Use of language

Language use encompasses various aspects such as human communication through natural languages. These aspects range from the semantic interpretation or social meaning of sentences in certain linguistic contexts, treated by pragmatics; up to sociolinguistic aspects, going through linguistic policy aspects such as standardization and the normative uses of a language. Language is used to interact, express oneself, for communication

Linguistic norm

In every culture, a minimum consensus is usually established to establish which is the most prestigious model or the most worthy pattern for everyone to imitate when using a language. This minimum consensus is called a linguistic norm and it is expressed by means of an orthology or precepts to express oneself correctly in the spoken language, and an orthography or precepts to express oneself correctly in the written language.

Criteria used to establish standards

The statistical or democratic norm establishes that what is correct is the highest frequency of use of an expressive form or custom; the geographical norm, on the contrary, affirms that what is correct is the form of expression of a city or a region, generally where the Court or the government of a country is located; larada worthy of imitation, while the academic standard considers that what is correct is what is established by an academy of learned experts on the subject, such as the Royal Academies of Language of France or Spain; the cultural norm, on the other hand, establishes that the language model is given by a text considered classical or sacred by a culture, such as the Ramaiana and the Majabhárata for Sanskrit, Homer's poems for the Greeks, the Koran for the Arabs, Biblical Hebrew for the Jews, or Cicero's Latin for the humanists.

Principle of economy

Also, a principle of economy restricts the number of elements that can be used in communication to the fewest possible so that the instrument is flexible and does not require too many compositional elements. To this end, all human languages obey the mathematical formula that establishes that their number of phonemes is less than that of their morphemes, their number of morphemes is less than that of their lexemes, and their number of lexemes is less than that of their semes or meanings. Likewise, in natural languages recursion is not indefinite beyond the limit of human comprehension and is limited, restricted and complemented by specific communication factors, studied by Shannon and Weaver, of which are also operative for the happy intellection of the message, the linguistic context and the spatiotemporal physical situation, studied in their linguistic derivations by pragmatics.

Language and its functions

All messages, oral and written, are important to the sender and are issued with a particular purpose, they have the communicative intention of making an event or emotion known, convincing, obtaining a favor or carrying out an activity. We all speak for a purpose. Six functions are used within linguistic communication.

1. Referential or representative function: It consists in informing or transmitting a content or fact as the issuer judges it.

   Legend is a story that belongs to the tradition and culture of a people.

   Peru is a South American country.

2. Applicative or conativa function: Influencing, advising or calling the receiver's attention to act in a certain way.

   Shut up!

   Note the images and answer the following questions.

3. Expressive or emotional function: Transmits or expresses the feelings or mood of the transmitter.

   I hate you!

   I love you so much!

   I'm glad to see you!

Within the communication process it is important to know which daily we use the linguistic functions, so that they are useful to us to present our ideas in a logical and coherent way, these functions can enrich the language. It must be kept in mind that sometimes the sender has a deceptive intention and can make judgments that he considers false by pretending to be a representative or showing an emotion that he does not feel. In these cases, perhaps we could classify its emission as within the conative function, since it tries to influence the receiver so that it has a state of erroneous knowledge.

The theory of speech acts

This functional approach continued to appear incomplete and missing functions derived from other elements of communication theory, such as context and situation, necessary to explain the meaning of phrases whose use is merely incidental and can only be understood in the practical speaking situation.

The theory of speech acts tried to approach these little-studied functions and discovered the importance of the presupposition and the context or encyclopedic knowledge of the world by the speaker in the correct intellection of ambiguous messages. In this way, Bühler's functions were reformulated to indicate that the objective information or representative function was a locutionary act or what is simply said; that the expressive function was an elocutionary act or what is done when it is said, and that the conative or appellative function was a perlocutionary act or what is achieved by means of that is to say.

Examples of language functions:

• Referenceal or practical function: Legend is a story that belongs to the tradition and culture of a people
• Applicative or conativa function: Shut up.. Note the images and answer the following questions.
• Emotive or expressive function: I hate you! I'm so glad to see you!.
• Fatic or contact function: Do you hear me? Do you hear me?.
• Metallinguistic function: The word text derived from the Latin "textum" meaning tissue.
• Poetic or aesthetic function: The clouds, like spongy cotton flakes.

Linguistic records

The linguistic register is the set of contextual, sociolinguistic and other variables that condition the way in which a language is used in a specific context.

Formal registration

A necessity in the use of language, especially in formal situations, derived from its usefulness, is that its meanings must be precise and not be confusing: jurisprudence, science, politics and even ethics and religion need exact and acceptable definitions by all that do not give rise to conflicts or endless discussions and problems in their respective fields, enabling the practical use of language as a tool for social cooperation and scientific knowledge.

Informal registration

It usually occurs in family communication or between friends. The colloquial or familiar register is characterized by a lack of planning and a preference for simple structures and the expressiveness of the speaker.