DESIGN FEATURES

OF
LANGUAGE
 1. Duality of Patterning

The ability of humans to use language in a

very economic way
Humans have the capacity to produce
unlimited vocabulary from a small, limited
set of speech sounds
 2. Displacement

Humans have a sense of the past and the

future
Humans have the ability to convey meaning
that transcends the immediately perceptible
sphere of space and time.
 3. Stimulus-freedom

Humans have the ability to say things they

like in any context
Limited in certain ceremonial contexts
 4. Arbitrariness

Words and their meanings have no a priori

connection
The meaning of a word cannot be based on the
sound structure of the word.
Language is not motivated
Some words are iconic-there is a direct connection
between form and meaning
e.g. a long, long time ago
onomatopoeic words
 5. The human vocal tract

Only humans are endowed with highly

sophisticated/complex speech organs that
enable us to produce the many differentiated
sounds.
 6. Recursion.

Sentences may be produced with other

sentences inside them through the process
called relativization (the use of relative
clause
e. g.
This is the boy that found the dog that
chased the cat that ate the chicken in the
kitchen.
7. Productive or creative (open-endedness)

The ability of the native speakers to

understand and produce any number of
sentences in their mother tongue; sentences
that have never been said before (novel
things).
 8. Social phenomenon

Language is a means of communication

between individuals
It brings them into relationship with their
environment
Language is a skill required as we grow in
society
 9. Complex

Languages are equally complex

Each language is a part of the culture that
produces it
Any language is as good as any other
No language is intrinsically better than any
other.