ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to present an introduction to language for the nonlinguist. Perhaps the most difficult task for specialists in any field is to provide a brief, but clear and simple, description of the object of their scientific study. Expert witnesses, including linguists, are asked to do this almost every time they testify. Linguists must be able to successfully answer the question, “What is language?” for everyone in the courtroom, i.e., judges and juries (triers of fact) and all attorneys involved in a case, as well as observers. This is no small task, given the usual time constraints, varying individual levels of prior knowledge about language, and the expert’s need to avoid technical descriptions that may be incomprehensible to everyone else.
