different between discourse vs language

English

Etymology

From Middle English discours, borrowed from Middle French discours (“conversation, speech”), from Latin discursus (“the act of running about”), from Latin discurr? (“run about”), from dis- (“apart”) + curr? (“run”). Spelling modified by influence of Middle French cours (“course”). Doublet of discursus.

Pronunciation

• (mainly noun) IPA^(key): /?d?sk??(?)s/
• (mainly verb) IPA^(key): /d?s?k??(?)s/
• (rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /?d?sko(?)?s/, /d?s?ko(?)?s/
• (non-rhotic, without the horse–hoarse merger) IPA^(key): /?d?sko?s/, /d?s?ko?s/

Noun

discourse (countable and uncountable, plural discourses)

1. (uncountable, archaic) Verbal exchange, conversation.
   • 1847, Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Chapter XVIII

     Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at times scraps of their conversation across the room. At first I could not make much sense of what I heard; for the discourse of Louisa Eshton and Mary Ingram, who sat nearer to me, confused the fragmentary sentences that reached me at intervals.

2. (uncountable) Expression in words, either speech or writing.
3. (countable) A formal lengthy exposition of some subject, either spoken or written.

   The preacher gave us a long discourse on duty.

4. (countable) Any rational expression, reason.
   • 1692, Robert South, A Discourse Concerning The General Resurrection On Acts xxiv. 15

     difficult, strange, and harsh to the discourses of natural reason
5. (social sciences, countable) An institutionalized way of thinking, a social boundary defining what can be said about a specific topic (after Michel Foucault).
   • 2008, Jane Anna Gordon, Lewis Gordon, A Companion to African-American Studies (page 308)

     But equally important to the emergence of uniquely African-American queer discourses is the refusal of African-American movements for liberation to address adequately issues of sexual orientation and gender identity.
6. (obsolete) Dealing; transaction.

   • Good Captain Bessus, tell us the discourse / Betwixt Tigranes and our king, and how / We got the victory.

Synonyms

• (expression in words): communication, expression
• (verbal exchange): debate, conversation, discussion, talk
• (formal lengthy exposition of some subject): dissertation, lecture, sermon, study, treatise
• (rational expression): ratiocination

Derived terms

• direct discourse
• indirect discourse

Related terms

• course
• discursive

Translations

Verb

discourse (third-person singular simple present discourses, present participle discoursing, simple past and past participle discoursed)

1. (intransitive) To engage in discussion or conversation; to converse.
2. (intransitive) To write or speak formally and at length.
3. (obsolete, transitive) To debate.
4. To exercise reason; to employ the mind in judging and inferring; to reason.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)

5. (obsolete, transitive) To produce or emit (musical sounds).
   • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene 2, [3]

     Hamlet. […] Will you play upon this pipe? […] It is as easy as lying. Govern these ventages with your fingers and thumbs, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music.

   • 1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion, Volume II, Part II, Chapter V, p. 233, [4]

     Music discoursed on that melodious instrument, a Jew's harp, keeps the elfin women away from the hunter, because the tongue of the instrument is of steel.

   • 1915, Ralph Henry Barbour, The Secret Play, New York: D. Appleton & Co., Chapter XXIII, p. 300 [5]

     Dahl's Silver Cornet Band, augmented for the occasion to the grand total of fourteen pieces, discoursed sweet—well, discoursed music; let us not be too particular as to the quality of it.

Synonyms

• (engage in discussion or conversation): converse, talk
• (write or speak formally and at length):

Derived terms

• discourser

Translations

See also

• essay

Anagrams

• discoures, ruscoside

English

Pronunciation

• enPR: l?ng?gw?j, IPA^(key): /?læ??w?d??/
  • (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): (see /æ/ raising) [?le???w?d??]
• Hyphenation: lan?guage

Etymology 1

From Middle English langage, language, from Old French language, from Vulgar Latin *lingu?ticum, from Latin lingua (“tongue, speech, language”), from Old Latin dingua (“tongue”), from Proto-Indo-European *dn???wéh?s (“tongue, speech, language”). Displaced native Old English ?eþ?ode.

Noun

language (countable and uncountable, plural languages)

1. (countable) A body of words, and set of methods of combining them (called a grammar), understood by a community and used as a form of communication.
   • 1867, Report on the Systems of Deaf-Mute Instruction pursued in Europe, quoted in 1983 in History of the College for the Deaf, 1857-1907 ?ISBN, page 240:

     Hence the natural language of the mute is, in schools of this class, suppressed as soon and as far as possible, and its existence as a language, capable of being made the reliable and precise vehicle for the widest range of thought, is ignored.
2. (uncountable) The ability to communicate using words.

3. (uncountable) A sublanguage: the slang of a particular community or jargon of a particular specialist field.
   • 1991, Stephen Fry, The Liar, p. 35:

     And ‘blubbing’... Blubbing went out with ‘decent’ and ‘ripping’. Mind you, not a bad new language to start up. Nineteen-twenties schoolboy slang could be due for a revival.

4. (countable, uncountable, figuratively) The expression of thought (the communication of meaning) in a specified way; that which communicates something, as language does.
   • 2001, Eugene C. Kennedy, Sara C. Charles, On Becoming a Counselor ?ISBN:

     A tale about themselves [is] told by people with help from the universal languages of their eyes, their hands, and even their shirting feet.
5. (countable, uncountable) A body of sounds, signs and/or signals by which animals communicate, and by which plants are sometimes also thought to communicate.
   • 1983, The Listener, volume 110, page 14:

     A more likely hypothesis was that the attacked leaves were transmitting some airborne chemical signal to sound the alarm, rather like insects sending out warnings […] But this is the first time that a plant-to-plant language has been detected.

   • 2009, Animals in Translation, page 274:

     Prairie dogs use their language to refer to real dangers in the real world, so it definitely has meaning.

6. (computing, countable) A computer language; a machine language.
   • 2015, Kent D. Lee, Foundations of Programming Languages ?ISBN, page 94

     In fact pointers are called references in these languages to distinguish them from pointers in languages like C and C++.

7. (uncountable) Manner of expression.
   • 1782, William Cowper, Hope

     Their language simple, as their manners meek, […]

8. (uncountable) The particular words used in a speech or a passage of text.

9. (uncountable) Profanity.

Synonyms

• (form of communication): see Thesaurus:language
• (vocabulary of a particular field): see Thesaurus:jargon
• (computer language): computer language, programming language, machine language
• (particular words used): see Thesaurus:wording

Hypernyms

• medium

Hyponyms

• See Category:en:Languages

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

Verb

language (third-person singular simple present languages, present participle languaging, simple past and past participle languaged)

1. (rare, now nonstandard or technical) To communicate by language; to express in language.

   • Others were languaged in such doubtful expressions that they have a double sense.

See also

• bilingual
• lexis
• linguistics
• multilingual
• term
• trilingual
• word

Etymology 2

Alteration of languet.

Noun

language (plural languages)

1. A languet, a flat plate in or below the flue pipe of an organ.

References

• language at OneLook Dictionary Search
• language in Keywords for Today: A 21st Century Vocabulary, edited by The Keywords Project, Colin MacCabe, Holly Yanacek, 2018.
• language in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

French

Noun

language m (plural languages)

1. Archaic spelling of langage.

Middle English

Noun

language (plural languages)

1. Alternative form of langage

Middle French

Alternative forms

• langage
• langaige
• languaige

Etymology

From Old French language.

Noun

language m (plural languages)

1. language (style of communicating)

Related terms

• langue

Descendants

• French: langage
  • Haitian Creole: langaj
    • ? English: langaj
  • Mauritian Creole: langaz

Old French

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Vulgar Latin *lingu?ticum, from Classical Latin lingua (“tongue, language”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /lan??ad???/

Noun

language f (oblique plural languages, nominative singular language, nominative plural languages)

1. language (style of communicating)

Related terms

• langue, lingue

Descendants

• ? Middle English: language
  • English: language
• Middle French: language
  • French: langage
    • Haitian Creole: langaj
      • ? English: langaj
    • Mauritian Creole: langaz
• ? Old Spanish: lenguage