Animals and Human Communication: Properties of Human Language

There are many stories about creatures that can talk. We usually assume that birds or animals simply imitate something that they have heard from humans. We think that creatures are capable of communicating with other members of the same species. But is it possible that a creature could learn to communicate with humans using language? Or do humans have some special properties that make them unique from other creatures?

 The properties of human language and how they differ from animal communication. Some experiments have tried to teach language to chimpanzees and evaluate their results.

Properties of Human Language

Communication is the primary function of human language, but it is not a distinguishing feature. All creatures communicate in some way, even if it’s not through vocalization. However, human language has some distinct properties that make it a unique communication system. These properties are:

• Reflexivity
• Displacement
• Arbitrariness
• Productivity
• Cultural transmission
• Duality

Reflexivity

The property of human language that allows humans to talk and think about language itself is called reflexivity. Humans can use language to describe, analyze, and evaluate language and its uses. For example, humans can write dictionaries, grammars, and textbooks about language. They can also comment on the style, accuracy, or appropriateness of language use.

Other creatures are not able to reflect on their communication system or use it for metalinguistic purposes. They can only use it for immediate and practical purposes.

Displacement

The property of human language that allows humans to refer to the past or future is called displacement. It also allows humans to talk about things and events that are not present in the immediate environment or that do not exist at all. For example, humans can talk about history, fiction, dreams, or fantasies.

When your pet cat comes home and stands at your feet calling meow, you are likely to understand this message as relating to that immediate time and place. If you ask your cat where it has been and what it has been up to, you will probably get the same meow response.

Arbitrariness

The property of human language that shows that there is no natural connection between a linguistic form or word and its meaning is called arbitrariness. The relationship between speech sounds and what they represent is based on convention and agreement, not on logic or necessity. For example, there is no reason why the word “cat” should mean a small furry animal with whiskers and a tail, except that English speakers have agreed to use it that way.

Because the relationship between speech sounds and what they represent is arbitrary, different languages have different speech sounds to represent the same thing:

English: The rice is burning!

Korean: Pap thanda! Different sounds, same message.

There are some exceptions to arbitrariness, such as onomatopoeic words. These are words whose sounds “imitate” the sounds of nature, such as cuckoo (English), cuco (Spanish), kakukk (Hungarian), kuckuck (German), etc. Other examples are slurp, hiss, buzz. However, there is only a small group of onomatopoeic words in the vocabulary of any language and the majority of words in all languages are arbitrary.

Productivity

The property of human language that allows humans to create new expressions by manipulating their linguistic resources according to the situation is called productivity. Humans can combine words and sentences in infinite ways to convey new meanings and messages. They can also invent new words and expressions when needed.

Animals cannot manipulate their communication system to create new messages because they have a fixed set of signals for communicating. These signals are fixed in terms of their reference and cannot be changed or combined in different ways. The lack of productivity in animal communication can be described in terms of fixed reference.

Cultural Transmission

The property of human language that shows that language is passed on from one generation to the next through social interaction and learning is called cultural transmission. Humans are born with some kind of predisposition to acquire language, but they are not born with the ability to produce a specific language. They acquire language from their culture and environment.

For example, an infant born to a Korean parent in Korea, but adopted and brought up from birth by English speakers in the United States, will have physical characteristics from his or her natural parent, but will inevitably speak English.

A kitten, given comparable early experience, will produce meow regardless. Animal communication shows that animals are born with a set of specific signals that are produced instinctively.

Duality

The property of human language that shows that language is organized at two levels or layers simultaneously is called duality. At one level, there are meaningless units of sound called phonemes, such as /k/, /a/, and /t/. At another level, there are meaningful units of sound called morphemes, such as “cat”, “dog”, or “run”. Phonemes can be combined to form morphemes, and morphemes can be combined to form words and sentences.

Duality allows human language to have a large number of meaningful expressions with a relatively small number of sounds. It also allows human language to have a high degree of flexibility and creativity.

Animal communication does not have duality, because their signals are not composed of smaller units that can be recombined in different ways. Their signals are holistic and fixed in their form and meaning.

Talking to Animals

If these properties make human language a unique communication system, then it would seem extremely unlikely that animals are able to understand it. There is a lot of spoken language directed by humans to animals, apparently under the impression that the animal follows what is being said. For example, dogs can obey commands such as “sit”, “down”, and “roll”.

However, we cannot assume that animals can understand human language, but rather that they associate certain behaviors with certain sound stimuli, but do not actually comprehend the words or the meanings behind them.

Many experiments have been carried out to observe whether an animal can learn a human language or use a similar system of symbols. Some of these experiments involved chimpanzees and their results.

Chimpanzees and Language

Chimpanzees are the closest living relatives of humans, sharing about 98% of their DNA. They also have some cognitive abilities that are similar to humans, such as memory, problem-solving, and tool use. Therefore, they have been the main subjects of experiments that have tried to teach them language.

Gua

The idea of raising a chimp and a child together may seem like a nightmare, but this is basically what was done in an early attempt to teach chimpanzees to use human language. In 1931, two scientists reported on their experience of raising an infant chimpanzee together with their baby son. The chimpanzee was called Gua and was treated as a member of the family.

The scientists hoped that Gua would learn to speak by imitating the human speech around her. However, they found that Gua was not able to produce any words, although she could understand about a hundred words. She could also perform some tasks better than the human child, such as opening doors, using spoons, and brushing teeth.

The experiment was terminated after nine months when the human child started to imitate Gua’s sounds and gestures instead of speaking.

Washoe

Recognizing that chimpanzees were not likely to learn spoken language due to their vocal anatomy and physiology, another scientist couple decided to teach a female chimpanzee called Washoe to use a version of American Sign Language (ASL). ASL is a natural language used by deaf people in the United States and Canada. It has its own grammar, vocabulary, and structure.

Like a human child, Washoe was raised in a comfortable domestic environment and she was always encouraged to use signs. In a period of three and a half years, Washoe learned to use the signs for more than a hundred words, ranging from “airplane”, “baby”, and “banana” to “window”, “woman”, and “you”. She also learned to combine these signs to produce sentences of the type “gimme tickle”, “more fruit”, and “open food drink”. Washoe could understand many signs and was capable of holding rudimentary conversations.

Washoe also showed some evidence of creativity and generalization in her sign use. For example, she invented the sign “water bird” for swan and used the sign “dirty” for anything she disliked. She also taught some signs to another chimpanzee called Loulis, demonstrating cultural transmission.

Sarah

Another experiment used an artificial technique to teach language to a chimpanzee called Sarah. Sarah was taught to use a set of plastic shapes that represented words that could be arranged in a sequence to form sentences. Sarah was systematically trained to associate these shapes with objects and actions. She lived in an animal cage and was rewarded with food for using the plastic shapes correctly.

Sarah was capable of producing sentences such as “Mary give chocolate Sarah” and had an impressive capacity to understand complex structures such as “if Sarah put red on green, Mary give chocolate”. Sarah got the chocolate if she performed the action correctly.

However, Sarah did not show any evidence of creativity or spontaneity in her use of plastic shapes. She only used them when prompted by the experimenter or when she wanted something. She did not use them for social interaction or expression.

Lana

Another artificial technique was used to teach language to a chimpanzee called Lana. Lana learned a language called Yerkish, which consisted of a set of symbols on a large keyboard linked to a computer. The computer would display messages on a screen and produce sounds when Lana pressed the symbols.

When Lana wanted something, she had to find and press the symbols to produce the message. For example, if she wanted some water, she had to press four symbols to produce the message “Please machine gives water”. The computer would then dispense some water for her.

Lana learned to use about 125 symbols and could produce and understand simple sentences. She also showed some evidence of creativity and humor in her use of Yerkish. For example, she once asked for “Please Tim give kiss” when Tim was not present, and then laughed when the computer said, “Tim is absent”.

However, Lana also did not use Yerkish for social interaction or expression. She only used it when she wanted something or when she was bored. She did not initiate conversations or ask questions.

Conclusion

The properties of human language and how they differ from animal communication. But some experiments that have tried to teach language to chimpanzees and evaluated their results.

The experiments have shown that chimpanzees are capable of learning some aspects of human languages, such as vocabulary, syntax, and semantics. They can also use symbols to communicate with humans and with other chimpanzees. However, they do not show the same level of flexibility, creativity, and reflexivity as humans do. They also do not use language for social interaction or expression as humans do.

The human language is a unique communication system that has some special properties that make it different from animal communication. Humans have a natural ability and a cultural need to use language for various purposes and functions. Animals have different communication system that suits their needs and environment.