Animal & Human Language, Study notes of Communication

Download Animal & Human Language and more Study notes Communication in PDF only on Docsity!

Chapter 2:

Animal & Human Language

Lecture 2 Lecturer: Haifa Alroqi

LANE 321 – Introduction to Linguistics

Things to remember

 Linguistics is the scientific study of language- what we know when we know a language.

 Main areas: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics.

 Other areas: sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, historical linguistics, language acquisition, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics.

Communicative & informative signals

Signals

( sending signals unintentionally )^ Informative Signals (intentionally communicating sth)^ Communicative Signals

a cold = sneezed not at ease = shifting around disorganized = non-matching socks stranger = strange accent

Humans e.g. I’m sorry, I don’t think I can make^ We have a quiz next week it to the meeting

Animals A blackbird producing a loud squawk^ e.g. when a cat appears in the scene

Properties of human language

1. Displacement

• Animal communication is designed for the immediate place and time (here and now)
• Humans can use language to refer to the past, present and future e.g. last night, now, next week
• We can even talk about things and places whose existence we cannot be sure of. e.g. angels, fairies, Superman, Santa Claus, heaven, hell

Properties of human language

2. Arbitrariness (in human language) Generally, there is no ‘natural’ connection between a linguistic form and its meaning. The relation between linguistic forms and the objects they refer to is arbitrary Dog in English and كلب in Arabic. There are some words (onomatopoeic) in language with sounds that seems to ‘echo’ the sounds of objects or actions (less arbitrary) Onomatopoeia: the use of words that sound like the thing they are describing, (e.g. 'hiss' or 'boom’) Onomatopoeic words are relatively rare in human language.

Properties of human language

Arbitrariness (in animal communication)

there is a connection between the conveyed message and the signal used to convey it.

Consists of a fixed and limited set of vocal or gestural forms. (many are only used in specific situations or at particular times)

Properties of human language

Productivity (in animals)

o The communication systems of other creatures don’t have this flexibility.

o They have a limited set of signals to choose from ( fixed reference)

o Each signal in the system is fixed as relating to a particular object or occasion.

o They cannot produce any new signals to describe novel experiences.

o The worker bee example (p. 11)

Properties of human language

4. Cultural transmission (in humans) o Humans inherit physical features from their parents but not language. o We acquire a language in a culture with other speakers (not from parental genes)

Cultural transmission The process whereby a language is passed on from one generation to the next.

o We are born with a predisposition to acquire language (but not with the ability to produce utterances in a specific language) o We acquire our 1st^ language as children in a culture.

Properties of human language

5. Duality (double-articulation) – in humans In speech production: o At a physical level, individual discrete sounds (e.g. g, d,& o) mean nothing separately. o At another level, they take on meaning only when they are combined together in various ways (e.g. god/ dog)

Human language is organized at 2 levels or layers simultaneously: o At one level - distinct sounds o At another level - distinct meanings Duality is one of the most economical features of human language (with a limited set of discrete sounds, we are capable of producing a very large number of sound combinations (e.g. words))

Properties of human language

Duality (double-articulation) – in animals

o Animals’ communicative signals are fixed and cannot be broken down into separate parts meow is not m + e + o + w

Talking to animals

 Can animals understand our language?  Under the impression that animals follow what is being said… (horses, pets, circus animals!)  Is this an evidence that non-humans can understand human language?  The standard explanation is that the animal produces a particular behavior in response to a particular sound-stimulus or ‘noise’, but doesn’t actually understand what the word in the noise mean.  Can animals of one species learn to produce the signals of another species? (horse – cows/ puppy- baby) (p. 13)

Chimpanzees and language

Some researchers devoted their time to teach a chimpanzee how to use human language- not successful

Catherine & Keith Hayes – 1940s:

o raised (Viki) as a human child.

o Spent 5 years attempting to get her to ‘say’ English words by trying to shape her mouth as she produces sounds.

o Eventually, she managed to produce poorly articulated versions of mama , papa , and cup.

 This was a remarkable achievement: it has become clear that non- humans don’t actually have a physically structures vocal tract which is suitable for articulating the sounds used in speech.  Apes & gorillas, like chimpanzees, communicate with a wide range of vocal calls (but they just can’t make human speech sounds)

Beatrix & Allen Gardner:

 raised Washoe as a human child.  taught her to use ASL (learned by many deaf children as their natural 1st^ lang.)  Sign language was always used when she’s around

• she was encouraged to use signs.  In 3 ½ years, she came to use signs for more than a 100 words. (e.g. baby, banana, window, woman, you, etc)  She was able to combine forms to produce sentences (e.g. more fruit/ open food drink)  She invented some forms (e.g. water bird = swan) – productivity.