16.02.2009 - Day 1 - Session 1 w/ Mavis Radley

After Damian's intro of the course Mavis gave her first session about the nature of language and language learning.

1. What is language?

Human beings communicate through body, sign, spoken and written language. Anything that contains a message behind it can be considered as language. Mavis gave us the first handout with dictionary and expert's definitions of language. Check your dictionaries or google it up for that!

A 2nd handout was given on the nature of language stating that:

- Language was born, is used and develops in context;

- Language is social and personal;

- Language is not only a means of communication, but also of getting things done;

- Language not only expresses, but also create realities;

- Language is not uniform - it characterises its user in terms of socioeconomic class, education, culture, personality etc.

- Language use varies according to the interaction between medium and context.

- Language is organised with the same level of success as human communities - imperfectly organised and in the process of changing;

- Language is form and meaning - meaning needs a body to become communicable. Form without meaning is useless.

- Language is greater than its parts - texts are more than words and structures;

We discussed and agreed with the information above.

A 3rd and debatable handout was given next. It had on it statements that we would have to agree or disagree with later on.