THE NATURE OF HUMAN LANGUAGE AS COGNITIVE AND COMMUNICATIVE SYSTEM

Language as a communication system is a tool to express our thoughts, our feelings, and our opinion

The nature of language is the nature of human thought and human action, for language is no more or less than the tool of both of these aspects of human nature. A word is either the shadow of an act or of an idea. Verbal sounds have no meaning in themselves. They are the channels, the media for the expression or communication of that which lies outside of them. Plato has made clear to us how easy it is to deceive ourselves with words, to labor under an impression that just because we can utter a sound we also necessarily know what we are talking about.

Cognitive theory include mental activities such conscious thinking, knowing, understanding, and mental conceptions and activities such as: attitudes, beliefs, and expectations, which then was a decisive factor in the behavior. In the cognitive theory have a strong interest in the answer (response) for the consequences of behavior that are closed. For in this case it is difficult to observe directly the process of thinking and understanding, and also hard to touch and see attitude, values and beliefs.

Cognitive theory believes that a person's behavior was caused by a stimulus, which is a physical object that affects a person in many ways. This theory tries to see what happens between stimulus and response to stimulate such person. In other words, how stimulus are processed in a person.

Communicative Theory

Language is verbal tool which is used for communication and spoken language is the process of conveying information in communication, Different individuals define communication in different ways depending upon their interests. Ruben (1984) says that communication is any “information related behavior.” Dale (1969) says it is the “sharing of ideas and feelings in a mood of mutuality.” Other definitions emphasize the significance of symbols, as in Berelson and Steiner (1964): “The transmission of information, ideas, emotions and skills…by the use of symbols,” and Theodorson and Theodorson (1969):“the transmission of information, ideas, attitudes, or emotion from one person or group to another…primarily through symbols.”

Communicative Aspects

As a means of communication, a language that consists of two aspects:

1. Linguistic aspects
2. Nonlinguistic aspects or paralinguistics

Both of these aspects work together in building a language of communication. Linguistic aspects include the level of phonological, morphological, and syntactic. This supports the formation of a third level to be delivered, the semantics (in which there is meaning, idea, concept idea).

Language in Communication

Language is closely connected with communication. In every language of communication there are two parties involved, those are the sender of the message (sender) and the recipient (receiver). Utterance (a sentence or sentences) are used to convey the message (in the form of ideas, thoughts, suggestions, etc.) is called a message. In this message the other carriers are not ideas (thoughts, suggestions, etc.) delivered the sender (speaker) to the receiver (listener). Each language communication process begins with the poster who wants to formulate advance is uttered within a framework of ideas. This process is known as the term semantic encoding.