Design features of
language
LING 200
Winter 2009
Jan. 7
Plan for today
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Questions about language
Hockett’s proposed design features
Properties of some animal
communication systems
The big question(s)
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Is language unique to humans?
Is it fundamentally different from
animal communication?
(What is language anyway?)
Getting at the big question
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Charles Hockett (1960)
“The Origin of Speech.”
Scientific American 203: 88-96.
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Smaller questions
• What are properties of human
language?
• Which are shared by other
communication systems?
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Caveat
• In Hockett’s day, not much known about
ASL
Hockett’s proposal
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Design features characterize
language, distinguish it from other
communication systems
System must have all 9 features to
be language
9 features
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Mode of communication
Semanticity
Pragmatic function
Interchangeability
Cultural transmission
Arbitrariness
Discreteness
Displacement
Productivity
Common to all(?)
communication systems
Not found in all
communication systems
Interchangeability
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= A user can both transmit and
receive messages
Not all communication display this
flexibility
• silkworm moths: only females secrete
chemicals
• whistling moths: males make territorial
sounds
Cultural transmission
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Nature (innate) (vs. nurture-learned)
= At least some aspect of a
communication system is
learned from other users
• A Cambodian child with an
American parent will learn
English, not Khmer
• Animal communication systems
vary
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Fireflies and cowbirds: entirely
innate
Finches: can learn to make some
calls if raised in isolation; but don’t
learn full system
Arbitrariness
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(vs. iconic)
Does the form of a
sign/call/signal
resemble what it
refers to?
Sign languages
may seem
relatively iconic…
KNOW
BLACK
CANADA
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Arbitrariness in some animal
communication systems
• baring teeth
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Vervet monkeys
• http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/
media/vervetcalls.html
• Distinct arbitrary calls for snakes,
leopards, eagles
Discreteness
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(sometimes called duality of patterning)
System decomposable into smaller,
recombinable parts
• a, p, r, t combine to form trap, part, rapt
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Doesn’t seem to be found in most animal
communication systems
• But bee dances
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bees/dancesw
agg.html (the waggle dance, a.k.a. the sickle
dance)
• pattern, direction can be combined for
different meanings
Displacement
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Not limited to the here and now
• Last night, 10 million years ago…
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Bees: limited displacement
• round dance: relatively close
• sickle dance: intermediate distance
• tail-wagging dance: relatively far
Productivity
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Unlimited potential to express novel
ideas
• Elements of system are fixed or infinite?
• “Intonational phenomena in Sahaptin
identified to date can be described
exclusively with nuclear pitch accents.”
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Bees
• Vertical sugar water experiment
Chimp (and other primate) studies
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20th century hypothesis: Maybe
chimps (and other primates) don’t
use human language because of lack
of opportunity to learn it.
Chimp vocal tracts not suited to
speech, but sign language okay
Chimps’ accomplishments
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Can learn to associate referents with
arbitrary signs
Can learn to use signs spontaneously
Can learn to use signs creatively
• Washoe (at CWU): 'water bird' (for swan)
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Can invent totally new signs
• Washoe: a new sign for 'bibs'
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Can come up with creative solutions to
problems
• Kanzi: When friend Austin the chimp was
moved out of compound, Kanzi got lonely,
typed 'Austin TV' to request videotape of
Austin.
Chimps’ main limitation
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Syntax
• length: 2-3 sign utterances
• inconsistent word order
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See also
http://www.gorilla.org/world/talk_aol.html
Noam Chomsky (“I told you so”)
• It is hardly likely that some species has this capacity but
has never thought to use it until instructed by
humans…the evidence suggests that the most
rudimentary features of human language are far beyond
the capacity of otherwise intelligent apes, just as the
capacity to fly or the homing instinct of pigeons lie
beyond the capacity of humans.
Summary and preview
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Human language seems to be
qualitatively different from animal
communication systems
Human vocal tract even seems
designed for speech
Question
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Good site on onomatopoeia in
different languages (but no sound
files )
• (onomatopoeia: vocabulary that
imitates sound)
• http://www.eleceng.adelaide.edu.au/Per
sonal/dabbott/animal.html
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What does this tell us about
arbitrariness in spoken languages?