The sounds and meaning of words are related in an arbitrary fashion. That is, if you had never heard the word "grammar", you would not, by its sounds, know what it meant. Language, then, is a system that relates sounds with meanings, and when you know a language, you know this linguistic system.
The linguistic knowledge, or linguistic competence, is different from linguistic behavior, known as linguistic performance. If you woke up one morning and decided to stop talking, you would still have the knowledge of your language. If you do not know the language, you cannot speak it; but if you know the language, you may choose not to speak.
詞音與詞義的聯(lián)系是任意劃定的。這就是說，倘若你從未聽到過“語法”這個(gè)詞，你便無法從這個(gè)詞的發(fā)音上知曉它的詞義。因此，語言是一種將語音與語義聯(lián)系在一起的體系。當(dāng)你會講某種語言時(shí)，你便有了這個(gè)體系的知識。
這種語言知識，或者叫作語言能力，有別于語言行為，或者叫做語言操作。某天早晨你醒來后決定不說話了，而你仍然具有所操語言的知識。如果你沒有這種語言知識，你便不會說這種語言。但是如果你有這種語言知識，你卻可以選擇不說這種語言。
Language is a tool of communication. But if language is defined merely as a system of communication, then language is not unique to humans. We know birds, bees, crabs, spiders, whales, and most other creatures communicate in some way.
However, there are certain characteristics of human language not found in the communication systems of any other species. A basic property of human language is its creative aspect, that is, a speaker's ability to combine the basic linguistic units to form an infinite set of "well-formed", or grammatical, sentences, most of which are novel, never before produced or heard. The grammar of human language can generate infinite messages, a property unique to the human species.
語言是交際的工具。但是如果語言的定義僅僅是一種交際系統(tǒng)，那么語言便不是人類的專有品。我們知道，大部分生物如鳥、蜜蜂、蟹、蜘蛛、鯨等，都有某種交際方式。然而，人類語言的某些特征卻是任何其他物種的交際系統(tǒng)所不具備的。人類語言的一個(gè)基本屬性是創(chuàng)造性，即說話者的語言創(chuàng)造能力，也就是說，說話者能夠?qū)⒄Z言的基本單位組合起來，生成無限多的符合語法規(guī)則的句子，而大部分生成的句子卻是說話者自己從未說過或從未聽到過的新句子。人類語言的語法系統(tǒng)可以生成無限多的語言信息，這就是人類所特有的物種屬性。
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