REFLECTION 1
In this week, I learned about language and communication. There are six major aspects need to be learned in this topic and this topic covers three weeks. I learned about definition of language, language and culture, functions of language, non-verbal communication, speech and writing, and English Language in Malaysia.
As far as language is concerned, language itself is a code that permits us to represent thoughts and ideas by means of sounds of sounds and letters. The picture below shows the map where English is widely spoken among the entire world.
English Language has become the most widely spoken language of all the language in the world. Their native speaker alone is about 309 million people and the total speakers reached the sum of 1800 million speakers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_language).
When we learn about language, we have to know that it is a code to show variety of data and information, a sequence of sounds or letters which has a particular meaning. For example, we can interpret the meaning of “fish” into other language.
Bahasa Melayu = ikan
Japanese = sakana (魚)
Arabic = al asmaak (الأسماك)
Spanish = peces
The next feature of language is linguistic symbols have function and form. For an example, English Language has the order of S-V-O (Subject-Verb-Order) when forming sentences.
e.g
Besides that, linguistic units are constructed according to rules. We must follow the correct order of the sentence so that the sentence will make sense to the reader.
Sentence | |
Word | Word |
Kamariah | sings |
The next criterion for language is it is specifically human. All humans use language for communication. Every human language uses sound to encode meaning. The sound sequences are known as words. These words have grammatical classification and can be combined into phrases, sentences, questions and so on.
Besides that, language use is creative. For this purpose, our lecturer had told us to write a short poem from our own creative imagination. I found that it was very hard to write such one on short time. Below is my short poem (just for preview, although it may sounds like Maher Zain-ish):
HIPOCRACY
Mohamad Nazrin Bin Othman
We became the shadows without a soul
Despite the heat from the chimney
Our homes felt so empty and cold
To fill the emptiness
We bought and bought
Maybe all the fancy cars
Jewellery, gold and so on
And bling will make us feel satisfied.
The next aspect that we should take in consideration is language use is constrained by culture. There are some limitations when we use language. There are some words that we should or should not during some particular occasion.
After we finished the topic on language, we move to the next topic-communication. In communication, we have to identify the function of language (i.e to ask, to persuade, to inquire, to give information and so on) so that our interaction with the next speaker will be meaningful. It is because communication is a two way process between two parties (sender and receiver of messages). There are two types of communications. They are either non-vocal communication or vocal communication. During this topic, we are instructed to prepare a 3 minute mime (non-verbal communication) of a situation of our choice.
After we were done with miming activity, we went to the next part which is speech and writing and English Language in Malaysia. In groups, we are assigned to discuss how Malaysian culture affects English Language. Our group had considered the urban and rural settings factor. From our discussion, we agreed that the influence in terms of usage of English Language is greater at the urban area rather than the rural area.
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