(Language)
It is generally
believed that human beings are the sole species capable of developing language
thanks to their intelligence and appropriate structure of the vocal tract. It
is clear, however, that animals are also capable of communicating in their own
way, for instance, bees by tail-wagging, or whales by 'singing'. Yet, there are
certain apparent differences in human and animal ways of conveying messages,
which we will look at in the following paper.
Numerous features
common to all-natural human languages have been proposed, nevertheless
linguists seem not to be unanimous on ascribing certain properties only to
human beings. Moreover, in some cases it seems that animal means of
communication possesses some partially developed characteristics which are
generally believed to be unique to man.
Displacement
This feature of
languages refers to the ability to speak not only about what is happening at
the time and place of talking but also about other situation, future and past,
real or unreal. We can talk about electronic parts catalog while playing cards
and without ever seeing one.
As far as we know,
the majority of animals cannot do that; nonetheless as the research suggest the
bee can direct other bees to a food source. This might mean that the bees'
communication system also possesses this feature, although in some limited fashion.
Arbitrariness
There is no
natural connection between the word or sound and the thing it denotes, which
means we cannot tell what is the meaning of a word simply by looking at it.
Nothing in the German word 'Handyspiele' tells us that it means the same as the
English word 'handball' or Polish word 'piłka ręczna'. Although this rule
applies to the most of human language there are certain exceptions. In order to
understand arbitrary words one has to know a specific language, though there
are a number of iconic symbols in every language that can be understood without
having to know the entire language system. Onomatopoeias - words which imitate
sounds - are present in the majority of contemporary languages.
Productivity (also: 'creativity' or
'open-endedness')
The potential
number of utterances, as well as the number of words and meanings in human
languages is practically infinite. Humans can come up with terms such as my space
codes or property in Cyprus and the number of these terms has no possible
limits. In animal communication every signal has a fixed reference which means
that it can only refer to one idea and its meaning cannot be broadened. In
addition, it seems that animals cannot invent new signals in order to describe
new ideas.
Cultural
transmission
Although we are
all born with certain fixed genetic predisposition for language use (e.g. shape
of vocal tract) it does not predetermine which language we are actually going
to use as our mother tongue. A Chinese baby brought as a toddler in Great
Britain and raised by a British family is going to speak English and not
Chinese, though it will still look like a Chinese. If, for example, a Korean puppy
was brought to Britain it would still bark the same way as in Korea (perhaps
with a slightly different accent J).
Duality
Human languages
have two levels: minimal units - the alphabet for writing and phonemes for
speech - which do not have a meaning on their own, and the level where the
meaning emerges as a result of combination of the units from level one. It is emphasized
by the fact that with a limited set of letters in the alphabet an unlimited
number of words and expressions may be produced.
The aforementioned
features are generally perceived as those which differentiate the human
language from the animal languages. There are three more properties which seem
not to be shared by animal forms of communication, but are not fully
acknowledged by all linguists. These include:
Prevarication:
the ability to make sentences knowing that they are false and with the purpose
of misleading the receiver of the information.
Reflexiveness:
using language to talk about language which involves ability to speak of
abstract things. The language used to describe language is usually called meta language.
Learnability:
Apart from the fact that we naturally acquire a mother tongue we are also able
to learn any of the number of other languages. It also means that unlike
animals human beings are not genetically limited to use only the language of
parents.
Moreover, several
other features of language of both humans and animals can be enumerated:
Reciprocity;
speakers are also receivers of information under usual circumstances;
Specialization;
linguistic signals do not serve any other purpose than to communicate
something;
Rapid
fading (also 'transitoriness'); spoken linguistic
signals vanish very quickly. This is, of course, not true for written messages,
or scents produced by some animals to mark territory;
Non-directionality;
anyone close enough to hear can pick up the message;
Vocal-auditory;
channel use - most of communication is made via the vocal tract and is
perceived by ears.
The above
mentioned properties of language do not constitute a complete set that all
linguists unanimously accept. There are many more proposals concerning the
features of language, but owing to their minor importance and not very frequent
occurrence in literature they have been omitted in this work.
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