Human Language, Characteristics &

Differences from Animals Language

 Objectives of the Chapter
• The chapter will provide answers to following
questions:
• Is it possible that a creature could learn to
communicate with humans using language?
• does human language have properties that
make it so unique that it is quite unlike any
other communication system and hence
unlearnable by any other creature?
 Can Animals talk??
• There are a lot of stories about creatures that
can talk
• They are fantasy or fiction characters
• Animals simply imitate something they have
heard humans say
• creatures are capable of communicating,
certainly with other members of their own
• species.
 Communication
• Human communication as well as language
differs from animals in many ways.
• Communicative signals: (behavior used
• intentionally to provide information)
• Informative signals (behavior that provides
• information, usually unintentionally)
• Human beings communicate using both
signals whereas animals use only former
 Properties of Human Language
• Reflexivity: using language to think and talk
about language itself
• All creatures communicate in some way as
human beings.
• But other creatures do not reflect on the way
they create their communicative messages
• One barking dog does not advice the other
barking dog saying: “Hey, you should lower your
bark to make it sound more alarming”
• Humans are clearly able to reflect on language
and its uses.
 Displacement
• Understanding the message beyond time & place
• Animal communication seems to be designed for
current time & place (Cat Meows )
• Animal can not talk about events from past
• When your dog says GRRR, it means GRRR, right now
• Humans can refer to past and future time.
• Displacement allows us to talk about things & places
whose existence cannot be sure (angels, superman)
• Only honey bees do have this property (dance to
locate a place)
 Arbitrariness
• The relation between a linguistic form & its
meanings is arbitrary & there is no natural
connection
• Word “Kalab” & “dog” do not have inherent
relationship with “hairy four-legged barking
object”
• Change in the relationship between linguistic sign
& objet is called arbitrariness
• Onomatopoeic words are less arbitrary
• Animals lack arbitrariness as the set of signals
used in communication is finite.
 Productivity
• creativity: open-endedness
• Humans are continually creating new expressions
and novel utterances by manipulating their
linguistic resources to describe new objects and
situations.
• Number of utterances in any language is infinite
• Animals have limited vocal signals: monkey: 36
• Animals cannot create new signals: even honey bee
would fail to communicate the location if it is new
• Animal communication is described in terms of
fixed reference
 Cultural transmission
• We acquire a language in a culture with other speakers
and not from parental genes. A Korean born child
brought up in UK would speak English not Korean
• The process whereby a language is passed on from one
generation to the next is described as cultural
transmission.
• We are not born with the ability to produce utterances
in a specific language but acquire our first language as
children in a culture.
• Animals are born with signals patterns that are
instinctive
 Duality
• Human language is organized at two levels or
layers simultaneously
• We have distinct sounds at one level and
distinct meanings at other level
• Level 1: /n/, /b/ and /i/: no intrinsic meaning
• Level 2: In words bin & nib, sounds combine in
different pattern & give different meanings
• With a limited set of discrete sounds, we can
produce infinite no of words.
• In animal language, duality does not exist.