What is unique about human language?
If human language is unique among animal systems of
communication, it would have to include features of design not
found elsewhere.
Charles Hockett (1977) developed a list of features that
characterize human speech.
• Human languages possess all of the following design features,
whereas the communicative systems of other animals possess
only some.
• The degree to which any one of the design features is
employed also differs.
Feature 1: Vocal-auditory channel
speaking and hearing as key features of language (although gestures and sign language and writing are also
language)
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Feature 2: Broadcast transmission and directional reception: speech sounds move
out from the source of their origin in all directions.
The sender and the receiver need not see each other to communicate vocally.
Feature 3: Rapid Fading
Speech sounds are heard within a very limited range and only at the time they are being
produced. Then they are lost.
The same with signing.
Writing is relatively permanent in contrast.
4. Interchangeability
Human beings are capable of uttering what others say. This is not true of many animal
species.
In some species only certain individuals send certain signals.
Today Koko (a female gorilla) uses
over a thousand words of ASL to
express her thoughts and feelings in
complex phrases, and she invents
new signs as the need arises. She
also understands spoken English.
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Koko sign history ref.
• http://www.kewego.com/video/iLyROoaftFsh.html
5. Complete feedback
Speakers of any language hear what they themselves are saying.
They are therefore capable of monitoring their messages.
As such, they can make any corrections they consider necessary or appropriate.
6. Specialization
This means that the organs used for producing speech are specially adapted to that task.
The human lips, tongue, throat, etc. have been specialized into speech apparati instead of being merely
the eating apparati they are in many other animals.
Dogs, for example, are not physically capable of all of the speech sounds that humans produce, because
they lack the necessary specialized organs.
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7. Semanticity – meaning is transmitted and received
In no system other than human language is there such an elaborate correlation between the vast
number of words and possible sentences and the widely different topics that humans talk about.
Many communicative systems in the animal kingdom have semantic components.
Degree is important here.
8. Arbitrariness
When there is no intrinsic relationship between the form of a meaningful unit of a language (such
as a word) and the concept for which the unit stands.
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9. Discreteness
Messages in human languages do not consist of sounds that are
continuous (like a siren).
Messages are made up of discrete individually distinct segments.
Moaning, crying, screaming are probably indiscrete sounds and less like language.
10. Displacement
Humans can talk about (or write about) something that is far
removed in time or space from the setting in which the
communication occurs.
Like these two ladies, many
Guatemalans sit to talk about the
future under the new Social
Democratic Government.
11. Productivity or Openness
Humans are capable of making completely unprecedented statements and having them
understood by the listener.
"The little green men who live in my socks drawer told me that Elvis will come back from
Mars on the 10th to do a benefit concert for unemployed Pekingese dogs."
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12. Cultural, traditional transmission
One does not inherit a particular language genetically.
Children learn language from parents or others who speak to and with them.
Speaking a particular language is therefore a part of one’s overall cultural behavior, that is, behavior
acquired through learning.
13. Duality of patterning
•
The smallest meaningful parts of a language are made up of sounds characteristic of the
language.
•
The number of different contrastive sounds (phonemes) in English is relatively small –
between three and four dozen, depending on the dialect.
•
But the total number of the smallest meaningful units these sounds make up runs into
many tens of thousands.
!Xu (!Kung), who
live in the Kalahari
desert, have as
many as 141
phonemes.
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Since Hockett developed his features the
following three have been added to his list.
14. Prevarication
•
What a person may say can be completely false.
•
Among animals the opossum may feign death or a bird may pretend to have a broken
wing.
•
Attempts at simulation are not common among animals.
15. Reflexiveness
Humans can and do use language to discuss language or communication in general.
Nonhuman animals do not often appear to be capable of
transmitting information about their own or other systems of
communication.
16. Learnability
•
Speakers of any language can learn a second language or even several
languages.
•
Some communicative behavior among animals is also the result of
learning, either by experience or from humans.
•
Can other animals learn one or several systems of communication as
complex as language?
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•
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6KvPN_Wt8I
“Irene Pepperberg of Brandeis University
began working with Alex when he was little
more than a year old, hoping to gain
insights into avian intelligence. Her
pioneering research revealed that Alex was
no mere mimic: his skills in language and
reasoning rivaled those of chimps and
dolphins.” Kate Wong, science writer.
Kanzi the bonobo
• http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/susan_savage_rumbaugh_on
_apes_that_write.html
Hockett was concerned with which of these features distinguished
human speech in particular.
He believed that the following:
• Productivity
• Displacement
• Traditional transmission
• Duality of patterning
… are key to understanding the origins of language in humans
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