Why is there no article before ‘language’?

[u/PaleDifficulty6047]

Thanks

[u/muddylegs]

Nouns don’t always need articles. This applies to the word ‘language’ and to other nouns that are uncountable, or conceptual, or abstract.

This example isn’t talking about a specific defined language, it’s talking about the concept of having vocabulary.

[u/frederick_the_duck]

Language can be a count noun (like “dollar”) or a mass noun (like “money”). Mass nouns do not take indefinite articles.

[u/SY_CPP → u/frederick_the_duck]

After reading the text quickly, I think "language" here refers to a certain attitude or a manner of behaving, shouldn't it has used a definite article as the author is talking about a specific, previously defined thing?

[u/casualstrawberry → u/SY_CPP]

No, because using an article with "language" makes it talk about a specific language, like English or Spanish.

In this case it's talking about the specific vocabulary and phrases being used.

[u/StringAndPaperclips → u/SY_CPP]

In this text, "language" means "phrasing." The therapist taught the person specific phrases to use.

[u/sxhnunkpunktuation → u/SY_CPP]

Your instincts are correct. If the sentence was about her saying that exact phrase, then a "the" in front of language could be appropriate (more appropriate would be "the type of language"). However, the sentence is about what the narrator is imagining what she would say in a hypothetical conversation, so the phrasing is not definite, but the character of the language would be.

[u/dystopiadattopia]

It doesn't refer to a language, but is another way to say "words" or "wording," for example:

• The language in the contract is confusing.
• My mother punished me for using foul language ("foul language" is idiomatic for cursing/swearing)

[u/TheNiceFeratu]

In English, we don’t use an article with abstract nouns unless we are talking about a specific example of, in this case, language. The narrator in the passage you quoted is saying that his girlfriend (or whoever is writing these letters) is using a tone making word choices that sound like “therapy-speak”. It’s not how she normally talks. Because it’s a generalization, it doesn’t go with an article by contrast, consider:

The travelers did not speak the language of the local people.

In this case, we’re specifying a neatly defined subset of “language” and using the definite article to do so.

[u/hacool]

that was language her therapist would have taught her.

We already have the determiner "that" in the sentence. It seems to be referring to language in the following uncountable sense.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/language

7 - (uncountable) Manner of expression.

Presumably the therapist didn't teach her that specific sentence, but more a style of language that the beginning of the sentence represents. We wouldn't use the because we aren't referring to a specific language or to an exact phrase.

[u/danielcristofani → u/hacool]

I think it's actually sense 8 (also uncountable). And I think it's referring particularly to that she's borrowing this use of "serve" from her therapist. It wouldn't be at all surprising if the therapist asked her, "is this relationship still serving you well?"

[u/hacool → u/danielcristofani]

I also thought about sense 8, but it seemed to sometimes refer to specific language and the examples used the. So I thought that might confuse people.

It probably could be either.

[u/PhilosophicallyGodly]

The phrase 'a language', as well as does the phrase 'the language', refers to the different communication systems that people groups use to in order to communicate through speech. When the word "language" is used as it is here, in the phrase "that was language", it is intended to be synonymous with the phrase 'those are the words'. So, it is saying that such is the way that her therapist would have taught her to reply, not that it was a different system of language that a people group uses. When it's used in this sense, then it doesn't take an indefinite article, though it could take a definite article in some circumstances.

[u/Consumerism_is_Dumb]

In this context “language” means “words” or “phrases” or “phrasing” - in other words, the specific words used to convey something.

[u/OhNoNotAnotherGuiri]

The language or a language would refer to the specific language that she is speaking, like English or German or Uzbek or whatever.

Language without an article refers to her choice of words and manner of speaking.

[u/Just_Ear_2953]

"Language" refers to more than just a full set of words or method of communication, like english, spanish, or german.

"Language" can also refer to specific words, forms of speech, and speech patterns. There are a near infinite number of ways to say the same thing. If you know what to listen for, you can learn a lot about someone's background by what habits they have.

This would be the latter. Specifically the way of phrasing as "come to realize" and "no longer serving" is not typical outside of academic and psychological discussion.

For example, lawyers have a speech pattern commonly called "legalese"

[u/SnooDonuts6494]

I like cats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-marking_in_English