"How do we know that language is more than denotation?"

Language is human communication that is either spoken or written, our central life as humans is solely based on our ability to communicate. We are currently in environments where we are forced to be able to share our perspectives, idea and learn from others. We need to be able to read anything from poems and quantum physics articles. We need to understand what they are trying to convey and when it is a literary piece we need to read the subtext, understand not only the denotations but the connotations as well.

 Denotation refers to the words explicit or direct meaning, as opposed to connotation that refers to an idea or felling that a word invokes. As an example take the words home, house, residence and dwelling. They all share the same denotation, that they are places where people live, but they each have different connotations. Words like the ones listed are synonyms of one another, a synonym being a word that shares a denotation with another word. But you must be asking how this answers the question? Well if these words weren’t different from one another then it would be pointless to have these words. Their difference lies in their connotations. Connotations can very based on a persons schema and should be kept in mind when reading a specific piece but certain connotations can be generalized. So if you were to analyze the word based on positive and negative connotations, home would be the most positive, house and residence indifferent and dwelling negative. If you still cant see how these is important I would urge you read a classic poem and then reflect on how it makes you feel. As soon as you start to feel you are using connotations and not denotation thus showing that language us ore than connotations.

Language is a human capacity, one that separates Human beings from other living beings. Yes other animals can communicate but there is no animal that uses both spoken sound and written language. Animals communicate, they can signal danger in the flap of the fluke to screeching cries but they cannot have a passionate discussion about politics in their communities. Now More than ever, humans can communicate not only the rudimentary but also the most complex of ideas.  Language is our primary form of symbolic communication; with each word being associated to and idea, concept, definition and so on; complemented by math, art, maps, and scientific models. Consider the most common signs in your daily lives, form the ale to female bathroom o flammable on hairspray and deodorant cans. These are simple symbols that we learn as we grow up using the information we have learnt. Now think of the words that you use when speaking, these are complex symbols. As humans we have the ability to move from symbolism and to use our sounds as meaningful communication. We are able to connect our experience to those of others.  But for the right message to be received we need to use more than words, we need body language and tone. Tone and body language are the things that can express what you ‘feel’, if are you angry, sad or ecstatic. Your tone and body language can convey these things. Imagine someone who speaks with no indication of emotion in his or her tone or body language. The monotonous voice would sound the same when they were mad or when happy. This would make it extremely difficult to comprehend and perceive what he truly meant while he spoke.  If language were purely denotation then it would be like speaking to Sheldon cooper from the big bang theory in the first seasons. It would be speaking with someone who interprets everything you say with the definition and not the connotation, someone who does not express emotion like others, and it would be an infuriating conversation. But because not everyone we talk to is like this then we can assume that language is not purely denotation because we se signs, tone, body language among others to communicate effectively with others.

Language has become a collection of symbols that all have meaning though some are not as simple as others; it is jumble of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, synonyms and antonyms. Yet it is something that comes so naturally that Chomsky, a linguist from he 70s, claims that it is an innate ability. Language is no longer rudimentary but a highly developed human characteristic, one that is influenced and influences perspective.