The Major Functions of Language

Name:张梦洁 Class: 英创141班 Number: 201410010313 Date:2017/3/11

Language plays an important role in our human lives, letting others know our emotions, preference, hate and so on, establishing social relations and disseminating information. The three major functions of language are the descriptive function, the expressive function, and the social function.

The descriptive function is to convey information, which I think includes news, TV, videos, internet and face-to-face message transmission. Yesterday when skimming through newspapers, I was attracted to a piece of news titled with Breaking News: A South Korean Court Has Removed President Park Geun-hye From Office. According to the news, I knew that Ms. Park was embroiled in a corruption scandal, causing months of turmoil. Week after week, hundreds of thousands of South Koreans went to streets, protesting against Park Geun-hye’s rule. Then her power was suspended after a legislative impeachment vote. Finally the Constitutional Court decided to unseat Ms. Park for committing acts that violated the Constitution and laws. All the things happened in South Korean, and I got the information from language.

Language’s expressive function is to show our emotions, preference, attitudes and so on. For example, “I hate raining days.” The sentence not only expresses my hate to raining days, but also indicates my upset emotions at that time. It can also be illustrated that my mother can always recognize my mood from my language. When I talked to her with a quick speed and large voice, she knows that I am glad. But language is more apparent to know others’ feelings.

Language has social functions. Language is the first step to establish friendship; improper language is the culprit for splitting up. Our words carry enormous weight, even impacting others for decades. Back to my junior high school days, children were not so cautious to use language and words. That day, I went to school with my new haircut. Thus, my eyebrows were not hidden under my hair and I had very little eyebrows. I walked into my classroom. The classmates at the table gave me the once-over and sniggered. One said: “WHERE are your eyebrows?” Then another one said the same sentence with emphasis “where”. Then the third one did. I could feel my face getting red with embarrassment though I knew they were unconscious. Every day from that point forward, I would look at my eyebrows in the mirror. I grudgingly conceded that my eyebrows were extremely sparse. But I was still feeling hurt. I didn’t want to have that haircut anymore and listen to those guys, neither. I would get my eyebrows under my hairs. It just goes to show how powerful language can be to easily destroy the interpersonal relationships and shape or misshape a person for many years.