LANGUAGE AND HUMANS

Features of Human Language by Hockett

Hockett isolated 13 features that characterize human language and which

distinguish it from other communication systems. The following diagram graphically
represents each of the thirteen features. Each feature is numbered and listed below the
diagram, along with a more developed discussion of the feature.
1. Vocal-auditory channel -- This means that the standard human language
occurs as a vocal (making sounds with the mouth) type of communication which
is perceived by hearing it. There are obvious exceptions: writing and sign
language are examples of communication in the manual-visual channel.
However, the vast majority of human languages occur in the vocal-auditory
channel as their basic mode of expression. Writing is a secondary, and
somewhat marginal form of language, while sign languages are in limited use,
mostly among deaf people who are limited in their ability to use the auditory part
of the vocal-auditory channel.

2. Broadcast transmission and directional reception -- This means that the

human language signal is sent out in all directions, while it is perceived in a
limited direction. For spoken language, the sound perpetuates as a waveform
that expands from the point of origin (the mouth) in all directions. This is why a
person can stand in the middle of a room and be heard by everyone (assuming
they are speaking loudly enough). However, the listener hears the sound as
coming from a particular direction and is notably better at hearing sounds that are
coming from in front of the them than from behind them.

3. Rapid fading (Transitoriness) -- This means that the human language signal
does not persist over time. Speech waveforms fade rapidly and cannot be heard
after they fade. This is why it is not possible to simply say "hello" and have
someone hear it hours later. Writing and audio-recordings can be used to record
human language so that it can be recreated at a later time, either by reading the
written form, or by playing the audio-record.

4. Interchangeability -- This means that the speaker can both rreceive and
broadcast the same signal. This is distinctive from some animal communications
such as that of the stickle fish. The stickle fish make auditory signals based on
gender (basically, the males say "I'm a boy" and the females say "I'm a girl").
However, male fish cannot say "I'm a girl," although they can perceive it. Thus,
stickle fish signals are not interchangeable.

5. Total feedback -- this means that the speaker can hear themselves speak and
can monitor their language performance as they go. This differs from some other
simple communication systems, such as traffic signals. Traffic signs are not
normally capable of monitor their own functions (a red light can't tell when the
bulb is burned out, i.e.).

6. Specialization -- This means that the organs used for producing speech are
specially adapted to that task. The human lips, tongue, throat, etc. have been
specialized into speech apparati instead of being merely the eating apparati they
are in many other animals. Dogs, for example, are not physically capable of all of
the speech sounds that humans produce, because they lack the necessary
specialized organs.
7. Semanticity -- This means that specific signals can be matched with specific
meanings. This is a fundamental aspect of all communication systems. For
example, in French, the word sel means a white, crystalline substance consisting
of sodium and chlorine atoms. The same substance is matched with the English
word salt. Anyone speaker of these languages will recognize that the
signal sel or salt refers to the substance sodium chloride.

8. Arbitrariness -- This means that there is no necessary connection between the

form of the signal and the thing being referred to. For example, something as
large as a whale can be referred to by a very short word. Similarly, there is no
reason that a four-legged domestic canine should be called a dog and not
a chien or a perro or an anjing (all words for 'dog' in other languages).
Onomatopoeic words such as "meow" or "bark" are often cited as counter-
examples, based on the argument that they are pronounced like the sound they
refer to. However, the similarity if very loose (a dog that actually said "bark"
would be very surprising) and does not always hold up across languages
(Spanish dogs, for example, say "guau"). So, even onomatopoeic words are, to
some extent, arbitrary.

9. Discreteness -- This means that the basic units of speech (such as sounds) can
be categorized as belonging to distinct categories. There is no gradual,
continuous shading from one sound to another in the linguistics system, although
there may be a continuum in the real physical world. Thus speakers will perceive
a sound as either a [p] or a [b], but not as blend, even if physically it falls
somewhere between the two sounds.

10. Displacement -- This means that the speaker can talk about things which are
not present, either spatially or temporally. For example, human language allows
speakers to talk about the past and the future, as well as the present. Speakers
can also talk about things that are physically distant (such as other countries, the
moon, etc.). They can even refer to things and events that do not actually exist
(they are not present in reality) such as the Easter Bunny, the Earth having an
emperor, or the destruction of Tara in Gone with the Wind.

11. Productivity -- This means that human languages allow speakers to create
novel, never-before-heard utterances that others can understand. For example,
the sentence "The little men who live in my socks-drawer told me that Evis will
come back from Mars on the 10th and will set all the politicians of India right." is a
novel and never-heard-before sentence (at least, I hope it is!), but any fluent
speaker of English would be able to understand it (and realize that the speaker
was not completely sane, at least for his noble wish).

12. Traditional Transmission -- This means that human language is not something
inborn. Although humans are probably born with an ability to do language, they
must learn, or acquire, their native language from other speakers. This is
different from many animal communication systems where the animal is born
 knowing their entire system, e.g. bees are born knowing how to dance and some
birds are born knowing their species of bird-songs (this is not true of all birds).

13. Duality of patterning -- This means that the discrete parts of a language can be
recombined in a systematic way to create new forms. This idea is similar to
Productivity (Feature 11). However, Productivity refers to the ability to generate
novel meanings, while Duality of patterning refers to the ability to recombine
small units in different orders.

Halliday’s Language Functions

Halliday (1978) proposed that there are 7 stages or functions of a child's speech.
These are as follows.
1. Instrumental function - language that is used to fulfil a need, such as to obtain
food, drink or comfort. This typically includes concrete nouns.
2. Regulatory function - language that is used to influence the behaviour of others
including persuading, commanding or requesting.
3. Interactional function - language that is used to develop relationships and ease
interaction. This could include phrases like "I love you mummy" or "Thank you".
4. Personal function - language that expresses personal opinions, attitudes and
feelings including a speaker's identity.
5. Representational/Informative function- language that is used
to relay or request information.
6. Heuristic function - language that is used to explore, learn and discover. This
could include questions or a running commentary of a child's actions.
7. Imaginative function - the use of language to tell stories and create imaginary
constructs. This typically accompanies play or leisure activities.

Animal Language
Animals can convey various message to each other, such as:
 feelings (anger, fear)
 warnings
 desire/willingness to mate
 location of food sources
Honeybee Dance
 Dance to communicate
 Dance communicates direction and distance to food source
 Not entirely arbitrary
Birdcalls and Bird Songs
Birdcalls (one note)
 messages about surroundings
 Bird songs (patterns of notes)
 territorial purposes
 mating purposes
Birds and Human Language
Some birds can imitate human speech. Is this language?
 cannot learn structure
 cannot create novel utterances
 imitate sounds regardless of source

Animal Communication

Animal communication is "the transmission of a signal from one animal to

another such that the sender benefits, on average, from the response of the recipient".

Natural Animal Communication

 Chemical signals (used by some very simple creatures, including protozoa),

smell (related to chemical signals, eg. pheromones attract, skunk secretions
repel), touch, movement, posture (eg. dogs, geese), facial gestures (eg. dogs
snarling), visual signals (eg. feathers), sound (eg. many vertebrate and
invertebrate calls).
 Such signals are designed to:
 Attract (especially mates)
Repel (especially competitors or enemies)
Signal aggression or submission
Advertise species
Warn of predators
Communicate about the environment or the availability of food.

How Animals Communicate

Examples:

 Most animals (including people) use body language as well as sound and smell
in order to communicate with one another. Here are some ways animals express
themselves.

They release pheromones (airborne chemicals) to send messages to others.

 Pheromones play an important part in reproduction and other social behavior.
 Bees dance when they have found nectar. The scout bee will dance in the hive,
and the dance directs other bees to the location of the nectar.

Chimpanzees greet each other by shaking hands.

Male fiddler crabs wave their giant claw to attract female fiddler crabs.

White-tailed deer show alarm by flicking up their tails.

Dogs stretch their front legs out in front of them and lower their bodies when they
want to play.

Consciousness in Animals

Some levels of consciousness in animals have already been acknowledged,

notably by considering sleep/awakeness as a modulator of the level of consciousness.
There are however strong scientific arguments in favour of extending such statement to
the contents of consciousness, including perceptual, emotional, cognitive, and
metacognitive capacities. There are at least three issues that make this task a
challenging one:
1. The absence of narrative language in animals can be overcome by developing
appropriate behavioural tests and comparative analysis of brain responses ;
2. The term „animals‟ includes a large diversity of species, vertebrate and
invertebrate, living in different environments. In that context, one might anticipate
that consciousness may take different forms among species ;
3. Most of the reported studies have not been originally designed to analyse
consciousness in animals. Nevertheless, they can be discussed in relation to it.

The Properties of Animal Consciousness

They have been analysed along five main domains:

Emotions are defined as modulators of cognitive capacities involving changes in

attention, judgement learning, or memory. The empirical proof that emotional responses
occur in animals does not imply that they are systematically associated with
consciousness. However, many animals, including fish, are capable of the same
evaluation processes as those thought to trigger conscious emotions in humans. For
instance, studies on expectations of reward in sheep and pig clearly show that animals
not only respond to the intrinsic value of a reward but also according to their previous
experience with the reward. Moreover, some animals such as cow and sheep, do
experience and share with others a wide range of emotions that might be consciously
experienced.

Metacognition is defined as “cognition about cognition”. That is the ability to monitor

and control one‟s own cognitive processes. It is thought to be a crucial component of
self-awareness. Two kinds of paradigms are widely used in animals to study
metacognition: those that evaluate metacognitive monitoring (the ability to judge one‟s
own state of knowledge: the animal could in pushing buttons express a positive or
negative answer, or that it does not know the answer, as tested with primates, poultry or
corvidae) and those that are designed to measure metacognitive control (the ability to
seek information when lack of knowledge has been detected). Those experiments are
suggesting that some animal performances meet the criteria for metacognitive
responses that appear homologous to conscious responses in humans in functionally
similar conditions. This was for instance observed in pigeons and hens.

Processing of past and future. Episodic memory is defined in humans as memory of

autobiographical events. It has been demonstrated by assessing whether various
animal species, especially primates, corvids and rodents, can characterize what, where
and when, or in which context, they experience specific events. The characteristics of
episodic-like memory studied in animals have many similarities to episodic memory in
humans, in both behavioural and neurobiological aspects. Moreover, recent studies of
primates, corvidae and weasels indicate that they can plan future actions independently
of their current motivational state and their innate tendency to express certain
behaviours, such as migratory behaviour.

Social behaviour. Many animals live in groups of variable composition and size. Their
group structure depends on social cognitive abilities. Individuals, particularly among
sheep and cattle, need to perceive and recognise each other to build a reliable and
protracted relationship. Several examples of social behaviour were analysed. They
address issues related to the theory of mind, which is the ability to infer the knowledge,
intentions and emotions of other animals and underlying behaviours such as deception
or empathy. Due to a wide variety of experimental protocols and species studied, there
is an agreement that many animals, are not only automatically reacting to the behaviour
of conspecifics, but also use their past social experience and ongoing relationships to
adjust their behaviour to reach immediate goals. This capacity requires mastery of
sophisticated means of perception, integration, planning, and communication, all of
which are probably linked to consciousness.
Human-animal relationships. With the recent intensification of studies on
domestication and animal welfare, human-animal relations have become a topic of
scientific enquiry. Several studies developed in animals such as primates, dogs or
sheep suggest that they are able to mobilize cognitive and emotional abilities when
interacting with humans to build a mental and functional representation of their human
partners. Studies involving human-animal relations highlight the potential role of an
animal‟s subjective experience of humans. Moreover, these studies show that distinct
human individuals are differentially perceived by animals. The outcome is adapted,
predictable and consistent emotional and behavioural responses ranging from
avoidance to bonding. This indicates that conscious, rather than strictly predetermined
and automatic processes, may emerge in the development of human-animal
relationships.