Correct Answer - Option 3 : Pragmatics of language
Man is an animal but different from other species of animal. So, what sets man apart from others? It is an ability to communicate information using language – which refers to a complicated set of symbols, sounds, gestures, and rules of combining them to communicate one’s views to others. Language is expressed through gestures, speech, and writing.
According to psycholinguists, a language consists of the following components:
Pragmatics
- Pragmatics refers to the social rules of language. It also reflects how society impacts the language of people.
- As language is a social tool of interaction, it has some underlying rules, such as, how to behave as a listener, what one should say in a particular situation, and how to coordinate in a conversation are some examples of pragmatics.
- Studies have suggested that in comparison to adults, children take more time in turn-taking because of their inability to recognize the completion of a remark. With maturity, children learn to use the phrase “and then” to signal their listeners that they wish to continue their speech.
- Children also learn to adapt their language according to the listener, i.e., if the listener of a six-year-old child is his peer, then the language used by him would be different from the language used for a two-year-old listener.
Other Components of language:
- Phoneme: It is the smallest or basic unit of spoken language. The word “pen” has three phonemes viz. ‘p,’ ‘e’ and, ‘n’.
- Morpheme: Morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning. Phonemes are combined to make morpheme, such as the word “remake”, which consists of two words “re-” and “make”.
- Semantics: It refers to the set of rules by which we understand the meaning of words and sentences. For example, adding “-ed” at the end of the word refers to past tense.
- Syntax: These are the grammatical rules which explain how different words can be combined to make a meaningful sentence.
- Pragmatics: The societal rules related to language. How one should talk to older adults, what one can say in public or private, are some of the examples of pragmatics.
Hence, we can conclude that speaking or writing in such a way as to have an impact on others is known as the Pragmatics of language.
