Is Language Restricted to

Humans?
 Overview
• What are the properties of human language?
• What is the difference between communication and
language?
• What is cultural transmission?
• What is instinct and is it transmitted?
• Can other species acquire language?
• Can animals be taught to use human language or are they
simply mimicking?
 Communicative vs Informative Signals
• Communicative signals are intentional and carry meaning
• Informative signals are not intentional but still carry
meaning

• I am sitting at the desk in the front of the room (information: I

must be the professor)
• I say to you that I am here to teach the class (intentional: I
am the professor)
 Communicative vs Informative Signals
• Animals can be informative: a bird may suddenly fly away
at the approach of a predator (information: we deduce that
the bird must be frightened)

• Animals can be communicative: A bird may make a loud

squawk at the sight of a predator (communication: Hey
everyone, lookout! Something is going to eat us!!)
 Properties of Human Language
1. Reflexivity
2. Displacement
3. Arbitrariness
4. Productivity
5. Cultural Transmission
6. Duality
 Properties of Human Language

1. Reflexivity
• Humans are able to reflect. They are able to talk about, or
reflect on language itself. Without this ability, we could not
even talk about the other properties of language.
• Dogs are able to bark at each other, but they are probably
not barking about barking itself!
 Properties of Human Language
2. Displacement:
Humans can talk about the past, present and future Yesterday,
• I saw a movie.
• Today, I’m staying home.
• Next week, I’m….
Humans can talk about things that don’t exist or we can’t see.
• Yesterday, Grandpa went to heaven...
• Tomorrow, the Tooth Fairy is coming…
(Continued…..)
 Properties of Human Language
Animal communication is about the here and now:
• “meow, meow!!” I am hungry NOW (not next week)
• “bark, bark!!” An intruder is at the door NOW! (not yesterday)

Animals can’t displace in either time or space:

• “Bark, bark!” There is a problem! Help!
• NOT “Timmy fell into a well over on the old Cotter Farm 3 miles
away!! Drive down Cook Lane and help him!”
 Properties of Human Language
3. Arbitrariness:
There is no natural connection between a word’s form and its
meaning (with the possible exception of onomatopoeia)
A written word doesn’t look like its meaning:
“star” “estrella” “stella”
Even though you can play games with it:
BIG little Soft Hard

(Continued…..)
 Properties of Human Language
Animal communicative sounds are closely correlated with their
meanings:
• Vervet monkeys have 36 cries of warning for different
predators, but…
• An animal’s “vocabulary” is finite. Limited.
 Properties of Human Language
4. Productivity:
Human vocabulary and sentences are infinite, open-ended:
• We can create new words in our LEXICON, like texting,
googling, new slang…examples????
• In unlimited combinations…..
“Colorless green ideas sleep furiously” (Noam Chomsky)
• We have a morphology (word-forming rules) and a grammar
(with sentence structure rules) which allow us to combine
new words in new structures..
• Infinite diversity in infinite combinations
 Properties of Human Language
5. Cultural Transmission:
• We acquire our speech from the environment we are raised
in, our culture, which includes our language, our accent, our
expressions.
• While a meow is a meow is a meow, wherever; it is
instinctual, inborn.
• Some birds both are born with some calls and songs
instinctually and some are learned
(Continued…..)
 Properties of Human Language
7 week window for birds:
If birds are not exposed to bird song in the first 7 weeks, they
will still produce songs, but abnormal ones. Song-singing is
instinctual.
7 year window for children:
If a child is not exposed to language within the first 7 years, it
will develop no language at all . Language is not instinctual : it
is learned in the cultural environment. More properly, it is
acquired.
 Properties of Human Language
6. Duality:
Human language is organized at two levels:
• The sounds (Phonetics) which carry no individual meaning
and
• The combinations of sounds (Phonology and Morphology)
which carry meaning.
• Economical: with a limited number of discrete sounds, we
can produce an infinite number of meanings
 Properties of Human Language
Does your dog understand you when you say,
“Sit” “Heel” “Roll Over”
Answer: He doesn’t know the word roll means “turn” and over means
“other side”
His reaction (to roll over) is a conditioned response to a stimulus (your
command sound of “roll over”)
But can we talk to or with some animals?
 Properties of Human Language
7. Spontaneous usage
It indicates that humans initiate speech freely. Speaking is not
something which they do under duress, like a dog that will
stand on its hind legs only when a biscuit is held above its
nose. This feature is certainly not restricted to humans, and
many animals use their natural communication systems freely.
 Properties of Human Language
8. Turn-taking
It means exactly what it says: we take it in turns to speak. In
the majority of conversations, we do not talk while other
people are talking, nor do we compete with them. Instead, we
politely wait our turn