1. Topic:
Features of Human Language: A Psycholinguistic Perspective
SUBMITTED TO:
Dr. Muhammad Kamal Khan Sb
Assistant Professor of English
SUBMITTED BY:
Zia Ur Rahman
Department of English
Shaheed BB University, Sheringal
zia.iiu@gmail.com

2. Introduction
Psychology has a very important role in human language and that’s why language is the
property of humans only. Although many researches have been carried out with other animals
to observe the ability of communication and language learning but it has been found that their
communication is limited and they are not able to retain their learning for a long time in
memory. Various linguists have tried to differentiate between human and animals language. In
1960 Hockett identified thirteen design features of language, which were refined by Aitchison
in 1983 to ten. Aitchison specified that four criteria were particular to the human species:
displacement, semanticity, structure dependence and creativity. These four criteria, in
summary, indicate that humans are capable of talking about things, people and instances, true
or false, outside of the here-and-now spatial and temporal environment by using a formalized,
abstract set of words, symbols and intonations each of which can have many different
meanings when used within different contexts and between different individuals. Human
language differs from animals communication system in a variety of ways and in the following
section it will be revealed that how these features of human language are unique in relation to
human psychology.
Oral-Auditory and Social Behavior
Humans have been endowed with an advanced oral system for the production of variety
sounds. But these vocal functions are based on various intellectual reactions or thinking. For
humans language is something else than an instinctive, emotional reaction. It is objective and
social, connected to thinking and the correspondence between thought and speech
characteristic of man is absent in other animals. We can say that there are underline
psychological processes in production of language and language has a vital role in our society
and life.
Productivity, Duality, and Creativity/Generativism
Human language is organized from limited number of sounds and these sounds are discrete and
identifiable. We have got the ability to form words of different meanings from these and for
that purpose we have to identify the separate elements in words which may seem the same
except in few sounds or letters. Sometimes there are new words added to the language which
underlines some deep meaning and is the part of the uniqueness of human mind.So, a small
number of phones can be combined to form a very large number of words (the lexicon) and
although the lexicon is finite, they can be combined to form an infinite number of possible
utterances. This is called productivity or the creative aspect of language (Chomsky). We can also
be almost as creative as we wish in forming new sentences. Probably, no one has ever said

3. before. In other words Our mind makes us feel about the combination of existing things and
new terminologies. Otherwise language is meaningless.
Language is systematic/Conscious or Unconscious?
The combining of linguistic elements into larger units requires proper rules that are acquired by
the human brain. But, comprehension and production also require certain mental processes
and procedures.The first step in language comprehension is to use the phonological processor
to identify the sounds (or written symbols)occurring in the input.Then, the lexical processor
identifies the component words.The next step is for the syntactic processor (also called the
parser , and incorporating the syntactic component of the grammar) to provide a syntactic
representation of the sentence (i.e. a representation of how the sentence is structured out of
phrases and the phrases out of words).The last step is for the semantic processor to compute a
meaning representation for the sentence, on the basis of the syntactic and lexical information
supplied by earlier stages in the process.The relevant meaning representation serves as the
output of the model: once this has been computed, we have understood the sentence. So we
see that mental processes work here in a hierarchal way and language is not an unconscious
process.
Displacement and Imagination
Human language is unique because we can speak about past events stored in our memory.We
can also think and predict about future and imaginary things and imagining is something which
is unique to human mind only. Animal communication is only for the present moment.
Psychology cannot be ignored there also but limitations are there.
Language is Arbitrary but Part of Semiotic System
Humans communicate not just through language but through such means as gesture, art,
dress, and music.The study of communication systems has its origins in semiotics, a field of
inquiry that originated in the work of Ferdinand de Saussure in a series of lectures published in
A Course in General Linguistics (1916).According to Saussure, meaning in semiotic systems is
expressed by signs, which have a particular form, called a signifier, and some meaning that the
signifier conveys, called the signified. Signified is the mental image of the real object in mind.
In fact it is the symbolic content and duality of verbal communication that accounts for its
extraordinary effectiveness.
Innateness/CulturalTransmission BUT Worldviews through Language
The theories of Chomsky brought a revolution in language and linguistics studies in the latter
half of the twentieth century. His various theories in linguistics syntax reveal that language

4. analysis is mental phenomena. Chomsky’s linguistics is considered a revolution against the
behavioral view of language. For Chomsky, actual language use, or performance, is only the tip
of the iceberg of linguistic competence, or the underlying mental processes which we carry out
in our production of language. According to Sapir and Whorf hypothesis, our language
determines our thoughts .Also our worldviews exist in our language.
Semanticity and beyond
The human mind selects from a variety of semantic fields and shapes them in language.
Although specific to humans but perhaps it is the social contexts within which we use language
that truly distinguishes human and animal communication.Various linguists have put forward
theories in this respect like; the co-operative Principle (Grice),Communicative competence
(Hymes), and Haliday’s concept of “register”. According to theories, there is a need of internal
competence and some roles and regulations while communicating with others. Similarly,
literary writers use language in a figurative and symbolic way which reveals the internal psyche
of the writer. Such instances include stylistic deviations, foregrounding and defamliarizaton of
language.
Structural Complexity and self-Reflexiveness.
The structurally complex language of human allows linguists to reflect upon it.Various
psychological processes in the production, transmission, and receptions of language are
discussed.
Conclusions
The use of language and speech as a window to the nature and structure of the human mind is
called psycholinguistics (Scoval).The features of human language clearly reveal that human
psychology is responsible for the variety of these features and that’s why human language is
unique.