Characteristics of Human Language

Site:	Plateforme pédagogique de l'Université Sétif2
Cours:	An Introduction to Linguistics
Livre:	Characteristics of Human Language

Imprimé par:	Visiteur anonyme
Date:	Saturday 19 October 2024, 23:03

Table des matières

1. Human Language vs Animal System of Communication

1. Human Language vs Animal System of Communication

It is generally believed that human beings are the sole species capable of developing language thanks to their intelligence and appropriate structure of the vocal tract. It is clear, however, that animals are also capable of communicating in their own way, for instance, bees by tail-wagging, or whales by 'singing'. Yet, there are certain apparent differences in human and animal ways of conveying messages, which we will look at in today’s lecture. Many features common to all natural human languages have been proposed but in some cases it seems that animal means of communication possesses some partially developed characteristics which are generally believed to be unique to human beings.

Like human beings animals also communicate with one another through their communication systems which are called animal languages such as language of dolphins, language of bees. Animals have both discrete and non-discrete systems of communication but their messages as well as symbols are limited in quantity and dimension. On the other hand, human languages are much more surprisingly unlimited. Now we will discuss differences between human language and animal communication.

The communication systems of most animals are instinctive. They inherit them genetically. None can separate animals from their inbuilt qualities. On the contrary, human language is non-instinctive. Humans can acquire and learn any thing and any language as a result of social interaction. For example, a baby and a puppy are growing up in the same environment hearing mostly the same thing. But about two years later the baby will make human noises while the puppy will not. In addition, Mowgli in the Jungle Book grew up in the animal environment and his communication systems became like animals.

Because of its having arbitrariness, human language is conditioned by geography- its culture, social and natural environment. The linguistic sign of the same object may differ from one geographical region to another. For example, what is called by the English to be ‘dog’ is called ‘perro’ by the Spanish, ‘sobaka’ by the Russian and ‘inee’ by the Japanese. On the other hand animal communication is not conditioned by geography. For instance, the dogs of all countries have the same system of message and symbols.

Animal communication is devoid of ‘novelty’, ‘creativity’ and ‘multiplicity’ to produce apt utterances according to different situations. Most animals have limited number of messages or symbols they can send or receive. While human language possesses the qualities. A human being can even in a most unlikely situation utter a sentence which has never been said before and if can still be understood.

Human language is extendable and modifiable. The symbol or linguistic sign used in a language a hundred years ago may be extended, changed and even may not be used any more. But animal communication is opposite to this. For example, the bees and the monkeys use even now-a-days the same communication system which they used, say, five thousand years ago.

‘‘Duality and displacement-the organization of language into two layers, and the ability to talk about objects and events- are extremely rare in the animal world. No animal communication system has both these features, (Jean Aitchison, Linguistics: an Introduction; 1995:18). Humans produce sounds by the organs of speech, a rare gift of nature. No other species except apes and monkeys have been endowed with this gift.

Other distinctions which can also be explained are given in the following manner:

	Human language	Animal communication system
1	has grammaticality	has no grammaticality
2	descriptive and narrative	non- descriptive and narrative
3	recurrent	repetitive
4	cognitive as well as behavioral	only behavioral
5	open system	close system
6	structure dependent	not structure dependent

1.1. Discreteness

The sounds used in language are meaningfully distinct. For example, the difference between a /p/ sound and a /b/ sound is not actually so great, but when these sounds are used in speech, they have different meanings. 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 the /b/ sound. This property of language is described as ‘discreteness’. Each sound in the language can be thought as discrete. For example:
cut/put-----fine/wine-----boot/foot

The above mentioned properties of language do not constitute a complete set that all linguists unanimously accept. There are many more proposals concerning the features of language; but owing to their minor importance and not very frequent occurrence in literature, they have been omitted in this lecture. We can conclude that human language is a unique system of communication with a number of distinctive features that are not shared by other animal communicative systems.

1.2. Arbitrariness

There is no natural connection between the word or sound (the linguistic form) and the thing it denotes (meaning), which means we cannot tell what the meaning of a word is simply by looking at it. Nothing in the Arabic word 'كلب' or French word ‘chien’ tells us that it means the same as the English word 'dog' which is a four-legged barking object. The linguistic form has no natural or iconic relationship to its meaning. Exception : Onomatopoeic words : are less arbitrary in human language. They are words which imitate sounds and are present in the majority of contemporary languages, e.g., cuckoo, meow, boom, hiss and crash.

In animal language, there is a connection between the conveyed message and the signal used to convey it. This is because animal system of communication consists of a fixed and limited set of signals, which is only used in specific situations or at particular times (See page 13). The bee dance, for example, has the angle routine which means the angle of the food source from the sun, and the number of repetition implies the distance of the food source (non-arbitrary).

1.3. Productivity

The ability of human beings to produce an infinite number of utterances/sentences that have never been heard or said before, and yet to be understood by other speakers.

In animal communication every signal has a fixed reference which means that it can only refer to one idea and its meaning cannot be broadened. For example, the bird sing, the bee dance or the dolphine whistle are just limited types of communication. They only have a fixed aet of signals to choose from to convey their messages. In addition, it seems that animals cannot invent new signals in order to describe noval experience. For example, the bees have only the horizontal distance location in their system of communication. They can not create a new message to indicate vertical distance(they have no word for ‘’ up’’ in their language and they can’t invent one. Another example, monkeys use the danger signal ‘’CHUTTER’’ when a snake is around and ‘’RRAUP’’ when an eagle comes by. However, it is proven that monkeys cannot create a new danger signal CHUTTER RRAUP if there is a flying creature that looked like a snake comes by. Animals are unable to create new novel utterances whereas humans can

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.

1.5. Duality (Double Articulation)

Human languages have two levels: minimal units - the alphabet for writing and phonemes for speech - which do not have a meaning on their own, and the level where the meaning emerges as a result of combination of the units from level one. It is emphasised by the fact that with a limited set of letters in the alphabet an unlimited number of words and expressions may be produced. At a physical primary level, individual meaningless sounds (distinct sounds) (e.g. b, i,& n) mean nothing separately. At a secondary level, they take on distinct meanings only when they are combined together in various ways (e.g. bin/nib). Duality is one of the most economical features of human language (with a limited set of discrete sounds, we are capable of producing a very large number of sound combinations which are distinct in meaning.(e.g. words).

However, Animals’ communicative signals lack this property and are fixed and cannot be broken down into separate parts : meow is not m + e + o + w. If so, we would expect to hear different combinations with different meanings like : oemw, mowe, or emow

1.6. Displacement

This feature of languages refers to the ability to speak not only about what is happening at the time and place of talking, but also about other situation, future and past (last night, now, next week), real or unreal things and locations (mythical creatures such as angels, fairies, heaven, hell, superman).

As far as we know, the majority of animals cannot do that, they lack this property and their communicative system is designed exclusively for this moment, here and now. For example, if a dog barks right now, it wants to convey a message about to you which related to last immediate situation but not related to last night or tomorrow. However, bees communication system seems to have some version of displacement to direct other bees to a food source (see page 12).This might mean that the bees' communication system also possesses this feature, although in some limited fashion. Also, animals cannot create fiction.