Language is a rule governed behaviour

 

Language is God’s special gift to mankind. Without language human civilization would have remained an impossibility. Language is omnipresent i.e. it is present everywhere - in our thoughts and dreams, prayers and meditations, relations and communication. It is our ability to communicate through words that makes us different from animals. Language is an important means of communication between human beings.

 Language is a system of conventional spoken or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture, express themselves.

Noam Chomsky defines language as:

“A language is a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements”.

Through his definition, Chomsky tried  to convey that each sentence has a structure.

 Human brain is competent enough to construct different sentences from out of the limited set of sounds/symbols belonging to a particular language. Human brain is so productive that a child can at any time produce a sentence that has never been said or heard earlier.

When linguists say that language is "rule-governed behaviour," they mean it has a grammar, or a set of conventions that organizes its proper use. These rules set boundaries around the meaning of words and dictate how words relate to one other. Without rules i.e. grammar- languages would quickly subside into chaos and will be meaningless. People would no longer be able to understand or communicate with each other. Essentially, language only works if we follow its rules.

Language exists for the purpose of communication. For that we must first agree upon what words mean. This is a rule in itself. For instance, if we talk about the word tree everyone should agree upon what actually a tree is. A tree is a tall plant with a huge wooden trunk is what everyone should accept. One cannot think of a tree as a different thing or object.

When we say that language has certain rules, syntax also plays a major role in it. If we have to communicate with one another using language, the sentences which we use should make sense and this is possible only if we follow the rules while framing sentences.

For instance, if one has to say, Rome was not built in a day- one cannot actually say Rome not built was in a day.

One has to follow the rules and make communication meaningful.