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Summary The Study of Language - chapter 2,5,6,7,9,10
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Summary study book The Study of Language of George Yule - ISBN: 9780521749220, Edition: 4, Year of publication: 2010
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The Study of Language - chapter 11,12,16,17,18,19
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Chapter 2 – Animals and human languageCommunication
When we talk about distinctions between human language and animal communication, we are
considering both specifically communicative signals and those which may be unintentionally
informative signals.
Properties of human language
Humans are able to reflect on language and its uses. This property of reflexivity accounts for the fact
that we can use language to think and talk about language itself, making it one of the distinguishing
features of human language.
Displacement
Humans can refer to past and future time. This property is called displacement. It allows language
users to talk about things and events not present in the immediate environment and even things and
places whose existence we cannot even be sure of (Santa Claus). Animal communication is generally
considered to lack this property. Example:
A honeybee finds a source of nectar and returns to the beehive and makes different dances to refer
to the place of the nectar. Isn’t this displacement? Yes, of a very limited type, for 2 reasons:
- It doesn’t have the range possibilities found in human language;
- It must be the most recent food source.
Arbitrariness
There is no “natural” connection between a linguistic form of a word and its meaning. This aspect is
described as arbitrariness. Human language has arbitrariness.
For the majority of animal signals, there does appear to be a clear connection between the conveyed
message and the signal used to convey it. So animal language is considered to be non-arbitrariness.
This because there is a limited set of vocal or gestural forms that are only used in specific situations
and at particular times.
Productivity
Humans are continually creating new expressions and novel utterances by manipulating their
linguistic resources to describe new objects and situations. This property is described as productivity
and essentially means that the potential number of utterances in any human language is infinite.
Animal language doesn’t consist this property. This limiting feature is described as fixed reference:
each signal in the system is fixed as relating to a particular object or occasion. Example: bee
communication has a fixed set of signals for communicating location and they all relate to horizontal
distance; the bee cannot create a “new” message indicating vertical distance.
Cultural transmission
We acquire a language in a culture with other speaker and not from parental genes. Human language
is passed on from one generation to the next: cultural transmission. Humans are born with a
predisposition to acquire language in a general sense, but we are not born with the ability to produce
utterances in a specific language (such as English). The general pattern in animal communication is
that creatures are born with a set of specific signals that are produced instinctively.
Duality
Human language has a duality of levels: with a limited set of discrete sounds (like o, t, p), we are
capable of producing a very large number of sound combinations (words like pot or top) which are
distinct in meaning. Among other creatures, each communicative signal appears to be a single fixed
form that cannot be broken down into separate parts (like whoof and oowhf?).
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