The Development and Evolution of

Language EL 222

Introduction to Language, Society and Culture

 Explain how communication occurs across
Explain species.

Intended
Learning Identify Identify
language.
design features of human

Outcomes
Prove that language is an evolutionary
Prove product.
 Contents

COMMUNICATION AND NON-HUMAN DESIGN FEATURES OF LANGUAGE AS AN

ITS CHANNELS COMMUNICATION HUMAN LANGUAGE EVOLUTIONARY PRODUCT
 PREVIEW

Which of the following

images illustrate
communication?
Communication
and Its Channels
The Communication Process (1940s)
Channels of human communication

Acoustic Optical
channel channel

Olfactor
Tactile
y
channel
channel
 Koko, Washoe and Viki

Dog whining, wagging tails

Interspecific
Communication
Owner whispering to their horse

Plants wilting
 Koko and Penny

Some studies
about non- The Hayses’ and Viki
human
primates Washoe

Sarah
 When Does a
Communication System
Become Language?
Design features of language
Hockett, et al. (1960s)
Salzman, et al.
 Design features of human language (Hockett)

Broadcast transmission
Vocal-auditory channel and directional Rapid fading Interchangeability Complete feedback Specialization
reception

Semanticity Arbitrariness Discreteness Displacement Productivity/Openness Duality of patterning

Cultural (or traditional)

Prevarication Reflexiveness Learnability
transmission
Hockett (1960)
• Calls produced by gibbons are characterized by features
1-9 but lack displacement, productivity and duality of
patterning
• Hockett was unsure about cultural transmission among
gibbons.
• Hockett and Altmann (1968): examine design features
through (1) social setting, (2) behavioral antecedents
and consequences of communicative acts, (3) the
channel or channels employed, (4) continuity and
change in communication systems, (5) structure of
messages and their repertories in specific systems.
Considerations in studying a communicative system

Circumstances
The of
participants communicatio
n

Channel or
channels used Structure of
in messages/the
communicatio code used
n
Language as
an
Evolutionary
Product
Biological Foundations of Language (Lenneberg)

Continuity Theory: speech must have ultimately developed from primitive forms of
communication used by lower animals and that its study is likely to reveal that
language evolved in a straight line over time

Discontinuity Theory: human language must be recognized as unique, without

evolutionary antecedents. Its development cannot be illuminated by studying
various communicative systems of animal species at random and them comparing
them with human language
Spandrels: Language as an
evolutionary by-product
Language as emergent vs. Language as innate
• Hauser, Chomsky & Fitch (2010): there is an existence of a “universal
language faculty”; language evolved as a by-product (innate)
• Pinker (2009), Pinker and Bloom (1999): ‘natural selection’ played a
more direct role in language evolution. Natural selection designed a
‘language acquisition module’ in the protohuman mind, and
evolutionary forces increasingly made it more sophisticated over time
(emergent)