element of meaning. Children with problems in this area will experience difficulty in understanding or producing morphological inflections. The power and function of language is rooted in the understanding and use of suffixes and prefixes. Both can be described as major form of oral and written communication. Also Syntax is a philosophical and linguistic rule system governing the order and combination of words to form sentence (Cropper, 2003). On one hand, semantics is the psycholinguistic system that patterns the content of an utterance, intent, and meaning of words. Therefore the philosophy underplaying semantics require an individual who speaks to understand what has been said, to comprehend the meaning of what he said, and express their intended meaning. On the other hand, pragmatics is a sociolinguistic system that patterns the use of language in communication, which maybe expressed motorically, vocally or verbally (Copper, 2003). The use of words in philosophy can be expressed vocally. And the use of words culturally can be expressed verbally. It is basically the use of social situations or settings which express one’s intention. In most instances, when a person has difficulty with one subsystem, other subsystems may be affected. When children have a language disorder, generally one of the subsystems is substantially affected. A language disorder is the impairment or deviant development of comprehension and/or other symbol system.