1) Edward Sapir was an influential American anthropologist and linguist in the early 20th century. He argued that language is a cultural rather than biologically inherited function. 2) Charles Hockett developed design features to compare animal communication systems to human language. He identified 7 key characteristics of human language including duality, productivity, arbitrariness, and cultural transmission. 3) The purpose of language is communication. It allows humans to produce and understand novel utterances through cultural transmission rather than physical inheritance.

1. Human Language
It is a system
It differs from other
modes of communication

2. Edward Sapir
An American anthropologi
st-linguist, one of the most
important figure in the
early development of the
discipline of linguistics
Language: An
Introduction to the
Study of Speech

3. There is no discernible
instinctive basis for
human speech

4. Edward Sapir
“Language is a
cultural,not a
biologically inherited
function.”

5. He says:
Walking-is an organic or
manipulated function
Speech- non
instinctive;acquired,
cultural function

6. Capacity for speech is a
characteristic of human race,and
of the human race alone.
Perhaps it is better to describe
man as
Homo Loquens –Man capable of
speech than
Homo Sapiens –Humankind

7. Charles Hockett
• Comparative method of
linguistics
• One of Hockett’s most important
contributions was his
development of the design-
feature approach to comparative
linguistics where he attempted to
distinguish the similarities and
differences among animal
communication systems
andhuman language.

8. 7 Characteristics of Human
Language
1.Duality
2.Productivity
3.Arbitrariness
4. Interchangeability
5.Specialisation
6.Displacement
7.Cultural
transmission

9. Duality
• Stucture of language is
dual .
• Phonemes and
Morphemes

10. Productivity
• Enable a speaker to
produce new utterances
• Language-users can
create and understand
novel utterances.

11. Arbitrariness
• There is no necessary
relation between any
given feature of
language and its
meaning.

12. Interchangeability
• Language can both send
and receive message
• In other words, anything
that one can hear, one
can also say.

13. Specialisation
• Human language is a special
system and has its own
framework of structure and
meaning
• System is suitable for
conveying message within the
framework

14. Displacement
•Human language can
be used both
extensionally or
intentionally.

15. Cultural Transmission
• Human language is
transmitted from one
individual to another not
by physical inheritance,
but by learning.

16. The 2 Fundamental
ones are:
1. Productivity
2. Duality

17. Geoffrey Broughton
“Communication can be
infinitely complex...”

18. The purpose of
language is
communication.

19. Native Speaker – Has
grown up with the
language and does not
have any difficulty in
encoding and decoding
the message uttered in
the language.

20. F.S Scott
English Grammar : A
Linguistic Study of its
Classes and Structures
“To learn another language
is not merely to learn a
new set of sounds or
marks on paper for
saying something...”