Did you know that language plays a key role in human lives? Yes, in fact it is a social phenomenon that connects people by communicating and understanding them. When we speak, we want to convey a certain message through language. People use a language to express their feelings, to persuade, ask for help, entice, urge, and apologize. Most people use language depending on the situation at hand and their social background. In fact, any language may vary depending on the kind of people who use it, the nature of the society, and their attitudes.
That said, language has some several functions. In this section we will highlight some of the main ones. Roman Jakobson’s (1960) linguistic model outlines six major functions of language which are: the referential function (context); conative function, ( the addressee); the emotive function, (the addresser); the poetic function, (the message); the metalingual function, (the code); and the phatic function (the contact).