Week 2 Linguistics

The Nature and Functions of Language

Properties of Language

• In any communication system, a code is used to transmit messages.

• A code is a complex pattern of association of the units of a communication system. Humans have a highly elaborated code called language, made up of words and the rules that combine them.

•  (In language those units could be sound units; meaningful units, such as words, or meaningful units that are larger than words, such as phrases, clauses and sentences).

• The study of language has identified several features of properties of language that differentiate human and animal codes.

·         1. Arbitrariness means that human languages use neutral symbols. There is no connection between the linguistic form and its corresponding linguistic meaning/ the thing being referred to / concept.

·         For example, something as large as a ‘whale’ can be referred to by a very short word. Similarly, there is no natural connection between the word ‘dog’ and the four-legged animal it symbolises. It can be called by other names in other languages.

·         Onomatopoeic words such as "meow" or "bark“, “cuckoo”, “pop”, “bang”, “slurp”, and “squish”are often cited as counter-examples, based on the argument that they are pronounced like the sound they refer. However, the similarity is very loose. Give one example.

·         2. Cultural transmission and tradition indicates that human beings hand their languages down from one generation to another.

·         Human language is not something inborn. However, the potential to acquire a language is innate. Humans have the genetic potential  to learn to encode their messages by acquiring the rules or grammar of their language.

·     3. Discreteness it means that the basic units of speech sound can be categorized as belonging to distinct categories or treated as discrete. The sounds used in language are meaningfully distinct. /ʃ /, /ɪ/.

·         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.

·         4. Duality of patterning /(double articulation) Language is organised in 2 layers, the basic sound units of speech or discrete sounds e.g. /p/,/e /,/n/, - only meaningful when combined. The discrete parts of a language can be recombined in a systematic way to create new forms. Duality of patterning refers to the ability to recombine small units in different orders.

·         5. Displacement the ability to refer to things far removed in time and place. The speaker can talk about things which are not present, either spatially or temporally. For example, human language allows speakers to talk about

·         The present, the past and the future.

·         They can also talk about things that are physically distant (such as other countries, the moon, etc.). They can even refer to things and events that do not actually exist (not present in reality) like Santa Claus or the destruction of Tara in Gone with the Wind.

·         Animal communication is almost exclusively designed for this moment, here and now.

 

·         6. Structure dependence Humans recognise the patterned nature of language and manipulate ‘structured chunks’ e.g. they understand that a group of words can sometimes be the structural equivalent of one. (Productivity)

·         - The old lady / who was wearing a white bonnet / gave the donkey a carrot.

·         - A carrot / was given to the donkey / by the old lady who was wearing a white bonnet.

·         7. Productivity is the ability to produce and understand virtually unlimited number of utterances (novel sentences) from a limited number of words. A person can talk about anything he likes because of the ability to generate novel meanings.

·         8. Openness is the ability to add new words, phrases or other meaningful units to a language. Humans can coin new words at will, hence adding new lexical items.

·         Both properties are part of the creativity aspect of human language.

·         Prevarication refers to the ability to communicate about things that are not verifiable, things for which there is no empirical proof – saying about false or fictional things.

·         Generally absent in other animal communication system except perhaps some animals may fake conditions like death to confuse a predator, some animals mimic the sounds of other species

·         This playing dead and mimicking other species is similar to lying – but genetically pre-programmed whereas humans learn to lie.

·         9. Semanticity -- the use of symbols to ‘mean or refer to objects and actions e.g. chair means a 4-legged contraption one sits on; jump means the act of leaping in the air. (specific signals matched with specific meanings)

·         Some writers claimed that semanticity is exclusively human. Animals produce signal codes to denote a condition rather than referring to a specific object and action- threat, fear, danger, hunger, anger.
 

·         10. Vocal auditory channel. Sounds are made with the vocal organs and a hearing mechanism receives them.

·         11. Reciprocity/ Interchangeability. Any speaker or sender of a linguistic signal can also be a listener or receiver. The speaker can both receive and broadcast the same signal.

References

1.          Rowe, B R & Levine D R (2009), A Concise Introduction to Linguistics, 2^nd Edition, Pearson. Boston
2.          Fromkin, V., Rodman,R. Hyam, N (2003). An Introduction to Language. 7^th. Ed. Sydney. Holt, Rine and Winston.
3.          Finegan, E., N (2008). Language: Its Structure and Use. San Diego. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
4.          Aitchison, J. (1976) The Articulate Mammal. Hutchinson
5.         Yule, George. (1996) The Study of Language. Second Edition. Cambridge, CUP.

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