Aspects of Human Language
The following properties of human language have been argued to separate it from animal communication:
- Arbitrariness: There is not necessarily a rational relationship between a sound or sign and its meaning, i.e. symbolism. (There is nothing intrinsically "housy" about the word "house".)
- Cultural transmission: Language is passed from one language user to the next, consciously or unconsciously.
- Discreteness: Language is composed of discrete units that are used in combination to create meaning.
- Displacement: Languages can be used to communicate ideas about things that are not in the immediate vicinity either spatially or temporally, or both.
- Duality: Language works on two levels at once, a surface level and a semantic (meaningful) level.
- Metalinguistics: Ability to discuss language itself.
- Productivity: A finite number of units can be used to create an indefinitely large number of utterances.
Research with apes, like that of Francine Patterson with Koko or Herbert Terrace with Nim Chimpsky, suggested that apes are capable of using language that meets some of these requirements such as arbitrariness, cultural transmission, discreteness and productivity. However, no experiment has yet shown a non-human being to be proficient in all of these areas.
In the wild chimpanzees have been seen "talking" to each other, when warning about approaching danger. For example, if one chimpanzee sees a snake, he makes a low, rumbling noise, signalling for all the other chimps to climb into nearby trees. In this case, the chimpanzees' communication is entirely contained to an observable event, demonstrating a lack of displacement.
Arbitrariness has been noted in meerkat calls; bee dances show elements of spatial displacement; and cultural transmission has possibly occurred between the celebrated bonobos Kanzi and Panbanisha.
Human language may not be completely "arbitrary". Some research has shown that almost all humans naturally demonstrate limited crossmodal perception (e.g. synesthesia), as illustrated by the Kiki and Booba study.
Claims that animals have language skills akin to humans however, are extremely controversial. As Pinker illustrates in his book the "The Language Instinct", claims that chimpanzees can acquire language are exaggerated and rest on very limited or specious data.
Read more about this topic: Animal Language
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