Animals and human language - Properties of human language

6 important questions on Animals and human language - Properties of human language

Describe reflexivity in relation to human communication and animal communication.

Reflexivity is the concept of using language to talk or think about language. Humans are able to reflect on language and its uses and animals are not.

Describe displacement in relation to human communication and animal communication.

Humans are able to refer to past, future, and fictional place and time. Animal communication is related to the here and now. A form of displacement seen in bee communication is described in an experiment where bees found a new nectar source and communicate the location of this to the others, however, they cannot refer to that nectar they found a week ago.

Describe the term arbitrariness in relation to human communication and animal communication.

In human language, there is generally no natural connection between a linguistic form and its meaning, rendering it arbitrary. By forming letters it is possible to make words fit the concept but this only emphasizes the arbitrariness of the word. Animal signals are often connected to specific situations, there is a clear connection between the signal and the message.
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Describe the term cultural transmission in relation to human communication an animal communication.

A child will learn the language they are surrounded by. This means that for humans, language is culture-bound. An animal has the instinct to produce certain sounds. A child from Korea adopted by English-speakers will not instinctively speak Korean. A kitten in a similar situation will still meow.

Describe the term productivity in relation to human communication and animal communication.

Human language is infinite. Humans are able to continually produce new expressions by manipulating their linguistic resources to describe new ideas and situations.  Animals have limited signals and use them in specific situations. In an experiment with bees, they were taken to a watertower to 'find new nectar', the bees then went back to the hive and they did their dance, but the bees then could not find the nectar. They did not have a signal for 'up' and could not create one.

Describe the term duality in relation to human language and animal language.

The human language has two levels. There is the level of individual phonemes/graphemes and the level of the combination of these icons to form a new meaning. With a limited set of sounds, we can form a large number of sound combinations that are distinct in meaning. Among animals each signal has a distinctive fixed form and meaning that cannot be broken down into seperate parts.

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