Which of the following is not the nature of language?

Concept: In linguistic description, language is a system of symbols — an organised set of speech sounds, written characters or gestures that carry meaning only because a community combines them under shared rules. Two further properties follow from this: the link between a symbol and the thing it stands for is arbitrary, resting on convention rather than on any natural resemblance, and every language is unique, possessing its own sound system, vocabulary and grammar. Language is also social, dynamic and creative — its users, and no authority above them, settle what it means and how it changes.

Application: The stem asks which of the given terms is NOT one of these properties, so each term is tested against the description above.

• Arbitrary — a defining property: the form of a word bears no natural link to what it denotes, which is why the same substance is called water in English, eau in French and agua in Spanish.

• System of symbols — a defining property: speech sounds and written characters work as symbols, and grammar is the shared rule-system that combines them into meaning.

• Unique — a defining property: no two languages carry exactly the same phonology, vocabulary and structure, so each one stands apart from all the others.

• Dictatorial — not a property of language: the word describes authority whose orders are imposed and cannot be questioned, whereas language is settled by the agreement of its speech community and shifts as that community uses it.

Cross-check: apply the removal test. Take away arbitrariness, the symbol system or distinctiveness and what remains is no longer a language; drop the idea of dictatorial control and nothing about language changes. The standard characteristics of language taught in language pedagogy — arbitrary, symbolic, systematic, social, unique, dynamic, creative, verbal and human — contain no term meaning imposed by decree.

Hence the term that is not the nature of language is Dictatorial.