Features of human

language
 Features of human language
Language is the dividing line between man and animals.
Descartes (1970:42) states that human beings, despite being
sometimes stupid, can speak a language, whereas animals, no
matter how intelligent or well bred they are, cannot do so.
This proves that animals have less reason than Man or no reason
at all.
Man's speech organs and vocal tract enable him to produce
sounds, but of course even more centrally his mental (brain)
structure.
Properties of human language

What properties differentiate human

language from all other forms of signaling? and
what properties make it a unique type of
communication system?
 Arbitrariness

Language is arbitrary, which is a fundamental feature. Words

rarely have a coherent or guiding relationship to what they mean.
There is no natural relation between the signal and the message.
Every word (form)
denotes a concept
or an object.
For instance, the Spanish word nada means "nothing". But for Croatian

speakers nada means "hope".

Because languages are arbitrary, different languages would use different

words for the same thing :

English tree, Czech strom, French arbre, German Baum, Japanese ki,

Korean namu.
Due to this feature, even the most powerful computer program can have no way of guessing
the meaning of a word it has not encountered before.
 Arbitrariness VS
Onomatopoeia
There are some words (onomatopoeic) in language with sounds that
seems to ‘echo’ the sounds of objects or actions (less arbitrary).
Onomatopoeia: the use of words that sound like the thing they are
describing, (e.g. hiss or boom, splash, crash, cuckoo, slurp, kukuriko…)
Onomatopoeic words are relatively
rare in human language.
 Advantages and disadvantages
of Arbitrariness
• Arbitrariness of this kind has both advantages and disadvantages:

• It makes language flexible and adaptable in that the vocabulary can be expanded without any

restriction imposed by the relation between form and meaning,

BUT

• It makes it more difficult and laborious to learn because one has to learn to associate a

particular form with a particular meaning, so the connection between the form and meaning

must be learned via MEMORIZATION.

 Onomatopoeia and Animals
Animal sounds are a form of onomatopoeia, which are words that imitate
sounds. Words like “pop” “buzz” and “boom” are forms of onomatopoeia, and
so are “meow,” “woof” and “moo.”.
 PRODUCTIVITY

(Creativity or open-endedness)
- Human language allows speakers to create novel-never-
heard-utterances that others can understand. A child
learning language is especially active in forming and
producing utterances which he or she has never heard
before, and this is because human language is flexible.
-Human language is unpredictable spontaneous and
unbounded language is not learned solely by means of
imitation and memorization.
 PRODUCTIVITY
PRODUCTIVITY is the ability to
combine limited linguistic signs to produce new
sentences and expressions. 
 Productivity and Animals

• The communication systems of other creatures don’t have the flexibility

of human language.
• They have a limited set of signals to choose from (fixed reference).
• Each signal in the system is fixed as relating to a particular object or
occasion.
• Animals cannot produce any new signals to describe novel experiences.
• For example, meowing is the ONLY expression a cat has to use for
referring to multiple situations.
 Discreteness.

It's opposed to continuity, or continuous variation.

The sounds used in language are meaningfully distinct.
Each sound in the language system is treated as a linguistically
specific & discrete sound.
Discreteness means that human language consists of distinctive
units; different pronunciation in the sounds of human language
leads to different meaning.
 Examples
Back Pack
Pin Bin
Heat Meat
Feat Seat
Sit/Sat
Foot/Voot
• Each sound in the language is treated as discrete.
• Animal communicative signals appear to be fixed.
• They cannot be broken into parts meow is not m-e-
o-w.
 Duality

Language is organized at two levels :"double articulation".

- The physical level the orthographic symbols:
f,g,o,d taken individually, represent different sounds.
-The interpretive level when combined:
fog and dog, god form words with different meanings
at the primary level, we have distinct sounds, and at the
secondary level, we have distinct meanings.
 Duality

Primary Secondary
level level

Individual Interpretiv
sounds e sounds

Fog, god,
/f,o,g,d/
dog
• Duality is one of the most economical features of
human language (with a limited set of discrete
sounds, we are capable of producing a very large
number of sound combinations (e.g. words).
 Displacement

It’ is the ability to communicate about

things that are not present in time or space.
Human language refers to the past,
present and future- last night.
Abstract concepts: Things that do not
exist in real life, e.g. superman, batman,
Santa Claus .
 Displacement and animals
• Animal language is generally considered to lack this property since animal
communication is almost exclusively designed for a particular moment, here and
now. It cannot effectively be used to related events, which are far removed in time
and place.
• Bees are a slight exception to this rule because they
use some form of displacement in their
communication. A honeybee can engage in a dance to
indicate the source of nectar when it returns to the
beehive. The other bees can determine the location of
this recently discovered feast based on the sort of
dance. This counts as displacement, but of a very
specific kind.
 Cultural transmission

Humans inherit physical features from their parents but not language. We
acquire a language in a culture with other speakers (not from parental genes.

An infant born to Moroccan parents, who is brought up from birth by

English speakers in the United States, may have physical characteristics
inherited from his natural parents, but inevitably speaks English.
 Cultural transmission and
Animals
• Animal communication doesn’t have this
property; a kitten that is reared with puppies
will produce meaw because animal are born with
a set of specific signals that are produced
instinctively.

• Animal inhereit their cries.

 Features of
human
language

Arbitrariness Cultural
Productivity Discreteness. Duality Displacement
transmission
 Other properties of human
language

The latter properties of arbitrariness, productivity, discreteness,

displacement, cultural transmission and duality may be taken as

the core features of human language.

But language does of course have many other properties.

 Vocal-auditory channel

Human language uses vocal signals via the vocal

organs and perceived via the ears.
Vocal-auditory channel
The speaker uses the vocal tract
(containing most of the speech
organs) to produce speech
sounds

The hearer employs an

auditory apparatus (the sense
of hearing) to receive and
process the speech sounds.
 Total Feedback

The speaker can himself control his speech through the auditory
system by means of his hearing system (his ears).

When someone becomes deaf, his speech deteriorates

feedback functions as a checking device.
 Total Feedback

Total feedback

Speaker’s Via the auditory

control of his system : the
speech checking device
 Interchangeability
‘Reciprocity’:
Any speaker/sender of a linguistic signal can also be a
listener/receiver any time in dialogues and
conversations.

Any
listener/receiver.
speaker/sender
 Learnability

Human language is learnable and so is animal

language.

• can learn only their own

Animals system of communication.

• can learn their own and

Humans other species' systems.
 Semanticity

The signals in any communication system have meaning.

Signal meaning
 Conclusion

Language is flexible
Language is efficient
Language is adaptable
 Exercises
• 1. Which property of human language demands that the connection
between the form and meaning must be learned via memorization.
• 2. Why is the property of ARBITRARINESS is an advantage for
language?
• 3.What is the term used to describe the fact that, in a language, we can
have different meanings for the three words "tack", "act" and "cat
• 4. Which term is used to describe the ability of human language-users
to discuss topics, which are remote in space and time?
• 5. What kind of evidence is used to support the idea that language is
culturally transmitted?
 EXERCISES

1.Why is linguistic considered as an empirical science?

2.Discuss the principle of economy in linguistics.
3.How can a linguist be objective in studying language?
4.Briefly state the difference between De Saussure’s ‘LANGUE-PAROLE’
dichotomy.

5.Suppose you heard someone say: He made a tip of the slung instead of he made a
slip of the tongue. How would this reveal a difference between linguistic
competence and linguistic performance?
7. Does ANIMAL communication share any features with human
communication?

8. Why is Vocal-auditory channel is considered as a human property?

9 .Animal communication is limited and inflexible. Illustrate this

taking into consideration honeybee messages.
 Answers
• 1.The property of human language demanding that the connection between the form
and meaning must be learned via memorization is Arbitrariness
• 2. Arbitrariness makes language flexible and adaptable in that the vocabulary can be
expanded without any restriction imposed by the relation between form and
meaning.
• 3.The term used to describe the fact that, in a language, we can have different
meanings for the three words "tack", "act" and "cat’ is “Discretness”
• 4.The term used to describe the ability of human language-users to discuss topics,
which are remote in space and time is Displacement.
• 5. Babies speak the language used in the surroundings; they do not inherent their
parent’s language.