Presentation on The Properties of Human Language The Islamia University of Bahawalpur M.Phil English Linguistics (2018-20)

2. Properties of Human Language
Presented By:
Syed Nadeem Abbas
Presented To:
Sir Shahid Nawaz
M.Phil English Linguistics (Session 2018-20)

3. A Brief Intro…
 Here we tend to think of Communication as the primary
function of “Human Language”, its not a distinguishing
feature. All creatures communicate in some way. However,
we suspect that other creatures are not reflecting on the
way they create their communicative messages or reviewing
how they work (or not).
 That is one barking dog is probably not offering advice to
another barking dog along the lines of “Hey, you should
lower your bark to make it sound more menacing.
 Humans are clearly able to reflect on language and its uses
(e.g I wish he wouldn’t use so many technical terms) thats
reflexivity.

4. Design Features of Language
 Design Features of Language refer to the
quintessential characteristics of Human Language,
which can distinguish any human language system
from any non-human language system.
 They cover: Displacement, Arbitrariness, Duality,
Creativity (Productivity) and Cultural Transmission

5. Displacement
 Human Languages enable their users to symbolize
objects, events and concepts which are not present (in
time and space) at the moment of communication.
 Thus we can refer to Confucius or the North Pole, even
though the first has been dead for over 2550 years and
the 2nd is situated far away from us.
 Animal Communication is generally considered to lack
this property.

6. Arbitrariness
 It is generally the case that there is no “Natural”
connection between the Linguistic form and its
Meaning (Saussure)
We can’t just look at the Arabic word ‫کلب‬ and say that its
Dog
 Different sounds are used to refer to the same object
in different languages (i.g Tree, Boum…)

7. Duality
 Human Language is organized at two levels or layers,
this property is called Duality or Double Articulation.
In speech production we have a physical level at which
we can produce individual sounds, like n, b and i. as
individual sounds, non of these descrete forms has any
intrinsic meaning. In a particular combination such as
Bin and Nib both have different meanings but with the
same letters… so at one level we have distinct sounds
and, at another level, we have distinct meanings.
What about
Woof , oowfs and
foow …???

8. Productivity
 Humans are continually creating new expressions and
novel utterances by manipulating their linguistic
resources to describe new objects and situations this
property is known as Productivity (Creativity and
Open-endedness).
 Language is resourcefull because of its Duality and its
Recursiveness. That Recursiveness provides a potential
to create an infinite number of endless sentences.

9. Productivity
 “Limited rules can produce unlimited sentences.”
(Chomsky)
 This limited feature of animal communication is
described in term of fixed reference. Each signal in the
system is fixed as relating to a particular object of
occasion.

10. Cultural Transmission
 While we may inherit physical features such as brown
eyes and dark hair from our parents, we donot inherit
their language. We acquire a language in a culture with
other speakers and not from parental genes.
 An infant born to Korean parents in Korea but
adopted and brought up from birth by English
speakers in the United States, will have physical
characteristics inherited from his or her natural
parents, but will inevitably speak English.

11. Cultural Transmission
 This process whereby a language is passed on from
one generation to the next is described as Cultural
Transmission.
 .
 .
 .
 What about the Kitten…???

12. Very much
Thanks
for your
kind Attention.