Introduction

In the 1960s, linguistic anthropologist Charles F. Hockett defined a set of features that
characterize human language and set it apart from animal communication. He called these
characteristics the design features of language. He said that if any one of these features is not
present in a communication then it is not a human language.
In order to analyse Hockett’s features and apply them on animal communications, we have taken
2 different videos. One video is about a talking dog named Mishka. Her owner claims that she
knows around 12 different English words like 'I love you', 'hello', 'I'm hungry' and responding
'no' when asked if she is stupid.
Our 2nd video is about a talking Raven who can utter different words like ‘hi’, ‘hello’ and mimic
coughing sounds. Although there are limited utterances but we can apply Hockett’s features on
this bird to distinguish it from normal human language.
MISHKA, THE TALKING HUSKY
Transcription of video
Video # 1
Interviewer: This nine year old Siberian husky seems to be speaking a language that is universal.
Mishka is a media mogul with her very own YouTube channel.
Matt (Trainer): I think people always want to connect with their dogs they have strong bonds
with them and to see a dog that can actually express its feelings or you know simulate the way
human expresses their feelings with saying I love you, three little words understood in so many
languages. She was always really talkative and like to howl so one time it sounded like I love
you so we said I love you back to her and she started mimicking in us.
Interviewer: And how many other things can she say?
Matt: Well over time we kind of train her to say hello how are you kinda and I want dinner she
kind of mixed it really I'm hungry.
Video # 2
Interviewer: here's Mishka and her owner Alena Guardi Kelly.
Alena (Trainer): We had her since she was a puppy and she always loved to sing and we started
saying I love you to her and she started saying it back.
Video # 3:
Matt: say Obama, Obama
Mishka: obamama
Matt: Mishka say hello
Mishka: wuwuwuwu
Matt: how are you?
Mishka: how ou wu
Matt: I love you
Mishka: I love wu
Matt: hello
Mishka: helloo
Alena: do you love me?
Mishka: I love wuwuwu
Alena: Are you stupid?
Mishka: nooo
Matt: thank you
Mishka: thank oo
Matt: Mishka say bye bye
Mishka: wuwu bye bye bye

Now by applying Hockett’s design features on Mishka’s speech we will try to find out that how
the speech used by this dog are different from human language.

1. Vocal-auditory channel:
The first characteristic of human language as proposed by Hockett is that the communication
takes place through vocal-auditory channel, this means that the Communicator speaks and
sounds are produced from the mouth and perceived by the auditory system of the receiver. In the
selected video the dog named Mishka is using the vocal-auditory channel. She is receiving
whatever her owner is telling her, and she is giving responses by using her vocals to produce
words. So first characteristic is present in her speech.

2. Rapid fading (transitoriness):

It means the message is temporary and does not persist. Signal lasts for a short time and fades
away. This feature is also present here, the words produced by Mishka fade away quickly just
like human speech.

3. Broadcast transmission; Directional reception:

It refers to the fact that in human communication the message goes out in all directions and the
receiver can tell that from what direction message is coming from. In the video Mishka is also
able to recognize the direction of the sound as she responds to that direction. In the last part of
the video when a lady is talking to her, Mishka recognizes the direction of the sound and answers
while facing the lady.

4. Interchangeability:
Individuals can be both senders and receivers i.e. transmitters can become receivers. Individuals
who use a language can both send and receive message within that communication system and
we can repeat any message as well. Mishka also seems to be able to send and receive a specific
message and she also repeats the messages of her owner e.g. she repeats the words like ‘ I love
you’ and ‘hello’ moreover she not only receives but also becomes the sender while replying to
the questions like ‘do you love me?’ and ‘are you hungry?’.

5. Total feedback
This means that users of a language can perceive what they are transmitting and can make
corrections if they make errors. The sender of a message also understands the message. I don’t
think that this feature is applicable on Mishka’s speech. She is not able to comprehend whatever
she utters as most of the words she uses are just mimicry of her owner’s speech. Moreover she
can’t judge her utterances or make corrections.

6. Specialization:
The signal produced is specialized for communication and is not the side effect of some other
behavior. We communicate just for the purpose of communication. Also this refers to the fact
that organs used for producing speech are specially adopted to perform that task, dogs, cats and
other animals are not physically capable to produce all the sounds because they lack specialized
organs. In case of Mishka we don’t find the aspect of specialization because like other dogs she
doesn’t have specialized speech organs and she is just producing sounds in a specific way which
sound like words. While answering some of the question she is simply producing sounds as all
dogs do. There is no communicative intent as in most of her utterances she is just making
specific sounds.

7. Semanticity:
There is a meaning behind every signal. Specific language signals represent specific meanings.
We can’t say that there is semanticity present in this case because there are some utterances
which only her owner can understand may be Mishka has associated particular sounds to reply to
her owner and she does the same every time.

8. Arbitrariness:
There is an arbitrary relationship between a signal and its meaning. That is, the signal is related
to the meaning by convention or by instinct but has no inherent relationship with the meaning.
There is no logical connection between the form of the signal or a word and its meaning. This
feature is present as there is no logical connection between the words and sounds and the
meaning they convey.
9. Discreteness
Discreteness refers to the uniqueness of the sounds used in human languages e.g., phonemes in
human language. Every phoneme has got distinct quality. Each of these sounds are different from
the rest and are combined to form new meanings. A sound can be repeated, or combined with
another to form a new meaning. Although Mishka is able to say some English words, but still she
is not able to distinguish between different phonemes. She is unable to change phonemic sounds
in words.

10. Displacement
It refers to the idea that humans can talk about things that are not physically present or that do
not even exist. Speakers can talk about the past and the future, and can express hopes and
dreams. A human's speech is not limited to here and now. Displacement is one of the features
that separates human language from other forms of primate communication. Mishka can only
utter those words which are required in a particular context, for instance, she will say ‘no’ when
her trainer will ask her that she is stupid or not, but she cannot talk about past and future events.

11. Productivity
Productivity refers to the human ability to combine limited linguistic signs to produce new
sentences and expressions. Animals are incapable of this as animal signals have fixed reference
whereas meanings of human signals can vary depending on the context and situation. Mishka can
only utter those words which she has learned from her trainer but she cannot produce new words
by herself by combining different phonemes.

12. Traditional transmission/Cultural transmission

While animals get their language genetically, human beings acquire language. Human languages
are passed down by the society in which one lives and grows up. Animals have innate language
and signal patterns. Although Mishka is able to learn few English language words but she cannot
pass down this language or few English words to other dogs.

13. Duality of patterning

Meaningful messages are made up of distinct smaller meaningful units (words and morphemes)
which themselves are made up of distinct smaller, meaningless units (phonemes). Human beings
have this ability to unite otherwise meaningless phonemes in specific order to give meaningful
utterances. Mishka do not show this ability of combining different sounds to produce a new word
other than those words which she has already learned from her trainer. Moreover her words are
not so much distinct like human words. When she says ‘I love you’, it seems like she is saying
‘aa ru woo’.

14. Prevarication
Prevarication is the ability to lie or deceive. When using language, humans can make false or
meaningless statements. This ability is also not present in Mishka because she cannot lie about
past events or cannot utter false statements. She can only give responses to what she is asked by
her owner.

15. Reflexiveness
Humans can use language to talk about language. Animals are unable to talk about their signs
and language. Mishka cannot reflect her thoughts about her language. She can neither talk about
her barks nor can she say anything about the English words which she has learned.

16. Learnability
Language is teachable and learnable. In the same way as a speaker learns their first language, the
speaker is able to learn other languages. Animals do learn human language to some extent. In
case of Mishka, she has succeeded in learning English language but this learning is only limited
to few words of English. Although she can also utter few sentences like ‘I love you’ and ‘I am
hungry’, but she can utter only few of these sentences which she has learned from her trainer.

Analysis:
It is clear that dogs have very limited comprehension and speaking abilities, but there are some
animals that can understand and react to the signals to some extent. Mishka is one of the
examples. She has limited ability to respond to few utterances and repeat few words as well. This
is because of her training, as her owner has taught her to speak certain words like Obama, hello,
bye, love, happy, thank you, hungry, good and no etc. It is important to notice that all the words
have similar sounds and most of them belong to the same syntactic category i.e. noun (words or
phrases in a language which share a significant number of common characteristics).
Mishka's owner has taught her few phrases and she responds with a howl and sometimes those
howls sound very similar to human speech for examples she makes sounds like ‘aa ru woo’
which sounds like “I love you”.
Moreover, all the words produced by her have a similar sounds like /ʊ/ and /uː/. She can only
produce words which have these particular sounds in them which resemble to the howling
sounds that such dogs usually produce. This also proves that her vocals and speech articulators
are designed to produce particular sounds.
She is mostly repeating the utterances of her owner in the video and when she produces sounds
owner tries to draw meanings out of it they are not very clear. So we can say that the element of
comprehension is very limited or not there because this can be a result of training and habit
formation she is used to it. In her other videos Mishka is using almost the same words with
similar sounds and she is following the same pattern in all videos.

Conclusion:
After exploring the communicative ability of Mishka and contrasting it with features of human
language designed by Hockett we can say that the communicative capacity of animals is still not
able to match the sophistication and productivity of human language. Although there are some
animals which seem to exhibit some forms of human language, animal and human
communication still can’t be compared. In the case of Mishka, for example, the answer to the
question that whether she is capable of communication is no.
In conclusion, the use of human language is only unique to us and it not only allow us to
communicate with one another but also allows us to form understandable sentences with a vast
variety. So we can say that human language is unique and more expressive than any other form
of communication found in other species. All debate proves the uniqueness of our language.

References:
Mishka says 12 words: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c8MMiytwNs
https://pages.uoregon.edu/redford/Courses/LING162/Handout_1.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrH3dDq31-A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znxDY-LyDhw