Anastâncio Luís Temóteo Machava

Emaculada Joaquim Churana

Hélder Augusto Fernando

Hermínio Rofino Macuacua

Animals and Human language - Communication systems or design features

Degree in English

Púnguè University
Chimoio
2022
 Anastâncio Luís Temóteo Machava

Emaculada Joaquim Churana

Hélder Augusto Fernando

Hermínio Rofino Macuacua

Animals and Human language - Communication systems or design features

General Linguistics Assignment to be

submitted to the Department of Linguistics
and Translation, for assessment purposes, 1st
year.

Lecturer: MSc. Derreck R. Mafelanjala

Púnguè University
Chimoio
2022
Indices
1. Introduction.............................................................................................................................3

1.1. Objectives........................................................................................................................3

1.1.1. General objective..................................................................................................3

1.1.2. Specific objectives................................................................................................3

1.2. Methodology...................................................................................................................3

2. Animals and Human language - Communication systems or design features........................4

2.1. Hockett Language and its design features.......................................................................4

2.3. Animals and Human language........................................................................................6

2.3.1. Animal Language..................................................................................................6

2.3.2. Comparison with human language........................................................................6

2.3.3. Gestures.................................................................................................................8

2.3.4. Infrasounds............................................................................................................8

2.3.5. Dolphins................................................................................................................9

2.3.7. Whistling...............................................................................................................9

2.3.8. Further Research.................................................................................................10

2.4. Design features..............................................................................................................10

2.4.1. About human language.......................................................................................10

2.4.2. Hockett’s design features....................................................................................11

2.4.3. Evaluation of Hockett’s design features.............................................................14

3. Conclusion............................................................................................................................15

4. Bibliographic References......................................................................................................16
 3

1. Introduction

The communication system is a system that describes the exchange of information between
two points. The process of transmitting and receiving information is called communication.
The main communication elements are the Information Transmitter, Channel or means of
communication and the Information Receiver. With this, the present work aims to address
content about animals and human language - communication systems or design features. This
work, therefore, aims to present language content in a concise summary of the evolutionary
background to the emergence of language as a distinctly human communication system by
first examining its nature, in terms of its particular characteristics and components when
compared to other systems. of animal communication.

1.1. Objectives
1.1.1. General objective
 Understand Animals and Human language - Communication systems or
design features.

1.1.2. Specific objectives

 Describe the language of animals and human language;
 Present the design features;
 Explain human and animal language.

1.2. Methodology

In order to carry out the work, it was necessary to consult sources in order to acquire
information that deals with the content under study. Such sources include physical manuals
that refer to books and works carried out previously and electronic manuals acquired via the
internet and their respective indicators are present on the last page of the work, where they are
scored as references.
 4

2. Animals and Human language - Communication systems or design features

2.1. Hockett Language and its design features

Hockett’s reflection on the design features of language can be divided into three phases: the
initial statement (1958 and 1959), which explains a comparative and cumulative approach to
defining language; the best known presentation from “The Origin of Speech” (1960) and the
most extensive one from “Logical considerations in the study of animal communication”
(1960;1977), where Hockett enumerates thirteen design properties and proceeds to discuss
them in an evolutionary framework; and later presentations (1966; 1968) with the most
extensive list of sixteen design features, in which his attention shifts from comparative
concerns to systemic properties of language.

2.2. Language evolution: a recent perspective

Evolution of language (or: language evolution) is best described as a research area unified by

a common goal: to explain the emergence and subsequent development of the species-specific
ability of human beings to acquire and use language. It should be distinguished from both
historical linguistics and a narrower notion of the evolution of languages (plural), the latter
being a quasi-evolutionary, long term historical change in modern-day linguistic systems.
Short introductory texts include papers by Christiansen and Kirby (2003), Fitch (2002), and
Hurford (2003); more recently, a handbook (Tallerman and Gibson 2011), as well as
textbooks (Johansson 2005), and monographs (Fitch 2010) have become available.

Language evolution is a continuation of the inquiries launched by former generations of

philosophers and philologists, aimed at explaining the origin of language. Nonetheless, the
raison d’être of the field is making itself qualitatively different from all such previous
attempts: by its drawing on interdisciplinary empirical research, its fully naturalistic,
biologically-oriented framework, its increasing reliance on formalism, and its focus, for the
most part, on the cognitive side of language use.

As such, it is a relatively recent perspective that has nevertheless gained considerable

momentum over the last two decades (possible to measure quantitatively). Contrary to some
commentators, research on language origins was not nearly absent between the famous 1866
“ban” of the Linguistic Society of Paris and the 1990. Gordon Hewes (one of the pioneers of
modern-style language evolution research and a proponent of an early version of the gesture-
 5

first hypothesis) lists ten or so works related to language origins for every intervening decade
(Hewes 1996).

The symbolic caesura is often put at 1990, with the influential paper by Pinker and Bloom
(1990). In 1991, Kendon symptomatically states:

Discussion of the problem of language origins has by now become quite widespread
and certainly highly informed. It may still not be fully respectable; and many still
regard it as, at best, a kind of intellectual game. If this is what it is, it is nevertheless a
much more interesting and challenging game than it once was, and it provides a focus
through which a wide range of highly diverse fields of knowledge and theory may be
brought into relationship with one another. (Kendon 1991: 202)

Why, then, was it the 1990s that saw the breakthrough? Before we have mentioned the
“cognitive turn” and the “adaptive turn”, which we may call the Chomskyan factor and
the Kuhnian factor, but they were complemented by the empirical factor. The qualitative
transition from the “intellectual game” of guessing and telling “just-so stories” to a more
scientific enterprise was only made possible by major advances in the availability of empirical
data bearing on the question of language origins.

The main contributing disciplines have been comparative studies on animal communication,
animal cognition , neurosciences, speech physiology (Fitch 2000), genetics, mathematical and
computational modelling, experimental psychology, gesturology and sign language studies,
and paleoanthropology and archaeology.

It is worth noting that language evolution research continues to change dynamically.

Traditionally, a majority view in the field has been that “language evolved from animal
cognition, not from animal communication” (Ulbaek 1998: 33), through gradualistic
Darwinian selection (Pinker and Bloom 1990).

However, recent research has led to important revisions, extensions, or even challenges to that
dominant position (Dor and Jablonka 2014).

For example, attention to factors such as multilevel selection, niche construction or epigenetic
inheritance has played an increasing role in enhancing the Darwinian paradigm in the spirit of
the extended synthesis (cf. Pigliucci 2009).
 6

Also, the role of culture and cultural evolution has been of growing importance within
language evolution studies. Critical to those debates is the foundational question of the nature
of language: while influential scholars have argued for a very narrow delineation of this term
(Hauser et al. 2002), most those in the field see language as a complex (or mosaic—
Hurford 2003) of cognitive skills, or an even more multifaceted phenomenon, grounded in but
transcending individual cognition. All of this shows promise for the integration of the
language evolution research within larger scale theoretical frameworks (cf. e.g.
Barbieri 2010).

2.3. Animals and Human language

2.3.1. Animal Language

While the name “Animal Language” might be a little of misnomer since there has not been a
single animal language that manages to fulfil all of Hockett’s design feature (even excluding
the ones that were deemed as unnecessary in definition above), it serves as a good collective
name for animal communication as a whole, and allows for easy comparison with what we
term human language. However, it is important to note that animals can convey various
message to each other. For example, to give warnings or to express their emotions such as
anger and fear.

In addition, animals communicate to locate food sources as well as their desire to willingness
to mate. Thus, a more accurate term for animal language would be animal communication.
The communicative capacity of animals is still not able to match the sophistication and
productivity of human language. This section thus explores the communicative ability of
animals, contrasting it with features of human language, as designated by Hockett.

2.3.2. Comparison with human language

Since the 1960s when Hockett first described a set of 13 features defining human language
and how these features putatively made it distinct from other forms of animal communication,
advances the study of animal communication have also revealed closer similarities with some
of Hockett’s design features of language.

a) Honeybees

Apis mellifera commonly known as the domestic honey bee is a colonial insect living in hives
that are made up of one queen (a fertile female), a few drones (males) and thousands of
 7

workers (infertile females). The workers are responsible for foraging for food namely nectar
and pollen as well as tending to the young (2014).

German ethologist Karl von Frisch’s (1886–1982) theorized that bees communicate the
distance and the direction of food sources to each other via two kinds of dances: the round
dance and tail-waggle dance (Munz, T. 2005), therefore indicating that bees exhibit a form of
displacement when communicating with each other.

b) Round Dance

Round dance is usually performed when bees find food source which are less than 50 meters
from their hives. Bees will run around in narrow circles before reversing direction to their
original course. This may be repeated a few times at the same location or move to another
location on the comb. Although a round dance communicates distance, it does not reflect the
direction (R. Tarpy, D., n.d.).

c) Waggle Dance

Bees will perform the waggle dance in the shape of figure-eights when returning from sources
which are located farther than 75 meters from their hives. Von Frisch mentioned that the
frequency of turns in the dances varied inversely with the distance of foods while the straight
runs of the dances indicated their direction of the food. He also found out that bees can detect
polarized light and thus, oriented their dances and foraging flights with respect to the sun. Due
to the directional information that is based upon the sun’s position, a forager’s dance for a
particular resource will change during a day. (Munz, T., 2005).

d) Vervet Monkeys

In addition, warning calls by the vervet monkey exhibit some level of semanticity as they
produce distinctly different calls depending on the type of predator seen (Vagell, 2011).

According to a 1980 experiment by Robert Seyfarth, Dorothy Cheney and Peter Marler, alarm
calls for different types of predators sounded distinctly different and each call was able to
elicit a distinct defensive response. When the leopard call was played, the subjects ran up into
the trees while when eagle call were played, subjects looked up and run out of trees into lower
bushes.
 8

When snake calls were played, subjects immediately stood on their hind legs and looked on
the ground around them. Their calls however, show a lack of productivity as they only make
warning calls that reflect the present situation and not in the past.

e) Elephants

In 2006, keepers at Seoul’s Everland zoo were surprised when they heard Kosik, a 16-year-
old elephant, talk. He had learned to talk by putting its trunk in its mouth and mimicking the
words it heard from its caretakers: “yes,” “no,” “lie down,” “sit down,” and four other phrases
in Korean. Scientists say that through Kosik they might be able to prove that elephants are
capable of learning language, although it is unlikely that he understands the meaning of the
words he expresses (Ilbonito, 2015). Such an occurrence is considerably rare and usually
elephants will communicate by using gestures as well as “infrasounds” as explained below.

2.3.3. Gestures

Biologist and conservationist Joyce Poole and her husband, Petter Granli, both of whom
direct ElephantVoices, a charity they founded to research and advocate for conservation of
elephants in various sanctuaries in Africa, have developed an online database decoding
hundreds of distinct elephant signals and gestures. Poole and Granli have also deciphered the
meaning of acoustic communication in elephants. Below are two forms of gestures that
elephants commonly perform.

Aggression: Normally in such an aggressive stance, an elephant will hold its head well above
its shoulders and with tusks lifted, direct its gaze at its provoker. An elephant may also
increase its height by standing on a log or an anthill to assume greater stature, an approach
used by males when they’re sizing each other up.

Death: Elephants are empathetic towards one another by holding funerals for the dead
(Wolchover, 2012).  Elephants will try to rouse an injured or fallen elephants by using their
tusks and trunk to try and feed a dead elephant, or appear to lift or even carry sick, dying, or
dead elephants (Poole et al., 2015).

2.3.4. Infrasounds

A team of voice researchers and biologists led by Christian Herbst, Angela Stoeger and
Tecumseh Fitch has discovered that elephants produce “infrasounds” which are very low
 9

frequency sounds, far from the hearing compatibility of the average human being.  One
possibility as to how “infrasounds” are produced is when the elephants tense and relax the
muscles in their larynx for each pulse of sound.

Another possibility is that they are produced like human speech or singing. Because the
elephant larynx is so large, they are extremely low in frequency. The “infrasounds” can travel
several kilometers and provide elephants with a “private” communication medium that plays a
pivotal role in elephants’ complex social life.

2.3.5. Dolphins

Dolphins are highly sociable creatures, with a large brain relative to their body mass. Looking
at the figure below, we see how the expansion of the dolphin’s brain almost mirrors that of
human beings with the introduction of a form of communication and socializing propelling it
to growth. Most dolphins produce a variety of sounds described as clicks, whistles, buzzes,
squawks, screams and barks. Half a century of research has been dedicated to trying to
decipher the languages that dolphins use, with not much progress. (Herzing, 1996).

Scientists have not been able to determine the units that make up what might be an actual
dolphin language. In recent times however, technology has allowed for the advancement of
such research. Scientists have invented CHAT (cetacean hearing and telemetry), a machinery
designed to not only record dolphins, but also produce their signature sounds as well other
sounds that are dolphin-liked in nature. While at present, we are still in the dark about the
possible language that the dolphins might hold, we know a decent amount of what their
communication is capable of.

2.3.6. Clicking Noises In Isolation

The echolocation sounds are short, broadband pulses (Evans, 1973) which are produced in
low repetition rate trains or in high repetition rate bursts. Bursts of pulses can be used during
prey capture (Verfuss et al., 1996) and during hostile interactions (Blomqvist & Amundin,
1998).

The bottlenose dolphin uses echolocation clicks with a peak frequency between 115 and 121
kHz when recorded in open waters (Au, 1993).

This mode of communication allows dolphins to navigate, recognize their friends and foes as
well as escape from obstacles (Mary Cerullo, 2013).
 10

2.3.7. Whistling

Whistles consist of narrow-band tones of constant frequency (CF) or tones that vary in
frequency. Harmonic components are normally present (Popper, 1988).

Dolphins use whistles to maintain contact within their pod or when meeting other pods of
dolphins. Their whistles may indicate danger or a cry for help. Scientists think that each
dolphin has its own unique whistle, almost akin to our names. Whistles may also help
dolphins hunt cooperatively and coordinate migratory movements.

2.3.8. Further Research

Even though much research has been done on animal communication, more can be done to
understand how and why different modes of vocalizations come about. One way to do so is to
study the behaviour of animals in tightly knit social groups, such as dolphins and whales.
According to biologist Kathy Heise, resident killer whale communication is distinctly
different from transient killer whales.

The mode of communication employed by one group of whales does not seem to be mutually
intelligible with the other. Future research on these “dialects” differing from family to family
could help shed light on why dialect groups exist in human languages. To date, humans have
not been able to fully bridge the gap with naturally sociable animals such as whales. Instead
of trying to teach animals human language to understand how animals process language,
humans could try to imitate and manipulate the sounds of animal vocalizations to see how
these animals react to it.

By manipulating and observing how animals react to these stimuli could help us eventually
understand the exact meaning of their vocalizations. During a joint project by Australian
telecommunications company Optus and the Humpback Acoustic Research Collaboration, a
chamber orchestra was placed out in the sea while imitating sounds of a whale song, drawing
the attention of curious humpback whales (Macleod, 2009).

This shows us that there is the possibility of employing music as a communicative tool to
bridge the language gap between animals and humans in order to shed some light on the
acoustic properties of language.

2.4. Design features

2.4.1. About human language
 11

Language is a system of communication uniquely associated with humans and distinguished

by its capacity to express complex ideas. Notably, studies analysing the various features of
human language have informed our understanding of language as a distinctly human trait.
Specifically, language is thought to possess a highly structured system of encoding and
representing concepts through either speech sounds or manual gestures, depending on whether
they are spoken or signed. Likewise, studies which have attempted to methodically dissect
this system of human communication into various parts, or components, have informed our
understanding of the reasons for the immense expressive power of language. We’ll start off
with a featural analysis of what defines a language, followed by an evaluation of these
features with a specific focus on how human language can be compared to animal
communication.

2.4.2. Hockett’s design features

In 1960, the linguistic anthropologist Charles Francis Hockett conducted a pioneering featural

study of language. In the study, he listed 13 design features that he deemed to be universal
across the world’s languages. More importantly, these features distinguished human language
from animal communication. While the first 9 features could also match primate
communications, the last 4 were solely reserved for human language. Later on, Hockett added
another 3 features that he saw as unique to human language. Thus, it can be said that human
language share a general set of features that help set it apart from communication among
animals.

a) Vocal-Auditory Channel

With the exception of signed languages, natural language is vocally transmitted by speakers
as speech sounds and auditorily received by listeners as speech waves. Although writing and
sign language both utilize the manual-visual channel, the expression of human language
primarily occurs in the vocal-auditory channel.

b) Broadcast Transmission and Directional Reception

Language signals (i.e. speech sounds) are emitted as waveforms, which are projected in all
directions (‘broadcasted into auditory space’), but are perceived by receiving listeners as
emanating from a particular direction and point of origin (the vocalising speaker).

c) Transitoriness
 12

Language signals are considered temporal as sound waves rapidly fade after they are uttered;
this characteristic is also known as rapid fading. In other words, this temporal nature of
language signals requires humans to receive and interpret speech sounds at their time of
utterance, since they are not subsequently recoverable.

d) Interchangeability

Humans can transmit and receive identical linguistic signals, and so are able to reproduce any
linguistic message they understand. This allows for the interlocutory roles of ‘speaker’ and
‘listener’ to alternate between the conversation’s participants via turn taking within the
context of linguistic communication.

e) Total Feedback

Humans have an ability to perceive the linguistic signals they transmit i.e. they have
understanding of what they are communicating to others. This allows them to continuously
monitor their actions and output to ensure they are relaying what they are trying to express.

f) Specialization

Language signals are emitted for the sole purpose of communication, and not any other
biological functions such as eating. In other words, language signals are intentional, and not
just a side effect of another behaviour.

Contrasting example: Biological functions which may have a communicative side effect:
such as a panting dog which hangs out its tongue to cool off (biological), may simultaneously
indicate to its owner that it is feeling hot or thirsty (communicative).

g) Semanticity

Specific language signals represent specific meanings; the associations are ‘relatively fixed’.
An example is how a single object is represented by different language signals i.e. words in
different languages. In French, the word sel represents a white, crystalline substance
consisting of sodium and chlorine atoms. Yet in English, this same substance is represented
by the word salt. Likewise, the crying of babies may, depending on circumstance, convey to
its parent that it requires milk, rest or a change of clothes.

h) Arbitrariness
 13

There is no intrinsic or logical connection between the form of specific language signals and
the nature of the specific meanings they represent. Instead, the signal and the meaning are
linked by either convention or instinct.

Contrasting example: Conveyance of aggression in crabs – strongly threatened crabs express

their potential intention to fight by raising their front claw, which is partially iconic given that
crabs use their craw pincers to attack prey and defend against predators.

i) Discreteness

Language signals are composed of basic units and are perceived as distinct and individuated.
These units may be further classified into distinct categories. These basic units can be put in
varying order to represent different meanings. The change in meaning is abrupt, and rarely
continuous.

j) Displacement

Displacement also includes prevarication, which is the ability to lie or produce utterances

which do not correspond with reality. Language signals may be used to convey ideas about
things not physically or temporally present at the time of the communicative event such as a
topic that is linked to the past or future.

k) Productivity

Productivity is also called openness or creativity.  It entails reflexiveness, the ability of

language to be used to talk about language. Humans can use language to understand and
produce an indefinite number of novel utterances.

l) Cultural Transmission

Although humans are born with the innate ability to learn language, they learn (a) particular
linguistic system(s) as their native language(s) from elders in their community. In other
words, language is socially transmitted from one generation to the next, and a child reared in
isolation does not acquire language.

m) Duality of Patterning
 14

The discrete speech sounds of a language combine to form discrete morphological units,
which do not have meaning in itself. These morphemes have to be further combine to form
meaningful words and sentences.

2.4.3. Evaluation of Hockett’s design features

While Hockett’s list of design features may appear comprehensive, it contains three key
limitations. Firstly, Hockett’s list is drawn up from the narrow perspective of spoken
language. However, human language can be expressed in both the audio-vocal (spoken) and
visuo-manual (sign) modes: sign languages are equally complex and fully grammatical
linguistic systems (Stokoe, 2005).

As Corballis (2009, p. 22) notes, there is growing evidence that the signed languages of the
deaf have all of the grammatical and semantic sophistication of spoken languages, as
exemplified by the fact that university-level instruction at Gallaudet University in
Washington, DC, is conducted entirely in American Sign Language (ASL).

Therefore, his first two features, the vocal-auditory channel and broadcast transmission and
directional reception, are only relevant to the auditory nature of spoken language, and cannot
be strictly considered necessary to human language. Secondly, Hockett’s list is a plain
compilation of all discernible features of human language; it does not indicate which features
are critical to the linguistic system of communication.  For example, the sixth and seventh
features of specialization and semanticity are likely to be properties of all natural systems
that have developed for communication, rather than human language per se.

Thirdly, Hockett’s list includes many features that relate to the physical characteristics and
production of linguistic signs (either via speech or gestures), rather than language as a
communicative tool per se. For example, the third and fifth features of transitoriness and total
feedback appear to be more relevant to the physical, rather than semiotic, properties of the
speech sounds and gestures used in spoken and sign languages.

In other words, the fact that sound waves and physical gestures are spatially transmitted
makes them necessarily transitory and perceptible to the producer at the same time. Also, the
fourth feature of interchangeability similarly appears more relevant to the physical ability of
 15

language users to imitate or reproduce the speech sounds or gestural signs used in spoken and
sign languages, rather than their cognitive ability to use these signs communicatively.

This therefore leaves only six main features: arbitrariness, discreteness, displacement,
productivity, cultural transmission and duality of patterning. However, in order to understand
how these features are crucial to human language as a system of communication, a
componential analysis the focus of our next section is in order.

3. Conclusion

With the completion of this work, we could see that human language is learned, generative,
creative, symbolic and abstract, since it does not refer only to present things, but also to
absent things. It is an unlimited language and can express almost anything (desires, emotions,
thoughts, etc.). It is extremely variable because each country has its own language and also
has regional variations. Language is not just a means of communication for human beings: it
is the horizon within which a culture is born and lives.

Language is a potentiality that exists in each individual. On the other hand, animals
communicate thanks to a system of signs, whose repertoire is exclusive to each species.
Animal language is innate, limited, since it is limited to articulated sounds, it does not go
beyond the level of the concrete and the immediate, it only expresses the basic needs of food
and reproduction. No matter how intelligent the animal is to communicate, they only have
their natural and instinctive means. The different sounds reflect the genesis of animal
language as products of nature. Language is present as a social object.
 16

4. Bibliographic References
 Fitch, W. T. (2000). The evolution of speech: a comparative review, Trends in
Cognitive Sciences 4(7): 258-267.
 Fitch, W. T. (2007). The Evolution of Language: A Comparative Perspective,
in Oxford Handbook of Psycholinguistics, edited by G. Gaskell. Oxford University
Press, Oxford.
 Givón, T. (2002). Bio-Linguistics: The Santa Barbara Lectures. Benjamins:
Amsterdam.
 Hockett, C. F. (1960). The Origin of Speech, Scientific American 203: 88–111. 
 Jenkins, L. (1999). Biolinguistics: Exploring the Biology of Language. Cambridge
University Press, New York.
 Kershenbaum, A. E. Bowles, T. M. Freeberg, D. Z. Jin, A. R. Lameira, K. Bohn
(2014). Animal vocal sequences: not the Markov chains we thought they were.
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
 Kilneremail, J. M., & Lemon, R. N. (2013). What We Know Currently about
Mirror Neurons.
 Kirby, S., Cornish, H., & Smith, K. (2008). Cumulative cultural evolution in the
laboratory: An experimental approach to the origins of structure in human
language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of
America 105 (31): 10681-10686
 Kuthy, K. D. (2001, September 28). Arbitrariness in Language.
 Pinker, S. (2010). The cognitive niche: Coevolution of intelligence, sociality, and
language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107 (2): 8993–8999