Human language vs. animal communication

A useful approach to distinguish human language from the systems of animal communication was pioneered by the American linguist Charles Hockett who suggested to make a list of human language design features, and to consider whether they are shared by the systems of communication used by animals. The most important of these features are as follows.

(1) Use of sound signals. Sound systems are employed by both humans and many animals.

(2) Arbitrariness. There is often a strong recognizable link between the sign and the message an animal wishes to convey. The signs tend to be metonymically motivated indexes, since they exist in the form of natural physiological cries that regularly accompany reactions to particular experienced events. Unlike animals, humans use arbitrary, symbolic signs with different kinds of motivation.

(3) The need for learning. Most animals automatically, without learning, know how to communicate. Their systems of communication are genetically inbuilt. To acquire their language, humans need a long learning process.

(4) Duality. Animals that use vocal signals have a limited stock of basic sounds which vary according to species. The number of messages an animal can send is restricted to the number of basic sounds, or occasionally the basic sound plus a few simple combinations. Human languages work quite differently. Each language has a set of phonemes(their average number is in between 30 and 40). However, each phoneme is normally meaningless in isolation. To convey meanings, phonemes must be combined. This organization of language into two layers – the layer of sounds, and the layer of sound combinations – is known as duality, or double articulation.

(5) Displacement. Most animals can communicate about things in the immediate environment only. Human language, by contrast, can communicate about things that are absent as easily as about things that are present. This phenomenon is known as displacement.

(6) Creativity (Productivity). Most animals have a very limited number of messages they can send or receive. Besides, animals communicate about the same things over and over again, i.e. they repeat the same messages while ‘discussing’ the same ‘topics’. This type of restriction is not found in human language, which is essentially creative (or productive). The number of messages sent by humans is unlimited, as well as the number of topics they discuss. Humans can produce novel utterances whenever they want to.

(7) Patterning. Many animal communication systems consist of a simple list of elements. There is no internal organization within the system. Conversely, human language is grounded on regular patterns for combining sounds, morphemes or words. Therefore, human language can be regarded as an intricate network of interlinked elements in which every item is held in its place and given its identity by all the other items.

(8) Structure dependence. This feature, found only in human language, is grounded on patterning – the existence of language as a network of interlocking items. This network is involved in forming and understanding sentences: their meanings depend on understanding the initial structure of a sentence, rather than on the number of elements involved.

However, the recent studies of animal communication show that some features considered to be inherent only in human language (particularly, displacement and duality) can be also found in animals’ interaction.

(+ Aitchison, p. 18-19)

Functions of language

Language is used for various purposes: to refer to (designate) the objects of the physical world, to name (signify) the respective concepts, to communicate one’s thoughts, to accumulate information, to evoke aesthetic feelings, etc. In this case, linguistics says that language performs a number of functions.

· Referential function –language refers to (designates) the entities of the physical and non-physical world.

· Cognitive function –language signifies concepts in the mind, or mental representations of real or fictitious entities.

· Communicative function –language is the major tool of human interaction in which it performs:

phatic function – language provides socializing; it establishes, maintains, and disrupts social contact (e.g. greetings and farewells, small talk, etc.); according to recent findings, this is the major function performed by language;

informative function – language is used to convey information;

emotive function – language is used to express emotions; e.g. Oh! Gee!;

volitional function – language is used to expose the speaker’s willpower and intentions; e.g. requests, commands, orders, promises, etc.

The communicative functions are usually performed together, e.g. Get out of here! (phatic, informative, volitional, and emotive functions).

· Accumulative function –language accumulates and stores information.

· Aesthetic function –similarly to works of art (paintings, sculptures, movies, music, etc.), literary texts evoke aesthetic feelings.

 

Origin of language

The issue of the origin of language is considered by protolinguogenesis and glottogenesis.Protolinguogenesis attempts to describe the initial stages of language existence, to expose its proto-forms from which a number of particular languages developed. Protolinguogenesis, related to the genealogical classification of languages, is based on evidence – the linguistic forms of the reconstructed parent language. Glottogenesis centers on the hypotheses as to how human language began. Till present, such hypotheses do not have enough evidence to develop them into full-fledged theories.

Glottogenesis focuses on two questions: Where does human language come from? What were the initial words of language?

As to the source of language, it has been hypothesized that: (a) language was given to humans by God, Hero or Teacher; (b) language is a natural phenomenon inborn in human species; (c) language is a social phenomenon: it evolves through interaction among humans in the family or tribe; (d) language is an inborn faculty which can be activated and developed only in the society (the contemporary hypothesis).

The hypotheses about the initial words of language maintain that: (a) the first words imitated the sounds of nature (the Sound Imitation Hypothesis); (b) the first words were either physiological cries or rhythmic sounds which facilitated work (the Interjection Hypothesis); (c) people agreed about linking particular sounds to particular meanings (the Social Agreement Hypothesis); (d) the initial words appeared as both sound imitations and interjections; further, the social agreement came into play (the contemporary synthetic hypothesis).

At present, the problems of glottogenesis are considered within the framework of a new linguistic discipline which is termed biolinguistics and which borders on paleopsychology.