Characteristics of Human Language

1.4. Cultural Transmission

         Although we are all born with certain fixed genetic predisposition for language use (e.g. shape of vocal tract) it does not predetermined which language we are actually going to use as our mother tongue. Humans inherit physical features from their parents but not language. We acquire a language in a culture with other speakers and not from parental genes. For example, a Chinese baby brought as a toddler in Great Britain and raised by a British family is going to speak English and not Chinese, though it will still look like a Chinese. Cultural transmission: The process whereby a language is passed on from one generation to the next. We are born with a predisposition to acquire language (but not with the ability to produce utterances in a specific language). We acquire our 1stlanguage as children in a culture.

         Animals, on the other hand,  are born with a set of specific signals that are produced instinctively and inherited from parents to off springs genetically. For example, if a Korean puppy was brought to Britain, it would still bark the same way as in Korea. So, cultural transmission of a specific language is crucial in the human language acquisition process.