Communicative versus informative

In order to describe these properties, we should first distinguish what are specifically communicative signals from those which may be unintentionally informative signals. A person listening to you may become informed about you via a number of signals which you have not intentionally sent. He/she may note that you have a cold (you sneezed), that you aren't at ease (you shifted around in your seat), that you are untidy (unbrushed hair, rumpled clothing), that you are disorganized (non-matching socks), and that you are from some other part of the country (you have a strange accent). However, when you use language to tell this person, " I would like to apply for the vacant position of senior brain surgeon at the hospital, " you are normally considered to be intentionally communicating something. By the same token, the blackbird is not normally taken to be communicating anything by having black feathers, perching on a branch and eating a worm, but is con­sidered to be sending a communicative signal with the loud squawking to be heard when a cat appears on the scene. So, when we consider the distinctions between human language and animal communication, we are considering both in terms of their potential as a means of intentional communication.

Unique properties of the human language

There have been a number of attempts to determine the defining properties of human language, and different lists of features can be found. We shall take six of these features and describe how they are manifested in human language. We shall also try to describe in what ways these features are uniquely a part of human language and unlikely to be found in the commu­nication systems of other creatures.

Displacement

Animal communication is almost exclusively designed for this moment, here and now. It cannot effectively be used to relate events which are far removed in time and place. When your dog says CRRR, it is likely to mean GRRR, right now, because it does not appear capable of communicat­ing GRRR, last night, over in the park. Now, human language-users are per­fectly capable of producing messages equivalent to GRRR, last night, over in the park, etc. In fact, I'll be going back tomorrow for some more. They can refer to past and future time, and to other locations. This property of human language is called displacement. It allows the users of language to talk about things and events not present in the immediate environment. Animal communication is generally considered to lack this property.

However, it has been proposed that bee communication does have the property of displacement, e.g., when a worker bee finds a source of nectar and returns to the hive, it can perform a complex dance routine to communicate to the other bees the location of this nectar. Depending on the type of dance (round dance for nearby and tail-wagging dance, with variable tempo, for further away and how far), the other bees can work out where this newly discovered feast can be found. This ability of the bee to indicate a location some distance away must mean that bee communication has at least some degree of displacement as a feature. The crucial consideration involved, of course, is that of degree. Bee communication has displacement in an extremely limited form. Certainly, the bee can direct other bees to a food source. However, it must be the most recent food source. It cannot be that rose garden on the other side of town that we visited last weekend, nor can it be, as far as we know, possible future nectar in bee heaven.

The factors involved in the property of displacement, as it is manifested in human language, are much more comprehensive than the communication of a single location. It enables us to talk about things and places whose exis­tence we cannot even be sure of. We can refer to mythical creatures, demons, fairies, angels, Santa Claus, and recently invented characters such as Superman. It is the property of displacement that allows the human, unlike any other creature, to create fiction and to describe possible future worlds.

Arbitrariness

It is generally the case that there is no 'natural' connection between a lin­guistic form and its meaning. You cannot look at any Arabic word, and from its shape, for example, determine that it has a natural meaning. The linguistic form of the word ‘dog’, for example, has no natural or 'iconic' relationship with that four-legged harking object out in the world. Recognizing this general fact about language leads us to conclude that a property of linguistic signs is their arbitrary relationship with the objects they are used to indicate. The forms of human language demonstrate a property called arbitrariness: they do not, in any way, 'fit' the objects they denote.

There are, of course, some words in language which have sounds which seem to 'echo' the sounds of objects or activities. English examples might be cuckoo, squelch or whirr, which are onomatopoetic, and which we have already noted are a part of the 'natural sounds' theory of language origin. In most languages, however, these onomatopoet­ic words are relatively rare, and the vast majority of linguistic expressions are in fact arbitrary.

For the majority of animal signals, there does appear to be a clear connec­tion between the conveyed message and the signal used to convey it. This impression we have of the non-arbitrariness of animal signaling may be closely connected with the fact that, for any animal, the set of signals used in communication is finite. That is, each variety of animal communication con­sists of a fixed and limited set of (vocal or gestural) forms. Many of these forms are used only in specific situations (e.g. establishing territory) and at particular times (e.g. during fighting/hunting). As far as mating is con­cerned, the human seems to behave as if it is always open season, and the range and frequent novelty of linguistic expressions used in connection with that activity may provide evidence for another property of human lan­guage, normally described as 'productivity'.

Productivity

It is a feature of all languages that novel utterances are continually being created. A child learning language is especially active in forming and producing utterances which he or she has never heard before. With adults, new situations arise or new objects have to be described, so the language-users manipulate their linguistic resources to produce new expressions and new sentences. This property of human language has been termed productivity (or 'creativity', or 'open-endedness'). It is an aspect of language which is linked to the fact that the potential number of utterances in any human language is infinite.

Non-human signaling, on the other hand, appears to have little flexibility. Cicadas have four signals to choose from and monkeys have about thirty-six vocal calls (including the noises for vomiting and sneezing). Nor does it seem possible for animals to produce 'new' signals to communicate novel experiences or events. The worker bee, normally able to communicate the location of a nectar source, will fail to do so if the location is really 'new'. In one experiment, for example, a hive of bees was placed at the foot of a radio tower and a food source at the top. Ten bees were taken to the top, shown the food source, and sent off to tell the rest of the hive about their find. The message was conveyed via a bee dance and the whole gang buzzed off to get the free food. They flew around in all directions, but couldn't locate the food. (It is probably one way to make bees really mad.) The problem may be that bee communication regarding location has a fixed set of signals, all of which relate to horizontal distance. The bee cannot manipulate its communication system to create a 'new' message indicating vertical distance. According to Karl von Frisch, who conducted the experiment, " the bees have no word for up in their language". Moreover, they cannot invent one.

The problem seems to be that animal signals have a feature called fixed reference. Each signal is fixed as relating to a particular object or occasion. Among the vervet monkey's repertoire, there is one danger signal CHUT-TER, which is used when a snake is around, and another RRAUP, used when an eagle comes by. These signals are fixed in terms of their reference and cannot be manipulated. What would count as evidence of productivity in the monkey's communication system would be the utterance of something like a CHUTT-RRAUP type of signal when a flying creature that looked like a snake came by. That is, the monkey would be capable of manipulating its 'language' to cope with the new situation. Unfortunately, we have no evidence that the monkey could produce a new danger signal. The human, given similar circumstances, is quite capable of creating a new 'signal', after initial surprise, by uttering something along the lines of Wow, I don't believe it, an eagle-snake!

 

Cultural transmission

While you may inherit brown eyes and dark hair from your parents, you do not inherit their language. An infant born to Korean parents (who have never left Korea and speak only Korean), which is adopted and brought up from birth by English speakers in the United States, may have physical characteristics inherited from its natural parents, but it will inevitably speak English. A kitten, given comparable early experiences, will produce meow regardless.

This process whereby language is passed on from one generation to the next is described as cultural transmission. While it has been argued that humans are born with an innate predisposition to acquire language, it is clear that they are not born with the ability to produce utterances in a specific language, such as English. The general pattern of animal communication is that the signals used are instinc­tive and not learned.

In the case of some birds, however, there is evidence that instinct has to combine with learning (or exposure) to produce the right song. If those birds spend their first seven weeks without hearing other birds, they will instinctively produce songs or calls, but these songs will be abnormal in some way. Human infants, growing up in isolation, produce no 'instinctive' language. Cultural transmission of a specific language is crucial in the human acquisition process.

Discreteness

The sounds used in language are meaningfully distinct. For example, the difference between a ‘b’ sound and a ‘p’ sound is not actually very great, but when these sounds are part of a language like English, they are used in such a way that the occurrence of one rather than the other is meaningful. The fact that the pronunciation of the forms ‘pack’ and ‘back’ leads to a distinction in meaning can only be due to the difference between the p and h sounds in English. This property of language is described as discreteness. Each sound in the language is treated as discrete. It is possible, in fact, to produce a range of sounds in a continuous stream which are all generally like the p and b sounds. These physically different sounds could be conceived of as the spo­ken counterpart of a written set: b – p.

Duality

Language is organized at two levels or layers simultaneously. This property is called duality, or 'double articulation'. In terms of speech production, we have the physical level at which we can produce individual sounds, like n, b and i. As individual sounds, none of these discrete forms has any intrinsic meaning. When we produce these sounds in a particular combination, as in bin, we have another level producing a meaning which is different from the meaning of the combination in nib. So, at one level, we have distinct sounds, and, at another level, we have distinct meanings. This duality of levels is, in fact, one of the most economical features of human language, since with a limited set of distinct sounds we are capable of producing a very large number of sound combinations (e.g. words) which are distinct in meaning.

It is obvious that, although your dog may be able to produce woof, it does not seem to be a feature of the canine repertoire that the w, oo and f elements can be separated out as a distinct level of production. If your dog could operate with the double level (i.e. duality), then you might expect to hear oowf and even foow, each with different meanings.

Other properties

These six properties of displacement, arbitrariness, productivity, cultural transmission, discreteness and duality may be taken as the core features of human language. Human language does of course have many other proper­ties, but these are not uniquely human characteristics.

The use of the vocal-auditory channel, for example, is certainly a feature of human speech. Human linguistic communication is typically generated via the vocal organs and perceived via the ears. Linguistic communication, however, can also be transmitted without sound, via writing or via the sign languages of the deaf. Moreover, many other species (e.g. dolphins) use the vocal-auditory channel. Thus, this property is not a defining feature of human language.

Similar points can be made about reciprocity (any speaker/sender of a linguistic signal can also be a listener/receiver); specialization (linguistic signals do not normally serve any other type of purpose, such as breathing or feeding); non-directionality (linguistic signals can be picked up by anyone within hearing, even unseen); and rapid fade (linguistic signals are pro­duced and disappear quickly). Most of these are properties of the spoken language, but not of the written language. They are also not present in many animal communication systems which characteristically use the visual mode or involve frequent repetition of the same signal. Such properties are best treated as ways of describing human language, but not as a means of distinguishing it from other systems of communication.

Study questions

 

Be ready to discuss the questions. Give your grounds and provide examples:

 

1. What is language (its sounds, words, grammar)?

2. Can all human beings learn a language?

3. Are there any languages that do not use sounds?

4. Do primitive people have complete language or are their languages primitive?

5. Can you briefly explain what the term 'arbitrariness' means when it is used to describe a property of human language?

6. How do human beings acquire a language best?

7. Which term is used to describe the ability of human language-users to discuss topics which are remote in space and time? How does the mechanism work in this case?

8. Is the fact that linguistic signals do not normally serve any other type of purpose, such as feeding, a good reason to consider this a unique proper­ty of human language?

9. What is the term used to describe the fact that, in a language, we can have different meanings for the three words tack, act and cat, yet, in each case, use the same basic set of sounds?

10. What kind of evidence supports the idea that language is culturally transmitted?

 

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