1. Human language
What are the characteristics of human languages?
1

2. Characteristics of human
language
 Language is a social tool
 Language must be learned
 The relationship between the sounds of a
language and their meaning is arbitrary and
dual
 Language has rules
 Language allows humans to be creative
2

3. Social tool
 Language is not essential for
communication
 Communication is the purpose of language
 Language enables us to communicate ideas
and desires to other people
 With people in our own culture
 With people from other cultures
 With ancient cultures
3

4. Language is learned
 Animal communication is innate
 Human babies must hear and speak a
language in order to learn it
4

5. Sounds and meaning 1
 Human language is arbitrary
 There is no connection between the sound and
the message
 Animal language is not arbitrary
 An animal’s message and the sound cannot be
separated
5

6. Sounds and meaning 2
 Human language has duality
 Human sounds have basic sounds
 English: /k/, /m/, /p/, /a/, etc.
 English basic sounds can be combined to
create many other different sounds
 Cat, mat, pat, etc.
6

7. Language rules
 All languages have rules that guide how the
parts of languages can be combined
 Animal sounds can be combined in almost
any order and they will still have the same
meaning
7

8. Sound rules
 Combinations of sounds
 /s/, /p/ and /r/ can be combined to form spray,
spread and spring
 /f/, /l/ and /b/ cannot be combined
8

9. Grammar rules
 Word order
 Take the words: ate, I and lunch
 OK: I ate lunch
 X: ate I lunch
 X: lunch ate I
9

10. Language rules and meaning
 Knowledge of language rules lets us change
the meaning of our messages
 English word order is SVO
 Dog bites man.
 Man bites dog.
10

11. Creativity
 Humans can talk about topics that are displaced
 Time
 now
 the past
 the future
 Place
 things that can be seen when talking
 things that cannot be seen
 things that are abstract
11

12. ‹#›

13. Reasons for variety
 Humans can create an infinite number of
messages because
 Words can refer to more than one thing
 Things can be called by more than one name
 Words can be combined in a variety of ways
13

14. Characteristics of human
language
 Language is a social tool
 Language must be learned
 The relationship between the sounds of a
language and their meaning is arbitrary and
dual
 Language has rules
 Language allows humans to be creative
14