In order to understand the nature of language, you are encouraged to know clearly about the three views of language:

• The structural view

• The functional-interactional view

• The critical view

1. Let's firstly pay attention to key sentences telling the meaning of each view.

• The structural view

This view sees language as a linguistic system made up of various subsystems. Based on this view, to learn a language means to learn the structural items in order to understand and produce language.

• The functional-interactional view

This view not only sees language as a linguistic system but also as a means for doing things. In order to perform functions, learners need to know how to combine the grammatical rules and the vocabulary to express notions that perform the functions, but also need to use language properly as a communicative tool, whose main purpose is to build up and maintain social relations between people.

• The critical view

It views language from a critical perspective and considers language as a systematic body of ideas, organised from a particular point of view. 

No text is value-free and all texts are written, spoken or made by someone with a perspective, taking a certain stance of for certain purposes or even with bias.

2. Here is a diagram to show the three views of language for your easy understanding.