Creative writing

The world of language has always fascinated me, ever since my undergraduate studies in English. My passion didn’t stop there—it extended into my specialization in media and communication. I’ve always wondered: How do words shape our thoughts? How does grammar construct meaning? And how do communication tools connect us?

When I enrolled in an online training program with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign titled "Multimodal Literacies, Communications, and Learning in the Digital Media Age," I knew I was stepping into a fascinating realm where theories of meaning-making intersect with the digital era. What I didn’t expect was to find myself face-to-face with two linguistic giants: Noam Chomsky and Michael Halliday!

While Chomsky is considered a cognitive linguist concerned with the innate structure of language, Halliday is a functional linguist focused on how language is used in social contexts to create meaning.

Chomsky and the Code of Language

In one of the lectures, we explored Chomsky’s critique of the behaviorist theory that dominated the 20th century. Psychologist B.F. Skinner believed that language is acquired through listening, repetition, and adaptation. Chomsky turned this idea on its head, arguing that language is far too complex to be learned solely in this manner. It is not something we merely pick up from our surroundings; rather, it is something encoded within us, embedded in the very structure of our brains. Chomsky proposed that humans are born with an innate language faculty that enables them to acquire language.

I imagined a child growing up in a remote village, exposed to a language spoken by no one else in the world. Would they still construct sentences using the deep structures Chomsky described? Is there really a universal grammar underlying all languages—whether it’s English, Arabic, or an Indigenous language spoken by only a handful of people?

This theory has always intrigued me, yet it also raises new questions. If language is innate, why do cultures shape it so differently? Could language, as some of Chomsky’s critics suggest, actually shape thought in unique ways? Do speakers of an isolated Amazigh language—part of the Afro-Asiatic family—process the world in the same way as a native Mandarin speaker from China?

Halliday and Language as a Tool for Meaning-Making

While Chomsky’s theory revolutionized our understanding of language and cognition, it had limited practical applications in pedagogy. It explains why language exists but does not provide a clear framework for how to teach it effectively. This is where Michael Halliday comes in, offering an entirely different perspective.

Halliday saw language not as a fixed, innate grammatical system like Chomsky described but as a social tool used to construct meaning and interact with others. He developed Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), which focuses on how language is used in social contexts to create meaning.

Halliday’s model is based on a threefold functional framework:

The Ideational Function: Language is used to discuss and represent ideas, topics, and experiences—whether in politics, medicine, or the arts.
The Interpersonal Function: Language is shaped by the relationship between the speaker and the audience, influencing tone, style, and intention.
The Textual Function: Language ensures coherence and organization in communication, making messages structured and meaningful.

These functions constantly interact in every act of communication, making language a dynamic tool for shaping social reality. This brings us to a profound philosophical question: Is language merely a reflection of our human experience, or is it the tool through which we construct that experience?

Chomsky and Halliday: Complementary or Contradictory Visions?

Chomsky believes that humans possess an inherent, universal linguistic structure, meaning language does not determine thought but rather reflects it. Halliday, on the other hand, argues that language is inseparable from its social context—it is not just a mirror of reality but a means of reshaping it.

In an ever-evolving digital world, we must ask: Do these theories still fully capture the complexities of multimodal communication? How do digital media influence the three functions Halliday identified? Could artificial intelligence reshape our understanding of language in the same way Chomsky did in the 20th century?

Language may be an innate part of our brains, but it is also something we continuously reshape through culture, creativity, and technology. As I continue my journey in multimodal learning, I am increasingly convinced that modern pedagogy must constantly evolve to keep pace with the changing landscape of meaning-making.

In this digital age, we are all participants in reshaping language—not just through words, but also through images, symbols, and digital interactions that have become inseparable from our contemporary human experience.