Hockett’s language features Characteristics of Language

1. Hockett’s Features
of Human Language
Batangas State University – Main Campus I
College of Teacher Education
Eng 203 – Introduction to Linguistics
Prepared by: Ms Rej

2. • It is any code that involves signs, symbols, and
gestures used in communication.
• It is a social tool used to communicate, express
emotions, feelings, and ideas.
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3. Use of sound signals
• Some animals use a variety of means to
communicate with others, e.g. Crabs
communicate by waving their claws.
• The use of sounds is also used to communicate
by humans and some animals, like birds,
dolphins, cows, monkeys.
• • Sound signals have several advantages. They
can be used in the dark, and at some distance,
they allow a wide variety of messages to be
sent and they leave the body free for other
activities.
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4. Use of sound signals
• Humans may have acquired sound signaling at
the latter part of evolution.
• This might be true since the body parts used in
speech have more than their basic functions.
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6. Arbitrariness
• In animal communication, there is often a
strong recognizable link between the actual
signal and the message an animal wishes to
convey.
• In human language, there is no link whatsoever
between the signal and the message.
• There is no intrinsic connection between, for
example, the word Elephant and the animal it
symbolizes.
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8. Arbitrariness (Across Languages)
• Evidence of Arbitrariness: Diverse Languages
• “Cat” has different pronunciations in different
languages
• Similarities are the product of common roots
and/or diffusion from one language to another

10. The need for learning
• Many animals automatically know how to
communicate without learning. Their systems of
communication are genetically inbuilt.
• This is quite different from the long learning
process needed to acquire human language,
which is culturally transmitted.
• A human being brought up in isolation simply
does not acquire language. And there is almost
certainly some type of innate predisposition
towards language in a new-born child. This
latent potentiality can be activated only by long
exposure to language, which requires careful
learning.
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11. Duality
• • Animals who use vocal signals have a stock of
basic sounds which vary according to species.
• Human language works rather differently. Each
language has a stock of sound units or
phonemes. Each phoneme is normally
meaningless in isolation.
• It becomes meaningful only when it is combined
with other phonemes. F, g, d, o, means nothing
separately. They normally take on meaning only
when they are combined together in various
ways, as in fog, dog, god.
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12. Duality
• Double articulation is this organization of
language into two layers– a layer of sounds
which combine into a second layer of larger
units.
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13. Displacement
• Most animals can communicate about things in
the immediate environment only. A bird, for
example, utters its danger cry only when
danger is present. • Human language, by
contrast, can communicate about things that
are absent as easily as about things that are
present. This is called “displacement”.
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14. Creativity (Productivity)
• Most animals have a very limited number of messages
they can send or receive.
• These followings are the translation of male of certain
species of grasshopper: 1. I am happy, life is good. 2. I
would like to make love. 3. You are trespassing on my
territory. 4. She’s mine. 5. Let’s make love. 6. Oh how
nice to have made love.
• The limitation or restriction of messages is not found in
human language, which is essentially creative (or
productive). Humans can produce novel utterances
whenever they want to. A person can utter a sentence
which has never been said before.
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16. Patterning
• Many animal communication systems consist of
a simple list of elements. There is no internal
organization within the system.
• Human language, on the other hand, is most
definitely not a haphazard heap. Humans do
not juxtapose sounds and words in a random
way.
• Every item in language has its own
characteristics place in the total pattern. It can
combine with certain specified items and be
replaced by others.
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17. Patterning
• The – burglar – sneezed – loudly
• A – robber – coughed – softly
• That – cat – hissed –noisily
• Language can therefore be regarded as an
intricate network of interlinked elements in
which every item is held in its place and given
its identity by all the other items.
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18. Structure Dependence
• Look at the sentences: The penguin squawked.
It squawked. The penguin which slipped on the
ice squawked.
• Each of these sentences has a similar basic
structure. The penguin It The penguin which
slipped on the ice squawked
• Language operations are structure
dependent—they depend on an understanding
of the internal structure of a sentence.
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19. Human Language VS Animal
Communication
• Human language is a signaling system which
uses sounds, a characteristic shared by a large
number of animal systems.
• In animal communication, there is frequently a
connection between the signal and the
message sent and the system is mainly
genetically inbuilt.
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20. Human Language VS Animal
Communication
• In human language, the symbols are mostly
arbitrary and the system has to be
painstakingly.
• Duality and displacement are rare in the animal
world. Creativity seems not to be present in any
natural communication system possessed by
animals.
• Language is a patterned system of arbitrary
sound signals, characterized by structure
dependence, creativity, displacement, duality
and cultural transmission.
Linguistics Made Easy by Jean Aitchison (2012)