ANIMALS AND HUMAN LANGUAGE
Special Properties of Human Language
The properties of language make reference to those especial characteristics that can be only found in human language
1-Displacement: allow us to talk about things and place whose existence we can’t even be sure of it. Moreover, humans have the ability to express themselves to talk about future and past events
2- Arbitrariness: linguistics forms or symbols can have several or range of meanings.
3- Cultural Transmission: we acquired language in a culture with other speakers
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4- Productivity: refers to the creation of new expressions by manipulating their linguistic resources to describe new objects and situations
5- Duality: refers to two separate layers of language working together to provide us with a pool of sounds which we can combine to communicate with one another.
Communication
Informative Signals
Sending signals unintentionally for example: a cold- sneeze,
Communicative Signals
intentionally communicating something
Talking to animals
Animals can’t articulate or vocalize the same way humans can
Apes can be taught sign language which is a lot easier than human speaking for them and enables them to communicate and get the message.
The animal produces a particular behavior in response to a particular “noise” but doesn’t actually understand what the word in the noise mean.