Language Acquisition and Design feature

1. Origin
and
Design Features of Language

2. The Divine Source
In most religions: divine source provides humans with
language.
Islam:
First four verses of Sura Ar-Rehman. Al Baqara.
Genesis: (2:19):
God created Adam and ‘whatsoever Adam called every
living creature that was the name thereof’.
Hindu Religion:
Language comes from goddess Sarasvati, wife of Brahma,
creator of the universe

3. Experiments
Egyptian pharaoh Psammetichus (600 B.C)
two new-born infants
two years in the company of a mute
shephard
James IV of Scotland:
similar experiment
children were reported to have started
speaking Hebrew

4. Natural Sounds
- Hypothesis:
primitive words are imitations of the natural sounds
which early man and women heard around them
E.g.: object flew by  cuckoo sound name cuckoo
- Onomatopoetic words: splash, bang, boom, rattle, buzz,
hiss (Also called bow-wow ).
- Natural cries of emotion: pain, anger, joy:  e.g. ouch
- Yo-heave-ho theory: sounds of a person involved in
physical effort e.g. when lifting trees or mammoths.

5. The Oral Gesture Theory
hypothesis:
- link between physical gesture and orally
produced sounds developed by Sir Richard
Paget (1930).
- Movement of the tongue when saying
goodbye resembles movement of waving of
the hand.

6. Physical Adaptation Theory
physical features of human beings:
good clues for their capacity for speech, e.g
Shape of human teeth
human lips:
flexibility, needed for sounds like p,b and w.

7. In 1861, historical linguist Max Müller
published a list of speculative theories
concerning the origins of spoken language:
- Bow-wow. The bow-wow or cuckoo theory,
which Müller attributed to the German
philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder, saw early
words as imitations of the cries of beasts and
birds.

8. - Pooh-pooh.
The Pooh-Pooh theory saw the first words as
emotional outbursts and exclamations
triggered by pain, pleasure, surprise, etc.
- La-la theory
The idea that speech emerged from the sounds
of inspired playfulness, love, poetic sensibility,
and song. This one is lovely, and no more or
less likely than any of the others.

9. - Ding-dong. Müller suggested what he called the Ding-
Dong theory, which states that all things have a vibrating
natural resonance, echoed somehow by man in his earliest
words.
- Yo-he-ho. The yo-he-ho theory claims language emerged
from collective rhythmic labor, the attempt to synchronize
muscular effort resulting in sounds such as heave
alternating with sounds such as ho.
- Ta-ta. This did not feature in Max Müller's list, having
been proposed in 1930 by Sir Richard Paget. According to
the ta-ta theory, humans made the earliest words by
tongue movements that mimicked manual gestures,
rendering them audible.

12. Design Features
Charles Hockett (1960)
They characterize language, and distinguish
it from other communication systems.
If a system lacks even one feature, it is
communication, not language

13. Design Features
- Mode of Communication
- Semanticity
- Pragmatic function
- Interchangeability
- Cultural transmission: At least some aspect of
communication system is learned by other users.

14. Interchangeability
This means that the speaker can both
receive and broadcast the same signal. This
is distinctive from some animal
communications such as that of the
sticklefish. The sticklefish make auditory
signals based on gender (basically, the
males say "I'm a boy" and the females say
"I'm a girl"). However, male fish cannot say
"I'm a girl," although they can perceive it.
Thus, sticklefish signals are not
interchangeable

15. Total feedback
This means that the speakers can hear
themselves speak and can monitor their
language performance as they go. This differs
from some other simple communication
systems, such as traffic signals. Traffic signs are
not normally capable of monitor their own
functions (a red light can't tell when the bulb
is burned out).

16. Specialization
This means that the organs used for producing
speech are specially adapted to that task. The
human lips, tongue, throat, etc. have been
specialized into speech apparati instead of
being merely the eating apparati in many other
animals. Dogs, for example, are not physically
capable of all of the speech sounds that
humans produce, because they lack the
necessary specialized organs.

17. Semanticity
This means that specific signals can
be matched with specific meanings.
This is a fundamental aspect of all
communication systems.

18. Arbitrariness
- This means that there is no necessary connection
between the form of the signal and the thing being
referred to.
For example, something as large as a whale can be
referred to by a very short word. Similarly, there is no
reason that a four-legged domestic creature should be
called a cat and not something else.
Onomatopoeic words such as "meow" or "bark" are often
cited as counter-examples, based on the argument that
they are pronounced like the sound they refer to.

19. Discreteness
This means that the basic units of speech (such
as sounds) can be categorized as belonging to
distinct categories. There is no gradual,
continuous shading from one sound to another
in the linguistics system, although there may be
a continuum in the real physical world. Thus
speakers will perceive a sound as either a [p] or
a [b], but not as blend, even if physically it falls
somewhere between the two sounds.

20. Productivity
This means that human languages
allow speakers to create novel,
never-before-heard utterances that
others can understand.

21. Traditional/Cultural Transmission
This means that humans have the ability to
learn, or acquire, their native language from
other speakers. This is different from many
animal communication systems where the
animal is born knowing their entire system, e.g.
bees are born knowing how to dance and some
birds are born knowing their species of bird-
songs (this is not true of all birds).

22. Duality of patterning
This means that the discrete parts of a
language can be recombined in a systematic
way to create new forms. This idea is similar to
Productivity. However, Productivity refers to
the ability to generate novel meanings, while
Duality of patterning refers to the ability to
recombine small units in different orders.

23. Prevarication
The ability to make false statements (to lie). Involves the
purposeful manipulation of a given shared communication
system in order to fool other members of the
communicating group.
Reflexiveness
Language can be used to refer to (i.e., describe) itself.
Learnability
Speakers of one language can learn to speak another.
It was Hockett's belief that the first nine features were
characteristics of communication held by all primates.
Hockett determined that the last seven features are what
distinguishes human language from all others.

24. Animal Communication Forms
- Visual: gestures, facial expressions, gaze following,
active/passive visual displays
- Auditory: Many animals communicate through
vocalizations. Communication through vocalization is
essential for many tasks including, warning calls,
conveying location of food sources, and social learning.
- Olfactory: Many mammals, in particular, have glands
that generate distinctive and long-lasting smells, and
have corresponding behaviors that leave these smells in
places where they have been

25. Electro:
A rare form of animal communication is
electrocommunication.
It is seen primarily in aquatic animals,
though some land mammals, which are
capable of electroreception and thus
theoretically of lectrocommunication.
-

26. Seismic: Also called vibrational communication.
-This mode of communication describes the conveying of
information through seismic vibrations of the substrate.
The substrate may be the earth, a plant stem or leaf, the
surface of a body of water, a spider’s web, a honeycomb, or
any of the myriad types of soil substrates.
-Vibrational communication is an ancient sensory modality
and it is widespread in the animal kingdom where it has
evolved several times independently.
It has been reported in mammals, birds, reptiles,
amphibians, insects, worms.

27. Animal Cimmunication
Example: LEOPARDS
Arbitrariness, Cultural transmission,
Interchangeability features are present.
Productivity, Discreteness, Displacement features
are not present.
Animal communication is qualitatively different
from human communication

28. Functions:
Agnostic interactions,
alarm calls,
ownership signals.