Some experts have tried to define what language is. According to Hornby (1995) language is the system of sounds and words used by humans to express their thoughts and feelings. It is also the words and phrases used by a particular group or profession. It means that a language is a kind of system possessed and used by some particular communities in order to communicate and share ideas to one another.
Hofmann (1993: 2-3) sees language as a tool for communicating. People use language to communicate apparently anything–locations, emotions, facts, procedures, possibilities, fantasies, lies, and many other things. Then it is a means of communication where messages are being exchanged by using the media of expression, graphologically and/or phonologically, or writing and sounding.
According to Gleason (1961: 12) language operates with two kinds of material. One of these is sound; the other is ideas, social situations, and meanings. Both materials are very important in having a communication between people. Then, language is a way of associating sounds or forms with contents, or ideas, or meanings. Hofmann (1993: 9) makes an analogy of language as a bridge connecting a realm of sounds and a realm of meanings or ideas.
Eggins (2004: 3) says that language is a semiotic system. Its function is to make meanings by involving sets of meaningful choices and oppositions. She also says that the process of using a language is called a semiotic process. Like other semiotic system, language involves two aspects: content (meaning) and representation (expression). As a semiotic system, language can be called a complex semiotic system since, unlike most simple semiotic systems which consist of two levels or strata; it needs three levels or strata to describe the language itself. First, meanings are realized through wordings. Then, wordings are realized again through phonology or graphology. Third, language has a special level, the so-called lexicogrammar that makes it possible to create potential unlimited numbers of expression (Eggins, 2004: 116). To create them, the lexicogrammar provides the means; they are words and structures, or the arrangements of these words.
The World Wide Web is a global market, multilingual and multinational. If you have a Website or want to market a product or service see more, this information should cross national and even local boundaries like Canada for instance, with French and English spoken, but the language barrier is a huge puzzle for websites that want to translate their content.
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