Animal communication vs. human language 2. – differences
Charles Hockett was disappointed because he
couldn’t find the main distinguishing characteristics between animal
communication systems and human language. However, at the end he seemed to have
found a solution and he wanted to share it with Tarzan.
Hockett: ‘I thought about our discussion on animal
communication and human language differences last time. I reached some
conclusions. I made a list thanks to you! I am going to share the main design
features of human language. First of
all, I must tell you that the basis is the same: signs! We both communicate
based on signs. The key difference here is that the sign system for animals is
inborn, while we acquire these signs from the society and transmit them
culturally. Only the capacity to create these signs, is inborn. This is called
traditional or cultural transmission. ‘
Tarzan: ‘OK, it’s true the way that animals
communicate is biological. Although some animals living in isolation, are
unable to develop the calls for their species. It seems to be community
dependent, doesn’t’ it? ’
Hockett: ‘But there is more. Another important
human language characteristic is interchangeability. To my knowledge, males of
some species produce different signs from females and they are not able to
interchange the signs of the other gender.’
Tarzan: ‘Yes, as you said, there are some
species which are unable to interchange the male sign with the female sign.
However, it’s not universal for animal communication. I can accept it as a
relative feature of human language, but not absolute.’
Hockett: ‘Ok, it’s true. There is another
feature. Human language is symbolic. The signs of human language are arbitrary
and there is no meaningful connection between a sound form and its meaning. We
can call it arbitrariness.’
Tarzan: ‘It’s not an absolute feature for human
language. Think about onomatopoeias: words that resemble the sounds that they
refer to. The way these words have been created are not arbitrary.’
Hockett: ‘By the way, creation! Listen to this.
Here you cannot object! The animal calls
always depend on their genes, hence biology. Animals always produce the same
signs. Human signs can change even rapidly depending on language change
features. New words can be invented, while animals have to evolve in order that
their signs change. For animals, each meaning can be expressed in only one way,
while for humans, one meaning can be expressed in many ways. We can call it
productivity or creativity.’
Tarzan: ‘Hmm. It’s very interesting! But it
seems, it’s about the human mind, not the language itself. Human language is a
result of the mind, a creation of mind. Creativity is a characteristic of humans,
not a characteristic of language. So, to find a solution for the description of
human language, we should start by studying the mind!’
Hockett: ‘OK, Tarzan. You will not object to the
upcoming feature. I have found a very interesting characteristic of language:
duality of patterning. It means, meaningful messages contain meaningful smaller
units like words or morphemes, however these meaningful units can be divided in
meaningless units like phonemes.’
Tarzan: ‘You are right. No objection. In
addition, I would add that the grammar could be an absolute characteristic of
human language. I have heard about Chomsky who claims that humans possess an
innate universal grammar that is not possessed by other species.’
In the end, professor Hockett developed the design
features of language by having long discussions with his wild friend who lacked
a human language. The design features contain sixteen features, but we have
discussed only the most important ones here.
Do you know all the sixteen features? Write them in the comments!