To communicate, beside language, people can use different ways such as gestures,
symbols, music or paintings, etc. However, language is the most effective medium of
communication, which is used by people of all ages in every field of the human activities.
It is the language that helps to establish social relationship, completely and clearly express
all of the events as well as their thoughts and aspirations. Through language, valuable
knowledge, ideas and experiences can be passed fromgeneration to generation.
According to Richards and Platts, language is often described as having three main
functions: descriptive, expressive, and social. The descriptive function seems to be the
most important one, as it is often employed to convey all sorts of information which can be
stated or denied, and, even in some cases tested. However, beside the factual information,
in most utterances people tend to emphasize the illocutionary force with additional
information. To express this, non-restrictive elements are often exploited. These are what
can be heard in everyday conversations or read in different discourses:
Hamlet, Shakespeare’s masterpiece, is her favourite play.
Even now, in my constituency of Sedgefield, which at one time had 30 pits
or more, all now gone, virtually every community remembers that its
roots lie in Irish migration to the mines of Britain.
Cô X bây gilàm n chc gì ri? À, cô y vn làm giáo viên thng,
d y t
t lm.
Cata, vi chc á quân Á v
n hi va qua, c gii chuyên môn ánh giá
là mt
i thkhông thcoi thng.
Besides, language teachers or learners should not ignore the important role of the two other
functions, expressive and social. As we observe that through some certain non-restrictive
elements, the speaker may deepen or strengthen his/her feelings, attitude and relationship
towards the hearer. In other words, they may enhance the focus of the message. Consider
the following examples:
Come to meet my beautifulwife!
2
I don’t want him to put uglynose into my house again.
Mi bác sang nhà em dùng ba cm nh t!
Xin ông cho bit quýdanh.