Lesson 2

Animals and
Human Language
What’s for this lesson?

Communicative
and Informative
Signals

Five Properties
of Human
Language
One evening, in the mid-1980s, my
wife and I were returning from an
evening cruise around Boston Harbor
and decided to take a waterfront
stroll.
We were passing in front of the
Boston Aquarium when a gravelly
voice yelled out, “Hey! Hey! Get outta
there!” Thinking we had mistakenly
wandered somewhere we were not
allowed, we stopped and looked
around.
We stopped and looked around for a
security guard or some other official,
but saw no one, and no warning
signs. Again, the voice boomed, “Hey!
Hey you!”
As we tracked the voice, we found
ourselves approaching a large, glass-
fenced pool in front of the aquarium
where four harbor seals were
lounging on display.
Incredulous, I traced the source of the
command to a large seal reclining
vertically in the water, with his head
extended back and up, his mouth
slightly open, rotating slowly.
A seal was talking, not to me, but to
the air, and incidentally to anyone
within earshot who cared to listen.

~Deacon (1997)
Can dogs really
understand humans?

Is human language so
unique that is
unlearnable by other
creatures?
Communicative
and Informative
Signals
 Communicative Signals
•Intentional signals
•Examples:
✓ When you tell an HR manager “I’d like to
apply for a vacant position.”
✓ When you ask your friend “What time is it?”
✓ A dog barking loudly to a stranger on the
gate.
✓ When you share a quote on FB.
 Informative Signals
•Unintentional signals
•Examples:
✓ You sneezed
✓ You shifted around in your seat
✓ You’re sweating before a public speech
✓ You have a strange accent
Both animal and
human language have
the potential to
communicate
intentionally and
unintentionally.
Properties
of Human
Language
 Displacement Arbitrariness

Six
Properties Cultural
Productivity
of Human Transmission

Language
Duality Reflexivity
(1) Displacement

• Humans can talk about

the past and future
times.
• It even allows us to talk
about things and places
whose existence we
cannot be even sure of.
Exception:
• Bee communication have some form of
displacement.
• When a honeybee finds a source of nectar and
returns to the beehive, it can perform a
complex dance routine to communicate with
the others where the feast can be found.
• Not: That delicious rose bush on the other side
of town that we visited last weekend.
(2) Arbitrariness

•There is no natural
connection
between a
linguistic form and
its meaning.
(3) Productivity
•Refers to creativity or
open-endedness
•Humans are capable
to continually create
new expressions and
novel utterances to
describe new objects
and situations.
(3) Productivity
•Muffin top
•Photobomber
•Selfie
•Shoefie
•Mukbang
•Hangry
(3) Productivity
•This means that the
potential number of
utterances in any
human language is
infinite.
(4) Cultural
Transmission
•The process
whereby a
language is passed
on from one
generation to the
next.
(5) Duality
•Humans process
their speeches at
two levels:
1. We have
distinct sounds
2. We have
distinct
meanings
/b/ /a/ /g/

/bag/
(6) Reflexivity

•The ability to talk about

language.
 Watch the video I
Homework uploaded for the
instructions in your
assignment.