A human cognitive and communicative capability which makes it possible to communicate, to create and comprehend meaning, to build and sustain relationships, to represent and shape knowledge, and to imagine, analyse, express and evaluate.

Language is described and employed:

• as code– comprising systems, rules, a fixed body of knowledge; for example, grammar and vocabulary, sound and writing systems

• as social practice– used to do things, create relationships, interact with others, represent the world and the self; to organise social systems and practices in dynamic, variable, and changing ways

• as cultural and intercultural practice – means by which communities construct and express their experience, values, beliefs and aspirations

• as cognitive process – means by which ideas are shaped, knowledge is constructed, and analysis and reflection are structured