Editing Language (section)

===Tool for communication===
[[File:ASL family.jpg|right|thumb|A conversation in [[American Sign Language]]]]
Yet another definition sees language as a system of communication that enables humans to exchange verbal or symbolic utterances. This definition stresses the social functions of language and the fact that humans use it to express themselves and to manipulate objects in their environment. [[Functional theories of grammar]] explain grammatical structures by their communicative functions, and understand the grammatical structures of language to be the result of an adaptive process by which grammar was "tailored" to serve the communicative needs of its users.<ref name="Myths"/><ref>{{harvcoltxt|Van Valin|2001}}</ref>

This view of language is associated with the study of language in [[pragmatics|pragmatic]], [[cognitive linguistics|cognitive]], and interactive frameworks, as well as in [[sociolinguistics]] and [[linguistic anthropology]]. Functionalist theories tend to study grammar as dynamic phenomena, as structures that are always in the process of changing as they are employed by their speakers. This view places importance on the study of [[linguistic typology]], or the classification of languages according to structural features, as processes of [[grammaticalization]] tend to follow trajectories that are partly dependent on typology.<ref name="NewmeyerForm"/> In the philosophy of language, the view of pragmatics as being central to language and meaning is often associated with [[Ludwig Wittgenstein|Wittgenstein's]] later works and with ordinary language philosophers such as [[J. L. Austin]], [[Paul Grice]], [[John Searle]], and [[Willard van Orman Quine|W.O. Quine]].{{sfn|Nerlich|2010|p=192}}