Republic of the Philippines

PANGASINAN STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF TEACHER EDUCATION
Language Department
Bayambang Campus
Bayambang, Pangasinan

A Paper Presentation in
BYEL 101- Language, Culture and
Society

LANGUAGE
and

HUMANS
Submitted by: Submitted to:
BSE English 1-2 Mrs. Jessica Ailen Pascua
Group 2
 Language and Humans

I. INTRODUCTION

Language is a special gift from God to mankind. The human civilization we know today
would not have been possible without language. Language surrounds us. It can be found in
our thoughts and dreams, prayers and meditations, relationships and communication. It is a
thinking tool, a source of joy, a means of communication, and a repository of information and
knowledge (songs, etc.). This is the most powerful and dominant communication system.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, language is a system of traditional spoken,
manual, or written symbols for people to express themselves as members of social groups
and as participants in that culture.
Human language is compositional, which distinguishes it from all different recognized
animal modes of communication. (Pagel,2017) Human language allows people to speak
their mind withinside the shape of sentences. Human language is likewise referential in
nature. It appears unbelievable that another species, even our closest genetic cousins
primates, ever advanced language, and so-referred to as sign `language' amongst Great
Apes is simply not anything like human language. Language evolution bears many
similarities with biological evolution, making it precious for reconstructing recent human
history and examining how culture changes across groups of people who speak similar
languages. The 'language' of animals is not anything like human language. Vervet monkeys,
amongst primates, make 3 separate warning cries in response to the presence of snakes,
leopards, and eagles. A variety of parrot species can imitate human sounds. Some dolphin
species appear to have a series of repetitive noise patterns (clicks) associated with hunting
and social gatherings. These types of animal communication are symbolic in the sense that
they use sound to represent objects and activities. But in a truly creative and innovative way
of communication that involves both the speaker and the listener in changing information,
there is no evidence that it is for animals.
The purpose of this lesson is to distinguish human language from animal and non-human
communication methods. Explain why language is a unique feature of humans and whether
it is true that animals do not have a true language

II. OBJECTIVES

 Distinguish human and animal language by recognizing features;

 Identify the language functions that are particular and clear to humans;
 Determine the contextual community and school learning activities corresponding
to functions of language;
 Discuss and describe how animals communicate with humans and other animals with
or without consciousness; and
 Imply language teaching tenets and learn through analyzing cases/experiments on
apes utilizing human language.
III. CONTENT

Features of Human Language by Hockett

What is Language?
A system of communication that combines symbols, such as words or gestures, in
ways to create meaning.

Charles Francis Hockett (January 17, 1916 –

November 3, 2000) was an American linguist who
developed many influential ideas in American
structuralist linguistics. At the age of 16, Hockett
enrolled at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio
where he received a Bachelor of Arts and Master of
Arts in ancient history. Hockett continued his education
at Yale University where he studied anthropology and
linguistics and received his PhD in anthropology in
1939. While studying at Yale, Hockett studied with
several other influential linguists such as Edward
Sapir, George P. Murdock, and Benjamin Whorf
Hockett began his teaching career in 1946 as
an assistant professor of linguistics in the Division of
Modern Languages at Cornell University where he was
responsible for directing the Chinese language
program. In 1957, Hockett became a member of
Cornell's anthropology department and continued to
teach anthropology and linguistics until he retired to
emeritus status in 1982.He served as president of both
the Linguistic Society of America and the Linguistic
Association of Canada and the United States. Outside
the realm of linguistics and anthropology, Hockett
practiced musical performance and composition.

In 1960, Charles Francis Hockett conducted a pioneering featural study of language.

In the study, he proposed the design features of language. He originally listed 13 design
features that he deemed to be universal across the world’s languages. 9 of which are utilized
by primates while the rest 4 are reserved for humans. Later, 3 more features were added to
the list making it 6 in number.

These features differentiate human communication with animal communication.

1. Vocal-auditory channel

 It says that human spoken language is produced in the vocal tract and then received
by the auditory tract.
  With the exception of signed languages, natural language is vocally transmitted by
speakers as speech sounds and auditory received by listeners as speech waves.

2. Broadcast Transmission and Directional Reception

• When human speaks, sounds or language signals are emitted as waveforms are
transmitted in all direction; however, listener interpret and perceive it as coming from
one specific direction and point of origin.

3. Rapid Fading /Transitoriness

• Language signals are considered temporal as sound waves rapidly fade after they
are uttered; this characteristic is also known as rapid fading.
• In other words, this temporal nature of language signals requires humans to receive
and interpret speech sounds at their time of utterance, since sound waves disappear
once a speaker stops speaking.

4. Interchangeability

• Humans can transmit and receive identical

linguistic signals, and so are able to reproduce
any linguistic message they understand.
• It refers to the ability to become a speaker and
also a listener. Participants via turn taking within
the context of linguistic communication.

5. Total feedback
• Humans perceive and understand what they are communicating to others.
• Humans can continuously monitor their language performance to make sure that they
are conveying what they want to say or express.
6. Specialization
• Language signals are emitted for the sole purpose of communication, and not any
other biological functions such as eating. In other words, language signals are
intentional, and not just a side effect of another behavior.
Contrasting example: Biological
functions which may have a
communicative side effect: such as a
panting dog which hangs out its
tongue to cool off (biological), may
simultaneously indicate to its owner
that it is feeling hot or thirsty
(communicative).

7. Semanticity
• Specific language signals are directly tied to certain meanings.
An example is how a single object is represented by different language signals i.e., words in
different languages. (sel French word that represents crystalline substance consisting of
sodium and chlorine atoms yet in English this substance is called salt).
8. Arbitrariness
• There is no intrinsic or logical relationship between the form of specific language
signals and the meanings that they represent.
• Instead, the signal and the meaning are linked by either convention or instinct.
Example is that there is no reason that a four-legged domestic canine should be called a dog
and not a chien or a perro or anjing which are all words for 'dog' in other languages.
9. Discreteness
• Linguistic representations can be broken down into small discrete units which
combine each other in rule-governed ways.
• These basic units can be arranged in various ways to represent various meanings.
10. Displacement
• Humans can talk about things that are not physically present, about past or future and
events that are remote in time and space.
• Examples are the events in the past, future and present, places or things that are
physically distant (i.e., countries, moon, galaxy, planets etc.) and even things and events
that do not exist (unicorn, mermaids, fairies, etc.).

11. Productivity
• humans can create and understand new message by combining already existing
message, also called openness or creativity
• Speakers or Humans continuously create or produce an indefinite number of novel
utterances or even new words and languages.

12. Traditional Transmission

• Language is passed down from generation after generations.

• Language is not something that comes naturally to humans, we need to learn or
acquire language from the elders in our community.
• Humans only acquire languages to which they are exposed.
• While humans are born with innate language capabilities, language learning
takes place in a social group or social setting.

13. Duality of patterning

• The idea that there are two layers to human language, that the linguistic signal is
composed of individual sounds which are meaningless and the other layer is
composed of the meaningful combination of these sounds such as words, phrases
and sentences.
• Meaningful messages are made up of distinct smaller meaningful units (words and
morphemes) which themselves are made up of distinct smaller, meaningful units
(phonemes).
14. Prevarication

• The ability to lie or deceive. When

using language, humans can make
false or meaningless statements.

15. Reflectiveness
• Humans can use language to talk about language.

16. Learnability
• Language is teachable and learnable. Speakers of one language can learn to speak
another language.