essay on characteristics of human language

• Question and Answer
• Open access
• Published: 24 July 2017

Q&A: What is human language, when did it evolve and why should we care?

• Mark Pagel 1  

BMC Biology volume  15 , Article number:  64 ( 2017 ) Cite this article

136k Accesses

17 Citations

158 Altmetric

Metrics details

Human language is unique among all forms of animal communication. It is unlikely that any other species, including our close genetic cousins the Neanderthals, ever had language, and so-called sign ‘language’ in Great Apes is nothing like human language. Language evolution shares many features with biological evolution, and this has made it useful for tracing recent human history and for studying how culture evolves among groups of people with related languages. A case can be made that language has played a more important role in our species’ recent (circa last 200,000 years) evolution than have our genes.

What is special about human language?

Human language is distinct from all other known animal forms of communication in being compositional . Human language allows speakers to express thoughts in sentences comprising subjects, verbs and objects—such as ‘I kicked the ball’—and recognizing past, present and future tenses. Compositionality gives human language an endless capacity for generating new sentences as speakers combine and recombine sets of words into their subject, verb and object roles. For instance, with just 25 different words for each role, it is already possible to generate over 15,000 distinct sentences. Human language is also referential , meaning speakers use it to exchange specific information with each other about people or objects and their locations or actions.

What is animal ‘language’ like?

Animal ‘language’ is nothing like human language. Among primates, vervet monkeys ( Chlorocebus pygerythrus ) produce three distinct alarm calls in response to the presence of snakes, leopards and eagles [ 1 ]. A number of parrot species can mimic human sounds, and some Great Apes have been taught to make sign language gestures with their hands. Some dolphin species seem to have a variety of repetitive sound motifs (clicks) associated with hunting or social grouping. These forms of animal communication are symbolic in the sense of using a sound to stand in for an object or action, but there is no evidence for compositionality, or that they are truly generative and creative forms of communication in which speakers and listeners exchange information [ 2 ].

Instead non-human animal communication is principally limited to repetitive instrumental acts directed towards a specific end, lacking any formal grammatical structure, and often explainable in terms of hard-wired evolved behaviours or simple associative learning [ 2 ]. Most ape sign language, for example, is concerned with requests for food. The trained chimpanzee Nim Chimpsky’s longest recorded ‘utterance’, when translated from sign language, was ‘give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you’ [ 3 ]. Alarm calls such as observed in the vervet monkeys often evolve by kin-selection to protect one’s relatives, or even selfishly to distract predators away from the caller. Hunting and social group communications can be explained as learned coordinating signals without ‘speakers’ knowing why they are acting as they are.

When did human language evolve?

No one knows for sure when language evolved, but fossil and genetic data suggest that humanity can probably trace its ancestry back to populations of anatomically modern Homo sapiens (people who would have looked like you and me) who lived around 150,000 to 200,000 years ago in eastern or perhaps southern Africa [ 4 , 5 , 6 ]. Because all human groups have language, language itself, or at least the capacity for it, is probably at least 150,000 to 200,000 years old. This conclusion is backed up by evidence of abstract and symbolic behaviour in these early modern humans, taking the form of engravings on red-ochre [ 7 , 8 ].

The archaeological record reveals that about 40,000 years ago there was a flowering of art and other cultural artefacts at modern human sites, leading some archaeologists to suggest that a late genetic change in our lineage gave rise to language at this later time [ 9 ]. But this evidence derives mainly from European sites and so struggles to explain how the newly evolved language capacity found its way into the rest of humanity who had dispersed from Africa to other parts of the globe by around 70,000 years ago.

Could language be older than our species?

Ancient DNA reveals us to be over 99% identical in the sequences of our protein coding genes to our sister species the Neanderthals ( Homo neanderthalensis ) [ 10 ]. The Neanderthals had large brains and were able to inhabit much of Eurasia from around 350,000 years ago. If the Neanderthals had language, that would place its origin at least as far back as the time of our common ancestor with them, currently thought to be around 550,000 to 750,000 years ago [ 10 , 11 ].

However, even as recently as 40,000 years ago in Europe, the Neanderthals show almost no evidence of the symbolic thinking—no art or sculpture for example—that we often associate with language, and little evidence of the cultural attainments of Homo sapiens of the same era. By 40,000 years ago, Homo sapiens had plentiful art, musical instruments and specialized tools such as sewing needles. Neanderthals probably didn’t even have sewn clothing, instead they would have merely draped themselves with skins [ 12 ]. And, despite evidence that around 1–5% of the human genome might be derived from human–Neanderthal matings [ 13 ], the Neanderthals went extinct as a species while we flourished.

Can genetic evidence help to decide when language evolved?

Yes. Modern humans and Neanderthals share a derived version of a transcription factor gene known as FOXP2 that differs from the chimpanzee version by two amino acid replacements [ 14 ]. FOXP2 influences the fine-motor control of facial muscles required for the production of speech. Indeed, inserting this derived form into mice causes them to squeak differently [ 15 ]! However, in spite of having identical primary sequences to Neanderthals, modern humans have acquired changes to the regulation of their FOXP2 genes that seem likely to cause their FOXP2 to be expressed differently to that of the Neanderthals [ 16 ], and these expression differences are pronounced in brain neurons. Combining these genetic hints with the differences in symbolic and cultural behaviour that are evident from the fossil record suggests language arose in our lineage sometime after our split from our common ancestor with Neanderthals, and probably by no later than 150,000 to 200,000 years ago.

Was there a single origin of language?

This question has parallels in biological evolution. Did life evolve once or many times? The presence of the same RNA and DNA in all organisms and homologies in the machinery of DNA transcription and translation suggest that at least all current life on Earth has a common origin. It is possible that life evolved more than once but all descendants of these other origins went extinct and left no fossil or other traces.

With language the inference is harder to make because features such as vocabulary and grammar change too rapidly to be able to link all of the world’s languages to a common original mother tongue. On the other hand, all human languages rely on combining sounds or ‘phones’ to make words, many of those sounds are common across languages, different languages seem to structure the world semantically in similar ways [ 17 ], all human languages recognize the past, present and future and all human languages structure words into sentences [ 18 ]. All humans are also capable of learning and speaking each other’s languages (some phones are unique to some language families—such as the famous ‘click’ sound of some San languages of Southern Africa—but these are probably within the capability of all human speakers if they are exposed to learning that sound at the right time of life).

These considerations suggest that the anatomical, neurological and physiological underpinnings of language are shared among all of humanity. If the capacity for language did evolve more than once, all traces of it seem to have been lost. This conclusion is buttressed by the FOXP2 evidence (all humans share the same derived gene) and by the fact that genetic data point to all modern humans descending from a common ancestor [ 19 ].

Is language evolution like biological evolution?

Darwin observed that “The formation of different languages and of distinct species, and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously the same” (page 59 in [ 20 ]). He also asserted that “The survival and preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection.” (pages 59–60 in [ 20 ]).

Darwin was right on both counts. Linguists have known from at least the late 18th century [ 21 ]—about 100 years before Darwin—that languages predominantly evolve by a process of descent with modification from earlier ancestral languages, just as biological species descend from earlier ancestral forms. An example is differences observed between the ancient Greek vocabulary in Homer’s Iliad from around 750 BCE and modern Greek vocabulary (Table  1 ) [ 22 ]: some words have merely changed their pronunciation while others have been replaced by new unrelated words.

Regarding Darwin’s assertions that certain words are favoured in the ‘struggle for existence’, it is useful to remember that there is seldom any connection between a sound (a word) and its meaning. This means that selection is reasonably free to choose among words and so features of the words we actually use might reveal its actions. The simplest example is that words that are used more often—such as I , he , she , it , the , you —tend to be shorter, and consequently easier to pronounce, than less frequently used words, such as obstreperous or catafalque [ 23 ]. This is an example of a form of natural selection except here instead of biological individuals competing in the physical environment to survive and reproduce, words compete for space in the environment of the human mind. Our minds give preference to shorter versions of the frequently used words, presumably to reduce effort [ 23 ]. This pressure is relaxed among the less frequently used words, allowing them to be longer. It might also be the case that once the frequently used words have occupied the space of possible short words, there are fewer opportunities for the less frequently used words [ 24 ].

Is it possible to reconstruct the history of a group of languages like we do with species?

Yes. Using common lists of words that are found in all or nearly all languages, linguists can identify shared sets of cognate words—words that descend from common ancestral words— just as it is possible to identify homologous genes that share a common ancestral gene. For instance the Spanish mano (‘hand’) and the French main descend from the earlier Latin manus , while the English and German words hand do not. A cognate set identifies groups of related languages. In the example here mano and main identify the so-called Romance languages (Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese) and hand and hand identify the Germanic languages (Fig.  1 ). By combining the information in many different cognate sets with appropriate statistical models [ 25 , 26 ], it is possible to infer detailed family histories or phylogenetic trees of language families, such as has been done for the Indo-European languages (Fig.  1 ). These phylogenies are directly analogous to phylogenies of biological species.

Phylogenetic tree of a small subset of the approximately 400 or so Indo-European languages. Words that the languages use for the meaning ‘hand’ are colour-coded to identify cognate classes. Rectangles along the branches identify regions of the tree where new cognate classes might have arisen. Here the French and Spanish languages share cognate forms for ‘hand’ derived from an earlier Latin form ‘manus’. French and Spanish are part of the familiar grouping of Romance languages. By comparison, the word ‘hand’ is cognate between English and German and this cognate class identifies part of the Germanic grouping of languages. The words for ‘hand’ in Greek and in the extinct Anatolian languages Hittite and Tocharian form two additional cognate sets. Combining many different cognate sets from many different vocabulary items allows investigators to draw detailed phylogenetic trees of entire language families (see text)

What other evolutionary features do genes and language share?

Linguistic and biological evolution share features beyond descent with modification and selection, including mechanisms of mutation and replication, speciation, drift and horizontal transfer (Table  2 ). At a deeper level, both genes and languages can be represented as digital systems of inheritance, built on the transmission of discrete chunks of information—genes in the case of biological organisms, and words in the case of language. Genes in turn comprise combinations of the four bases or nucleotides (A, C, G, T) while words can be modelled as comprising combinations of discrete sounds or phones (in fact, phones or sounds vary in a continuous space but languages are commonly represented as expressing a particular set of discrete phonemes).

These similarities mean that we can—and should—think of language as a system for the transmission of information that is tantamount to ‘aural DNA’. Even the peculiar phenomenon of concerted evolution in genetics—where a nucleotide replacement at a specific site in one gene is quickly followed by the same nucleotide replacement at the same site in other, typically related, genes—is also observed in language. Known as regular sound change , a specific phone or sound changes over a relatively short period of time to the same other phone in many words in the lexicon [ 27 , 28 ]. A well-known example is the p → f sound change in the Germanic languages where an older Indo-European p sound was replaced by an f sound, such as in pater → father ; or pes, pedis → foot .

Can changes to language be used to trace human history?

There are currently about 7000 languages spoken around the world, meaning that, oddly, most of us cannot communicate with most other members of our species! Even this number is probably down from the peak of human linguistic diversity that was likely to have occurred around 10,000 years ago, just prior to the invention of agriculture [ 29 ]. Before that time, all human groups had been hunter-gatherers, living in small mobile tribal societies. Farming societies were demographically more prosperous and group sizes were larger than among hunter-gatherers, so the expansion of agriculturalists likely replaced many smaller linguistic groups. Today, there are few hunter-gatherer societies left so our linguistic diversity reflects our relatively recent agricultural past.

Phylogenies of languages can be used in combination with geographical information or information on cultural practices to investigate questions of human history, such as the spread of agriculture. Phylogenies of language families have been used to study the timing, causes and geographic spread of groups of farmers/fishing populations, including the Indo-Europeans [ 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ]; the pace of occupation of the Pacific by the Austronesian people [ 34 ]; and the migration routes of the Bantu-speaking people through Africa [ 35 , 36 ].

Linguistic phylogenies are also used to investigate questions of human cultural evolution, including the evolution and spread of dairying [ 37 , 38 , 39 ], relationships between religious and political practices [ 40 ], changing political structures [ 41 ] and the age of fairy tales [ 42 ], and have even supplied a date for Homer’s Iliad [ 22 ].

What role has language played in our species’ success?

Language has played a prominent and possibly pre-eminent role in our species’ history. Consider that where all other species tend to be found in the environments their genes adapt them to, humans can adapt at the cultural level, acquiring the knowledge and producing the tools, shelters, clothing and other artefacts necessary for survival in diverse habitats [ 12 , 43 ]. Thus, chimpanzees are found in the dense forests of Africa but not out on the savannah or in deserts or cold regions; camels are found in dry regions but not in forests or mountaintops, and so on for other species. Humans, on the other hand, despite being a species that probably evolved on the African savannahs, have been able to occupy nearly every habitat on Earth. Our behaviour is like that of a collection of biological species [ 43 ]. Why this striking difference?

It is probably down to language. Possessing language, humans have had a high-fidelity code for transmitting detailed information down the generations. Many, if not most, of the things we make use of in our everyday lives rely on specialized knowledge or skills to produce. The information behind these was historically coded in verbal instructions, and with the advent of writing it could be stored and become increasingly complex.

Possessing language, then, is behind humans’ ability to produce sophisticated cultural adaptations that have accumulated one on top of the other throughout our history as a species. Today as a result of this capability we live in a world full of technologies that few of us even understand. Because culture, riding on the back of language, can evolve more rapidly than genes, the relative genetic homogeneity of humanity in contrast to our cultural diversity shows that our ‘aural DNA’ has probably been more important in our short history than genes.

Seyfarth RM, Cheney DL, Marler P. Vervet monkey alarm calls: semantic communication in a free-ranging primate. Anim Behav. 1980;28(4):1070–94.

Article   Google Scholar  

Fitch WT. The evolution of language. Cambridge University Press; 2010.

Terrace HS. How Nim Chimpsky changed my mind. Psychol Today. 1979;13(6):65.

Google Scholar  

Fleagle JG, Assefa Z, Brown FH, Shea JJ. Paleoanthropology of the Kibish Formation, southern Ethiopia: introduction. J Hum Evol. 2008;55(3):360–5.

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Poznik GD, Henn BM, Yee M-C, Sliwerska E, Euskirchen GM, Lin AA, et al. Sequencing Y chromosomes resolves discrepancy in time to common ancestor of males versus females. Science. 2013;341(6145):562–5.

Article   CAS   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Brown FH, McDougall I, Fleagle JG. Correlation of the KHS Tuff of the Kibish Formation to volcanic ash layers at other sites, and the age of early Homo sapiens (Omo I and Omo II). J Hum Evol. 2012;63(4):577–85.

Henshilwood CS, d’Errico F, Yates R, Jacobs Z, Tribolo C, Duller GA, et al. Emergence of modern human behavior: Middle Stone Age engravings from South Africa. Science. 2002;295(5558):1278–80.

Article   CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Henshilwood CS, Dubreuil B. Reading the artefacts: gleaning language skills from the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa. Cradle Language. 2009;2:61–92.

Klein RG. The human career: human biological and cultural origins. University of Chicago Press; 2009.

Prüfer K, Racimo F, Patterson N, Jay F, Sankararaman S, Sawyer S, et al. The complete genome sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains. Nature. 2014;505(7481):43–9.

Meyer M, Arsuaga J-L, de Filippo C, Nagel S, Aximu-Petri A, Nickel B, et al. Nuclear DNA sequences from the Middle Pleistocene Sima de los Huesos hominins. Nature. 2016;531(7595):504–7.

Pagel M. Wired for culture: origins of the human social mind. WW Norton & Company; 2012.

Kuhlwilm M, Gronau I, Hubisz MJ, de Filippo C, Prado-Martinez J, Kircher M, et al. Ancient gene flow from early modern humans into Eastern Neanderthals. Nature. 2016;530(7591):429–33.

Enard W, Przeworski M, Fisher SE, Lai CS, Wiebe V, Kitano T, et al. Molecular evolution of FOXP2, a gene involved in speech and language. Nature. 2002;418(6900):869–72.

Enard W, Gehre S, Hammerschmidt K, Hölter SM, Blass T, Somel M, et al. A humanized version of Foxp2 affects cortico-basal ganglia circuits in mice. Cell. 2009;137(5):961–71.

Maricic T, Günther V, Georgiev O, Gehre S, Ćurlin M, Schreiweis C, et al. A recent evolutionary change affects a regulatory element in the human FOXP2 gene. Mol Biol Evol. 2013;30(4):844–52.

Youn H, Sutton L, Smith E, Moore C, Wilkins JF, Maddieson I, et al. On the universal structure of human lexical semantics. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016;113(7):1766–71.

Greenberg JH. Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In: Greenberg JH, editor. Universals of language. Cambridge: MIT Press; 1963. p. 73–113.

Rosenberg NA, Pritchard JK, Weber JL, Cann HM, Kidd KK, Zhivotovsky LA, et al. Genetic structure of human populations. Science. 2002;298(5602):2381–5.

Darwin CR. The descent of man and selection in relation to sex: in two volumes: with illustrations. J. Murray; 1871.

Jones W. Discourses delivered before the Asiatic Society: and miscellaneous papers, on the religion, poetry, literature, etc., of the nations of India. CS Arnold; 1824.

Altschuler EL, Calude AS, Meade A, Pagel M. Linguistic evidence supports date for Homeric epics. BioEssays. 2013;35(5):417–20.

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Zipf GK. Human behaviour and the principle of least-effort. Cambridge MA edn. Reading: Addison-Wesley; 1949.

Pagel M, Meade A. The deep history of the number words. Phil Trans R Soc B. in press.

Pagel M. Human language as a culturally transmitted replicator. Nat Rev Genet. 2009;10(6):405–15.

CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Pagel M. Darwinian perspectives on the evolution of human languages. Psychonomic Bull Rev. 2017;24(1):151.

Crowley T, Bowern C. An introduction to historical linguistics. Oxford University Press; 2010.

Hruschka DJ, Branford S, Smith ED, Wilkins J, Meade A, Pagel M, et al. Detecting regular sound changes in linguistics as events of concerted evolution. Curr Biol. 2015;25(1):1–9.

Pagel M. The history, rate and pattern of world linguistic evolution. In: Knight C, Studdert-Kennedy M, Hurford J, editors. The evolutionary emergence of language: social function and the origins of linguistic form. Cambridge University Press; 2000

Bouckaert R, Lemey P, Dunn M, Greenhill SJ, Alekseyenko AV, Drummond AJ, et al. Mapping the origins and expansion of the Indo-European language family. Science. 2012;337(6097):957–60.

Chang W, Cathcart C, Hall D, Garrett A. Ancestry-constrained phylogenetic analysis supports the Indo-European steppe hypothesis. Language. 2015;91(1):194–244.

Gray RD, Atkinson QD. Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin. Nature. 2003;426(6965):435–9.

Haak W, Lazaridis I, Patterson N, Rohland N, Mallick S, Llamas B, et al. Massive migration from the steppe was a source for Indo-European languages in Europe. Nature. 2015;522(7555):207–11.

Gray RD, Drummond AJ, Greenhill SJ. Language phylogenies reveal expansion pulses and pauses in Pacific settlement. Science. 2009;323(5913):479–83.

Currie TE, Meade A, Guillon M, Mace R. Cultural phylogeography of the Bantu Languages of sub-Saharan Africa. Proc R Soc B. 2013;280(1762):20130695.

Grollemund R, Branford S, Bostoen K, Meade A, Venditti C, Pagel M. Bantu expansion shows that habitat alters the route and pace of human dispersals. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015;112(43):13296–301.

Holden C, Mace R. Phylogenetic analysis of the evolution of lactose digestion in adults. Hum Biol. 2009;81(5/6):597–619.

Holden CJ, Mace R. Spread of cattle led to the loss of matrilineal descent in Africa: a coevolutionary analysis. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2003;270(1532):2425–33.

Mace R, Jordan F, Holden C. Testing evolutionary hypotheses about human biological adaptation using cross-cultural comparison. Comp Biochem Physiol A Mol Integr Physiol. 2003;136(1):85–94.

Watts J, Greenhill SJ, Atkinson QD, Currie TE, Bulbulia J, Gray RD. Broad supernatural punishment but not moralizing high gods precede the evolution of political complexity in Austronesia. Proc Biol Sci. 2015;282(1804):20142556.

Currie TE, Greenhill SJ, Gray RD, Hasegawa T, Mace R. Rise and fall of political complexity in island South-East Asia and the Pacific. Nature. 2010;467(7317):801–4.

Da Silva SG, Tehrani JJ. Comparative phylogenetic analyses uncover the ancient roots of Indo-European folktales. R Soc Open Sci. 2016;3(1):150645.

Pagel M, Mace R. The cultural wealth of nations. Nature. 2004;428(6980):275–8.

Download references

Acknowledgements

An Advanced Investigator Award 268744 to M. Pagel from the European Research Council has supported most of my recent research on language evolution.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, RG6 6UR, UK

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mark Pagel .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The author declares that he has no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Pagel, M. Q&A: What is human language, when did it evolve and why should we care?. BMC Biol 15 , 64 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-017-0405-3

Download citation

Published : 24 July 2017

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s12915-017-0405-3

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Neanderthal
• Animal Communication
• Formal Grammatical Structure
• Regular Sound Change
• Distinct Alarm Calls

BMC Biology

ISSN: 1741-7007

• Submission enquiries: [email protected]
• General enquiries: [email protected]

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

The Nature of Human Language and Its Characteristics from a Semiotic Perspective

Human language is a remarkable and complex system of communication that distinguishes us from other species on the planet. It serves as a tool for expressing our thoughts, sharing information, and creating social bonds. The study of language and its nature has fascinated linguists, philosophers, and researchers for centuries, leading to various theoretical frameworks and perspectives. One such perspective is the semiotic view, which explores language as a semiotic system of signs and symbols. The semiotic approach to understanding language emphasizes the relationship between signs, meanings, and their interpretation. Developed by scholars such as Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Peirce, semiotics provides a framework to analyze human language's structure, function, and characteristics. In this context, this paper aims to explore the nature of human language and its key characteristics from a semiotic perspective using a real-life scenario where we explain how a message is conveyed through signals and channels. Additionally, we examine the nature of human language, referring to the definition Bloch and Trager gave in 1942. Finally, we conclude by asserting that all human languages are equally important and necessary, with no one language being superior in structure, history, or biology.

Related Papers

Olger Brame

Richard L Lanigan

Journal of Pragmatics

Ernest Hess-Lüttich

International Online Journal of Education and Teaching

ismail erton

Studies in modern linguistic theory to determine the scope and vision of human communication have shifted their attention to semiotics, in which actions speak louder than words as some say. The semiotic capacity of an individual reflects the effective and efficient usage of pragmatic competence in which the language user has the awareness of sociocultural and anthropological conventions processed and produced in the course of communication. Such a capacity also enables a systematic usage of cognitive skills, thereby developing the value of the communicative context and the perception of the individuals in various discourses. This paper attempts to identify, decode, and proceed utterances in a systematic mixture of psychological, physiological, sociological and anthropological procedures, in which non-verbal expressions appear as signs and symbols to communicate information. It is also argued that not only do individuals attain semiotic information naturally, they also do so with pr...

Sarah Noori

The relation between semantics and semiotics is likely to be direct. Since semiotics is the science of signs while semantics is the study of the linguistic meaning of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences .Through investigating the nature of words, for example, they are regarded as representatives of ideas and concepts. They are linguistic signs which are associated with non-linguistic entities via a bond. In an attempt to understand the essence of this relationship and the nature of bond, it is necessary to have an overview of semantics ,semiotics, the distribution of signs and the association between the two. Moreover, a brief view to the domain of semiotics and its impact on other methods of communication will be discussed.

SHORT COURSE of GENERAL SEMIOTICS

Abraham Solomonick

My first book on semiotics was published in Moscow in 1992; it was called "Language as a Sign System". After that, I wrote and published many books and articles, trying to understand the intricacies of semiotics and highlight its main characteristics. Over time, some of my views have undergone metamorphoses, and I have adjusted my earlier statements to express new formulations. Now, on the threshold of my 95th birthday, I want to sum up my vacillations and doubts in a short concluding essay, which seems to me worthy of attention. Whether this is really so, is for the readers to judge. I want to say a few words about what general semiotics means. De facto, semiotics originated in ancient Greece and Rome − no science or craft can exist without its own signs. But only at the end of the 19th century did a movement arise for the creation of semiotics that would formulate general principles for all branches of this science. In contrast to particular semiotics, such science can be called general semiotics.

Semiotica. Vol. 189. Pp. 271-285.

Frank Nuessel

Semiotics and communication are interrelated concepts. This review essay examines seventeen distinct perspectives on these concepts. They include the following: (1) detailed discussions of Charles Sanders Peirce's notion of the sign; (2) semiotics and semioethics in global communication; (3) critical and feminist approaches to signs and communication; (4) signs, communication and cultural systems; and (5) signs and artistic communication. The papers in this volume derive from a yearlong series of lectures sponsored by the Depart ment of Linguistic Practices and Text Analysis at the University of Bari (Italy) from November 1999 to May 2000.

Russian Journal of Communicaation

Alexander Kozintsev

Attempts at combining Uexküll’s ideas with those of Peirce within a single quasi-discipline called ‘biosemiotics’ are ill-founded. Peirce’s ‘interpretant’ sensu lato refers to two qualitatively different mental states, one relating to indexes and icons (INT 1) and the other to symbols (INT 2). Animal communication is dyadic – the referent is a directly induced mental state (INT 1). Glottocentric communication is triadic because the connection between symbol and INT 1 is mediated by INT 2. Whereas the gradualist view of glottogenesis is erroneous, Müller’s and Chomsky’s saltationist theories may imply that the idea of language Rubicon is antievolutionary. However, the views of Pavlov and Vygotsky and of their modern followers, Deacon and Tomasello, while being Darwinian, support the saltationist scenario. The emergence of the second signal system, of symbols, and of INT 2 was a psychological leap. In human communication, apart from the semiotic triangle (INT 1 – INT 2 – symbol), the dyadic relation between non-symbolic signs and INT 1 still holds.

Brent D. Ruben

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

Search form

• Find Stories
• For Journalists

Image credit: Getty Images

The power of language: How words shape people, culture

Speaking, writing and reading are integral to everyday life, where language is the primary tool for expression and communication. Studying how people use language – what words and phrases they unconsciously choose and combine – can help us better understand ourselves and why we behave the way we do.

Linguistics scholars seek to determine what is unique and universal about the language we use, how it is acquired and the ways it changes over time. They consider language as a cultural, social and psychological phenomenon.

“Understanding why and how languages differ tells about the range of what is human,” said Dan Jurafsky , the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor in Humanities and chair of the Department of Linguistics in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford . “Discovering what’s universal about languages can help us understand the core of our humanity.”

The stories below represent some of the ways linguists have investigated many aspects of language, including its semantics and syntax, phonetics and phonology, and its social, psychological and computational aspects.

Understanding stereotypes

Stanford linguists and psychologists study how language is interpreted by people. Even the slightest differences in language use can correspond with biased beliefs of the speakers, according to research.

One study showed that a relatively harmless sentence, such as “girls are as good as boys at math,” can subtly perpetuate sexist stereotypes. Because of the statement’s grammatical structure, it implies that being good at math is more common or natural for boys than girls, the researchers said.

Language can play a big role in how we and others perceive the world, and linguists work to discover what words and phrases can influence us, unknowingly.

How well-meaning statements can spread stereotypes unintentionally

New Stanford research shows that sentences that frame one gender as the standard for the other can unintentionally perpetuate biases.

Algorithms reveal changes in stereotypes

New Stanford research shows that, over the past century, linguistic changes in gender and ethnic stereotypes correlated with major social movements and demographic changes in the U.S. Census data.

Exploring what an interruption is in conversation

Stanford doctoral candidate Katherine Hilton found that people perceive interruptions in conversation differently, and those perceptions differ depending on the listener’s own conversational style as well as gender.

Cops speak less respectfully to black community members

Professors Jennifer Eberhardt and Dan Jurafsky, along with other Stanford researchers, detected racial disparities in police officers’ speech after analyzing more than 100 hours of body camera footage from Oakland Police.

How other languages inform our own

People speak roughly 7,000 languages worldwide. Although there is a lot in common among languages, each one is unique, both in its structure and in the way it reflects the culture of the people who speak it.

Jurafsky said it’s important to study languages other than our own and how they develop over time because it can help scholars understand what lies at the foundation of humans’ unique way of communicating with one another.

“All this research can help us discover what it means to be human,” Jurafsky said.

Stanford PhD student documents indigenous language of Papua New Guinea

Fifth-year PhD student Kate Lindsey recently returned to the United States after a year of documenting an obscure language indigenous to the South Pacific nation.

Students explore Esperanto across Europe

In a research project spanning eight countries, two Stanford students search for Esperanto, a constructed language, against the backdrop of European populism.

Chris Manning: How computers are learning to understand language​

A computer scientist discusses the evolution of computational linguistics and where it’s headed next.

Stanford research explores novel perspectives on the evolution of Spanish

Using digital tools and literature to explore the evolution of the Spanish language, Stanford researcher Cuauhtémoc García-García reveals a new historical perspective on linguistic changes in Latin America and Spain.

Language as a lens into behavior

Linguists analyze how certain speech patterns correspond to particular behaviors, including how language can impact people’s buying decisions or influence their social media use.

For example, in one research paper, a group of Stanford researchers examined the differences in how Republicans and Democrats express themselves online to better understand how a polarization of beliefs can occur on social media.

“We live in a very polarized time,” Jurafsky said. “Understanding what different groups of people say and why is the first step in determining how we can help bring people together.”

Analyzing the tweets of Republicans and Democrats

New research by Dora Demszky and colleagues examined how Republicans and Democrats express themselves online in an attempt to understand how polarization of beliefs occurs on social media.

Examining bilingual behavior of children at Texas preschool

A Stanford senior studied a group of bilingual children at a Spanish immersion preschool in Texas to understand how they distinguished between their two languages.

Predicting sales of online products from advertising language

Stanford linguist Dan Jurafsky and colleagues have found that products in Japan sell better if their advertising includes polite language and words that invoke cultural traditions or authority.

Language can help the elderly cope with the challenges of aging, says Stanford professor

By examining conversations of elderly Japanese women, linguist Yoshiko Matsumoto uncovers language techniques that help people move past traumatic events and regain a sense of normalcy.

Why is language unique to humans?

New research published today in Journal of the Royal Society Interface suggests that human language was made possible by the evolution of particular psychological abilities.

Researchers from Durham University explain that the uniquely expressive power of human language requires humans to create and use signals in a flexible way. They claim that his was only made possible by the evolution of particular psychological abilities, and thus explain why language is unique to humans.

Using a mathematical model, Dr Thomas Scott-Phillips and his colleagues, show that the evolution of combinatorial signals, in which two or more signals are combined together, and which is crucial to the expressive power of human language, is in general very unlikely to occur, unless a species has some particular psychological mechanisms. Humans, and probably no other species, have these, and this may explain why only humans have language.

In a combinatorial communication system, some signals consist of the combinations of other signals. Such systems are more efficient than equivalent, non-combinatorial systems, yet despite this they are rare in nature. Previous studies have not sufficiently explained why this is the case. The new model shows that the interdependence of signals and responses places significant constraints on the historical pathways by which combinatorial signals might emerge, to the extent that anything other than the most simple form of combinatorial communication is extremely unlikely.

The scientists argue that these constraints can only be bypassed if individuals have the sufficient socio-cognitive capacity to engage in ostensive communication. Humans, but probably no other species, have this ability. This may explain why language, which is massively combinatorial, is such an extreme exception to nature’s general trend.

Email updates

We promote excellence in science so that, together, we can benefit humanity and tackle the biggest challenges of our time.

Subscribe to our newsletters to be updated with the latest news on innovation, events, articles and reports.

What subscription are you interested in receiving? (Choose at least one subject)

• Alzheimer's disease & dementia
• Arthritis & Rheumatism
• Attention deficit disorders
• Autism spectrum disorders
• Biomedical technology
• Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes
• Endocrinology & Metabolism
• Gastroenterology
• Gerontology & Geriatrics
• Health informatics
• Inflammatory disorders
• Medical economics
• Medical research
• Medications
• Neuroscience
• Obstetrics & gynaecology
• Oncology & Cancer
• Ophthalmology
• Overweight & Obesity
• Parkinson's & Movement disorders
• Psychology & Psychiatry
• Radiology & Imaging
• Sleep disorders
• Sports medicine & Kinesiology
• Vaccination
• Breast cancer
• Cardiovascular disease
• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
• Colon cancer
• Coronary artery disease
• Heart attack
• Heart disease
• High blood pressure
• Kidney disease
• Lung cancer
• Multiple sclerosis
• Myocardial infarction
• Ovarian cancer
• Post traumatic stress disorder
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Schizophrenia
• Skin cancer
• Type 2 diabetes
• Full List »

share this!

November 21, 2017

The slight difference: Why language is a uniquely human trait

by Max Planck Society

Language makes us human. For a long time, psychologists, linguists and neuroscientists have been racking their brains about how we process what we hear and read. One of them is the renowned linguist and neuroscientist Angela D. Friederici, director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences in Leipzig. Thanks to her we know why humans, in contrast to animals, are able to learn and understand language. It's her achievement to prove linguist Noam Chomsky's famous theory of a universal grammar according to which all humans are born with a universal system for grammar by neuroscientific data. Her book, "Language in Our Brain" has just been published and represents, in essence, a lifetime's work.

"Humans are born to learn language", Angela D. Friederici begins her new book "Language in Our Brain" by discussing the structures in our brains which enable us to develop this fascinating medium which we use to speak and write, think and poetise, email and tweet. "We learn our mother tongue without any formal lessons and are nevertheless able to handle it in every situation without even thinking about it." A capability which remains reserved for us humans. Indeed, apes, dogs, and parrots are able to learn words by associating an abstract symbol or a sound with an object. But they are not able to combine them according to certain rules to make them into meaningful sentences.

But what is it that enables us to master this skill? What is the basis of this purely human achievement? These questions were at the starting point of linguist, psychologist and neuroscientist Angela D. Friederici's research career about 50 years ago. Now she gives us the answers. In her profound work, just released by the renowned publishing house MIT Press of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, she explains how the biological structures in the brain interact—and thereby sounds become words, word groups, sentences and finally content within milliseconds.

And Professor Friederici has to know it. Thanks to her research results over the last five decades we have a rough picture of how the brain and mind work together when we process language. One of her crucial findings is that we usually understand language within three steps: First, neurons check if a sentence's form is correct, its grammar. This happens automatically within about 200 milliseconds. After that, in the following 200 to 400 milliseconds the brain tries to encode the meaning of the words. If the structure of the sentence and the words do not fit to each other, a new analysis cycle follows.

In the spotlight of her research and her book is one fibre tract in the brain, explored by Friederici and her team, that has made massive waves in the world of language research: the so-called fasciculus arcuatus. This connection works similar to a data highway on which language relevant information is transported and it is therefore the crucial structure for processing grammar—the actual basis of language. It is highly developed in the brain of every adult on earth und varies marginally depending on a person's native language. Therefore, its the neuroscientific evidence for linguist Noam Chomsky's theory, wherby all languages are based on common grammar rules and the ability to recognise them are innate in humans.

"Humans possess this ability from birth. However, certain rules of every language have be to learned", states Friederici. "Therefore, in the sensitive phase of development linguistic communication has to be encouraged to fully develop the fasciculus arcuatus and thereby the full language." So-called banned kids such as Kasper Hauser or "Genie" in the 1970s thus never managed to communicate in a real language.

The long searched for "missing link" could lay in this fibre tract, which explains the leap forward of the simple sound association of animals to the matured language of humans A reason for this could be because this fibre tract only exists in adult humans but not in other primates and infants, and consequentially language capabilities are more advanced. Even linguist Chomsky is convinced by this idea. In the prologue to "Language in Our Brain" he also supposes that this brain structure "appears to have evolved to subserve the human capacity to process syntax, which is at the core of the human language faculty."

Explore further

Feedback to editors

Study of different autism types finds shared mechanism that may respond to drugs

6 minutes ago

Mouse study shows exercise during pregnancy improves heart health of future generations

41 minutes ago

Memory self-test via smartphone can identify early signs of Alzheimer's disease

Molecular discovery has potential to solve the billion-dollar global cost of poorly managed wound healing

Old immune systems revitalized in mouse study, may improve vaccine response in the elderly

Making long-term memories requires DNA damage, researchers discover

Super permeable wearable electronics developed for stable, long-term biosignal monitoring

Novel AI tools tackle soft tissue sarcomas, identify new treatment strategies

Why some types of music make people want to dance more than others

Monitoring your own blood pressure can save money—and possibly your life

2 hours ago

Related Stories

Chimp study reveals how brain's structure shaped our evolution

Nov 15, 2017

Right brain also important for learning a new language

Oct 17, 2017

Our ability to recognise letters could be hard-wired into our brains

Sep 14, 2017

Our brain benefits from an overlap in grammar when learning a foreign language

Jun 29, 2016

Cognitive scientist calls for integration in language sciences

Aug 1, 2017

Historical context guides language development

Apr 14, 2011

Recommended for you

Understanding the role of microglia in Alzheimer's disease

A decade of aphantasia research: What we've learned about people who can't visualize

Could sudden infant death syndrome be caused by unrecognized brain infections?

Risk factors for faster aging in the brain revealed in new study

7 hours ago

Let us know if there is a problem with our content

Use this form if you have come across a typo, inaccuracy or would like to send an edit request for the content on this page. For general inquiries, please use our contact form . For general feedback, use the public comments section below (please adhere to guidelines ).

Please select the most appropriate category to facilitate processing of your request

Thank you for taking time to provide your feedback to the editors.

Your feedback is important to us. However, we do not guarantee individual replies due to the high volume of messages.

E-mail the story

Your email address is used only to let the recipient know who sent the email. Neither your address nor the recipient's address will be used for any other purpose. The information you enter will appear in your e-mail message and is not retained by Medical Xpress in any form.

Newsletter sign up

Get weekly and/or daily updates delivered to your inbox. You can unsubscribe at any time and we'll never share your details to third parties.

More information Privacy policy

Donate and enjoy an ad-free experience

We keep our content available to everyone. Consider supporting Science X's mission by getting a premium account.

E-mail newsletter

[email protected]

1-800-969-6853.

Sign Up |  Login

[email protected]

The 5 unique characteristics of human language.

In a world where communication binds us together, human language stands as a remarkable beacon of our ingenuity. It’s the tool that enables us to share thoughts, emotions, and ideas, fostering connections that shape societies and fuel progress. Language isn’t just a random assortment of sounds or symbols; it’s a complex system that reflects the intricacies of human interaction. As a leading interpreting service provider , we delve into the captivating realm of language to explore the five unique characteristics of human language: its systemic nature, diverse dialects, dynamic evolution, sociolectal impact, and idiosyncratic expressions.

The Characteristics of Human Language

Language as a symbolic system: unlocking the code of communication.

Imagine language as a labyrinthine puzzle, where each word is a piece that intricately fits with others to convey meaning. This systematic arrangement is the cornerstone of human language. It goes beyond mere words; it involves grammar, syntax, and semantics, working in unison to form coherent messages. This intricate interplay allows us to create infinite expressions, from simple sentences to elaborate narratives. This system is preserved through cultural transmission and language learning opportunities.

As an interpreting service provider, we understand the nuances of this linguistic system. Our skilled interpreters decode spoken words, nuances, and cultural references, ensuring effective cross-lingual communication. Just as language functions as a system, our interpreters form a vital part of the communication network, bridging gaps and fostering understanding.

Diverse Dialects: Embracing Linguistic Variation

Step into any corner of the world, and you’ll encounter a plethora of dialects that color the tapestry of human speech. Dialects are like regional flavors of language, influenced by geography, history, and culture. These variations can range from slight pronunciation shifts to distinct grammatical structures, often leading to unique expressions even within the same language.

In our role as an interpreting service provider, we appreciate the beauty of dialectal diversity. Our interpreters deeply understand these nuances, ensuring accurate and culturally sensitive communication. As dialects celebrate regions’ uniqueness, our services celebrate the richness of global communication.

Dynamic Evolution: Language’s Shape-Shifting Journey

Language is a living entity, evolving over time in response to societal changes, technological advancements, and cultural shifts. New words emerge, old ones fade, and grammar adapts to fit modern contexts. This dynamic evolution is a testament to language’s adaptability and its deep-rooted connection with human society.

At our interpreting service, we stay attuned to these linguistic evolutions. Our interpreters are well-versed in contemporary language usage, ensuring that your messages are conveyed with relevance and accuracy. Just as language continues to transform, we evolve our services to provide seamless communication in the ever-changing landscape.

Sociolect: Language as a Mirror of Society

Picture language as a mirror reflecting society’s intricacies. Sociolect (social language) refers to the way language is shaped by social factors such as age, gender, profession, and social status. This phenomenon highlights how our linguistic choices are influenced by the communities we belong to, underscoring language’s role in identity and societal cohesion.

As an interpreting service provider, we understand the importance of sociolectal sensitivity. Our interpreters are trained to navigate the nuances of varying sociolects, ensuring that communication transcends barriers and fosters connection. Just as language mirrors society, our services mirror the inclusivity and diversity of human interaction.

Idiolect: The Personal Symphony of Expression

Think of idiolect as the fingerprint of language – unique to each individual. It encompasses the distinctive way a person speaks or writes, shaped by their experiences, influences, and personal history. Idiolect showcases the infinite possibilities within language, as no two individuals wield the same linguistic palette.

In our role as an interpreting service provider, we celebrate the symphony of idiolects. Our interpreters skillfully decode these personal linguistic nuances, ensuring that your messages retain their individuality across languages and different language users. Just as idiolect celebrates personal expression, our services celebrate the art of conveying your unique voice across linguistic boundaries.

The Characteristics of Human Language: Our Role as an Interpreting Service Provider

In the grand tapestry of human communication, language stands as a bridge between diverse worlds. At Day Interpreting, we understand the intricacies of language’s five unique characteristics: its systemic nature, diverse dialects, dynamic evolution, sociolectal impact, and idiosyncratic expressions. We recognize that effective communication goes beyond words – it requires a deep appreciation of culture, context, and the art of interpretation.

We take pride in establishing human relations through language. Our skilled interpreters embody the essence of language’s uniqueness, ensuring that your messages resonate across linguistic boundaries. Just as language defies limits, our services transcend barriers, enabling meaningful communication in a diverse world filled with bountiful human languages.

In conclusion, language is a dynamic and intricate tapestry woven with threads of history, culture, and individuality. Its systematic nature, dialectal diversity, dynamic evolution, sociolectal influence, and idiosyncratic expressions collectively shape the way we connect and understand one another. As you navigate the diverse landscape of human communication, remember that Day Interpreting is here to guide you – bridging worlds, one word at a time.

Seldean is a multi-skilled content wizard that dedicates herself to writing content that goes beyond merely sparking interest in the audience.

Seldean Smith

Google play.

Scan this QR Code

Interpretation on the go, try our new mobile app.

Related Articles

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Submit Comment

Privacy Overview

Characteristics of Language | 10 Useful Characteristics of Human Language

If you are a language student, you must have to learn the  Characteristics of language . Language is the most powerful and dominant system of communication.

In addition,  language  is the system of conventional, spoken, and written symbols using which human beings communicate with each other, from one country to another country or one culture to another culture. It is the best way to express emotions, thoughts, feelings, and desires.

With the change of time, language is also being changed in its form. Language is human, so it differs from animal communication in several ways. Every language has its characteristics and objectives.

Characteristics of Language

Quick Navigation

Let us know the characteristics of language in brief: language is arbitrary, productive, creative, symbolic, systematic, vocalic, social, non-instinctive, and conventional; language is a system of communication, and language is human structurally complex and adaptable.

10 Characteristics of Human Language

The ten characteristics of a language are given below. Please read carefully for proper understanding.

1. Language is Arbitrary

There is no inherent relationship between the nature of the things or concepts the language interacts with, which proves that language is arbitrary. Although such items and concepts are expressed, there is no reason different societies should pronounce the “same phrase” differently.

It is arbitrary for a term to be used to describe a certain thing or concept. It should be noted that if language had not been chosen at random, there would have been only one language left in existence today. We can think of language as an arbitrary vocal symbol because of this.

2. Language is a Social Phenomenon

In a sense, language should be considered a social phenomenon. Language is social in our human society; it is a means of nourishing and developing culture and establishing human relations.

As a member of a particular social group, we human beings interact with each other, allowing us to identify with one another and connect and coordinate with one another. This is how language is part and parcel of our society.

Language exists in the public arena, is a method for feeding and creating a society, and sets up human relations. As a member of the community, we acquire a language permanently.

3. Language is a Symbolic System

Language signifies a symbolic system consisting of different sound symbols for concepts, things, ideas, objects, etc. Language has sounds and words as its symbols.

These symbols are picked and routinely acknowledged and utilized. The words in a language are not just patterns or images but symbols that denote meaning.

The language uses words as symbols, not signs, for the concept they represent. The core value of a language sometimes relies on properly explaining these symbols.

 4. Language is Systematic

Although the language is symbolic, its symbols are arranged in specific systems. All languages have their arrangement of plans, and each language is an arrangement of systems.

Furthermore, all languages have phonological and syntactic systems; within a system, there are several sub-systems.

For instance, the morphological and syntactic systems are inside the linguistic system. Inside these two sub-systems, we have systems such as plural, of mindset, perspective, tense, etc.

5. Language is Vocal, Verbal, and Sound

Language is a system of vocal and verbal symbolism, and it is essentially comprised of vocal sounds just created by a physiological articulatory component in the human body.

First and foremost, it shows up as vocal sounds only. Language takes verbal elements such as sounds, words, and phrases fixed up in specific ways to make several sentences.

Language is vocal and sound, which is produced by different speech organs. Writing can be considered as an intelligent platform to represent vocal sounds, and it is the graphic representation of the speech sounds of the language.

6. Language is Non-Instinctive, Conventional

No language was created over the course of several days using a formula that everyone agreed upon. Every generation passes on this convention to the one after them as a result of evolution and convention, which gave rise to language.

Languages can evolve, spread, and change just like any other human organization. Every language is spoken in a specific community somewhere in the world. But since language is something we naturally learn, we may say that it is not instinctual.

7. Language is Productive and Creative

Creativity and productivity can be found in language. Human language’s structural components are combined to build innovative expressions that neither the speaker nor their listeners may have before formed or heard.

In all reality, understanding between the involved individuals is easy. Language can vary in accordance with what is required by human society. Language, after all, has the ability to drive productivity and innovation.

8. Language is a System of Communication

Language is strong, convenient, and the best form of communication no doubt, and it is the best way to express everything. We human beings express our thoughts, desires, emotions, and feelings through language.

Further, we can interact easily through the welfare of language. After all, we may say that language is the best communication system around the world.

9. Language is Human and Structurally Complex

Unlike animal language, human language is open-minded, extendable, and adaptable. Language should be modifiable from time to time.

No species other than human beings have been endowed with language. So, language is naturally human, structurally complex, and modifiable in some cases.

10. Language is Unique, Complex, and Modifiable

Language is indeed a unique phenomenon in the world. Every language has its characteristics and distinctive features. Furthermore, each language has its creativity and productivity to deliver the best communication methods.

And this is how language has the potential to be unique, complex, and adjustable to the change in time and culture.

After the above discussion, we conclude that these language characteristics are part and parcel of building the authenticity of any language.

Have a look at these useful links:

• Best grammar checker online for free
• Definition of Language
• Child Language Development
• Elaborate Definition and meaning of Syntax
• What is Psycholinguistics?

Azizul Hakim is the founder & CEO of englishfinders.com . He is a passionate writer, English instructor, and content creator. He has completed his graduation and post-graduation in English language and literature.

Related Posts

Linguistic Universals: Common Features Across Different Languages

Definition of Language by Different Scholars and Linguists

Differences between Language and Dialect: Language vs Dialect

Very good and effective information.

Thank u! Share it more.

Which year is it published

We’ll need to also talk about language being dynamic for it changes. Just like people grow, language also grows; where new words are added, and others are improved.

Thanks for your information!

Thanks for the information it helpful

You’re welcome!

Thanks so much

Language is also arbitary,productive,creative, symbolic, system,vocalic and non instinctive..

Human language is a system of vocal auditory communication, interaction with the experiences of it’s user’s employing conventional signs composition of arbitrary patterned sound unit.

Very Convenient information

It is well explained thank you

Insert/edit link

Enter the destination URL

Or link to existing content

Psychology Discussion

Essay on language and communication | human behaviour | psychology.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

In this essay we will discuss about language and communication.

Essay on Language:

Language is often described as the sine-qua-non or the most important and distinguishing characteristic of a culture or civilisation. There has been a the consistent relationship between the level of advancement of a society and the complexity and development of its language. In fact, one may say that civilisation or for that matter the very idea of knowledge is closely intertwined with language.

Scientists interested in the study of the evolution of behaviour of societies point out that there are four distinct features which have made the human organism distinctly superior to the highest evolved sub-human organisms like the chimpanzee. These are, attainment of an erect posture, the growth of the cerebral cortex and its complexity, the prolonged period of socialisation, and finally the acquisition of advanced and complex linguistic capacities and abilities.

While the first three are purely biological or related to biological factors this is not the case with language. Language skills of the human being have been growing and will continue to grow. In fact, while the brain structure, erect posture and socialisation have essentially remained the same throughout human history, the story is different in the case of language.

Languages have grown in complexity, quality, flexibility, finesse and versatility. While animals and to some extent even the earliest human beings mostly depended on gestures and movements, in contemporary society, verbal language is the most characteristic medium of interaction.

This verbal language has come to engulf our lives in every sphere and today one cannot think of advances or development in any sphere of life without the involvement of language. Thus, human society has evolved music as a language, the numerical system as a language, dance as a language, Morse code and today a variety of computer languages.

Nature of Language:

Language is essentially a set of signs and symbols which have certain fixed meanings, evolved in each society. It is this fixed denotation which makes languages so essential and crucial.

The signs or symbols may be sounds, words, light signals, gestures, facial expressions, geometrical signs, and body postures. These signs can be verbal or non-verbal, visual or auditory, animate or inanimate. Thus a traffic light is an inanimate visual sign.

The telephone bell is an inanimate and auditory symbol while the expression of a dancer is a visual and animate symbol. When you get up to interrupt your teacher while he is teaching, he makes a gesture and you sit down. This is visual and animate. Thus, we see that when we talk of a language, it is just not the mere verbal language that we mean though that represents the most complex and advanced from of language behaviour.

It is obvious that any language can develop only in a society or social context. So, the nature of the society and social interactions play a very crucial role in determining several aspects of language, particularly the linguistic form of language. This is true both at a collective level, the evolution of a language, and also at the level of an individual, the acquisition of language abilities.

Of course, there is a view that certain forms of language structure are universal and innate and that even some animals exhibit some sort of language behaviour. But, even if there are innate and universal language structures, it is undeniable that verbal language is very much a product of social life interaction and social evolution.

It is estimated that human beings have used some form or the other of a spoken language for more than a million years or even three million years. However, written language is estimated to be only about 7,000 years old. This latter perhaps is an underestimation, and even written language is probably older than this.

This clearly shows that language behaviour in a spoken or written form has been very closely associated with the whole evolution of human societies. Languages appears to have played a very crucial role in social evolution, the emergence of civilisation and unfolding of social life in all its aspects including social degeneration.

If an individual who lived in this world a million years ago and who was speaking some language of his period were to come alive again, he will be amazed at the complexity of modern languages. Perhaps, he will not be able to recognise them as languages. Thus, modern languages have become much more complex, complicated, rich in vocabulary and above all show variance from one language to another, some with a long vocabulary. Idioms and sentences are combinations and re-combinations of a limited number of basic sound units called phonemics corresponding to vowels and sentences though not exactly the same.

The number of basic phonemics used by different languages in the world are limited and range between 15 to 85, the English language using about 45 such phonemics. Combination of these phonemics in different ways and manners leads to the formation of morphemes which some linguists compare to words though morphemes are not exactly similar to words and certainly not identical.

It is sometimes estimated that a very highly educated individual learns to recognise about 1, 00,000 morphemes out of the basic 45 phonemics the average being around 10,000. A few studies by Templin and Irwin have shown that there are very wide individual variations depending on socio-economic status, educational background, intelligence, availability of learning opportunities, etc.

A number of other factors also seem to contribute to these variations. Thus, we may see how fantastic languages are in that, though their basic units are limited, their combinations in various ways have resulted in the generation of unlimited number of morphemes. We may thus say that language is an open system, even mild variations in the intonations of these phonemics can result in new morphemes.

Evolution of Language:

One observation which has been engaging the attention of life scientists including psychologists is that many of the activities which we see at the human level are also seen in the behaviour of sub-human organisms. This interest is a direct result of the Darwinian theory of evolution.

Stated simply the question runs as follows:

Do sub-human organisms exhibit and employ a particular activity or activities seen at the human level, and if so how far down the levels of the evolution ladder this activity is seen?

Further, if these activities are found to be present at the lower levels do they serve the same purposes as they do at the human level? Do they show the same degree of complexity and individual variations? Are the differences between sub-human forms of such activities and human forms different only in degree or are they also qualitatively different?

This search for the presence of human level activities at the level of the lower organisms has been extended to languages also. Scholars have been trying to explore whether there exists some forms of social interaction among animals based on languages. Some of the earliest and classical studies of Wheeler and Fabre have shown evidence for the existence of some elementary forms of social organisation among animals and insects.

It has also been shown that some forms of social interaction and communication exist among birds. A number of studies have been undertaken on sub-human organisms at higher levels like apes and chimpanzees who are the immediate evolutionary ancestors of the human beings.

Such studies have shown that they live in clans and also possess embryonic forms of power hierarchy. This being so, it is only logical for forms of communication to exist among these animals, may be these forms of communication are not linguistic.

If we define language as essentially a system of signs used for expressing and communicating, then there certainly appears to be some form of language though not necessarily phonetic in form. A number of studies involving observation of animals in situations involving coping with certain crises situations have shown that at the levels of animals while one may not find linguistic and verbal communication, nevertheless a variety of body movements, sounds and even emission of certain odours exist and play a definite communicative role and perform functions including expression, influencing, signalling, etc.

Thus, certain sounds are made when an enemy is seen as an expression of a felt threat which in turn acts as a communication to other members of the group, thereby influencing their action and making them run away. Such sounds or actions constitute ‘display or exhibitionistic language’ to communicate with other members.

Among the geese, a set of vocal displays have been repeatedly observed to prepare to escape as a group. Vocalization or other forms of sounds have been found in birds during hatching seasons and these vocalizations set in motion a general reaction to make other birds react in a similar manner. Touch language is also prevalent as preliminary to mating between two members of the same species – one male and the other a female.

Animals at the higher levels of the animal world like apes and chimpanzees have the ability to acquire, store and retrieve information to a much simpler extent than in the case of the human. If this is the case then, at-least at the level of the chimpanzee, there should be some elementary form of language.

A strong case for the presence of such a basic language at the level of the apes has been made out by investigators like C.R. Carpenter. Carpenter and many others have identified anywhere between 9 to 20 sounds with different meanings used by apes. But the one observation has been that while such a sound language may initiate action in other members of the species, nevertheless there is no dialogue or conversation.

The language and communication seems to operate one way. Further, they are found to be used only in emotion led situations and are very situation specific as in attracting a mate or signalling the arrival of an enemy. Thus, situationised considerations of direction and guiding physiological action seem to be the main functions of such sounds. Of course, there is nothing purely verbal and in that sense nonverbal language, speech or communication among members of lower organisms seems to exist.

One may then conclude, if we look at language purely as a tool of expression and communication directed to influence the behaviour of others, there does seem to be adequate evidence to indicate the existence of some rudimentary forms of language among animals and this is in parts in the form of physical movements or sounds or directly involve display, situation specific and one way. Animals do not know how to use a word or a sentence or for that matter any form of verbiage.

Certain investigators however, have gone a little further and tried to find out whether even if there is evidence in the case of higher level animals like gorillas or chimpanzees about their having a language, do they have the structural capacity of the brain? This has been doubted by another group of investigators.

Similarly, one can raise the question, can we teach human language to the apes? A few interesting studies have been undertaken in this regard. In a very interesting study along these lines, Keith Hays and Cathy Hays adopted an infant chimpanzee Vicki and brought her up as a human child.

Despite intensive efforts they found that all attempts to teach Vicki to speak like a human child were futile, Vicki being able to utter hardly three barely recognisable words or sounds after three years of teaching. But at the same time, they found that although Vicki could not utter these words, she was able to comprehend many more words of the English language. Thus, in many other chimpanzees who were studied, it was found that though there is no ability on the part of the animals to utter or speak, they were able to understand and interpret.

In view of this, it was concluded that human language is unique to the human species because they are distinct from animals. But very soon the Pandora’s box was opened again. Reacting to the earlier findings that even man’s closest animal cousin, the chimpanzee could not learn the languages, critics started asking that while the chimpanzee may not be able to speak, speech is not the only component of language and that there should be other aspects of language like comprehension, interpretation, etc., and it is possible that as in the case of speech, if these processes were also investigated then the chimpanzee may be found to be more capable.

Human infants are not capable of producing many speech sounds. It has been found that this is because of their underdeveloped vocal tracts and memory and also because of their inability to make certain articulate movements needed for speech production. Lie Beevan and others found that many mature non-human primates faced the same problem as human infants.

Their vocal tracts are smaller like those of human infants. On the other hand, studies intending to find out whether primates perceive the speech sounds, in ways similar to the ways perceived by human beings, have produced mostly negative results or at any rate results which are not clear.

Overall, there appears to be a broad consensus, perhaps, tentative that primates including chimpanzees are not well endowed with the capacity to acquire the ability to communicate using speech. But, what about other aspects like comprehension?

Children who are not able to speak certainly appear to be quick in other aspects like responding, interpreting, comprehending, etc. as observed by Lenneberg and Maclean and Ruches. Beatrice and Garner undertook a pioneering investigation attempting to teach American sign language to Owashowe – a chimpanzee. Owashowe was brought up in the house trailer, interacting with a number of human beings who while in her presence never spoke verbal languages but used sign communication extensively.

Signs were used to communicate objects; questions were asked in sign form. In the beginning the progress was very slow. But by the end of about 22 weeks Owashowe could acquire a vocabulary of nearly 34 signs and use these under appropriate situations.

Though like human infants, Owashowe’s sign language initially was not very descriptive and clear, gradually situation appropriate and specific sign language was achieved. More remarkably, Owashowe after a number of minutes could combine such signs to produce sentences like “you drink”, “key open” etc.

According to many investigators like Brown, Owashowe’s language was very similar to what human children in the first stage of speech have. Other investigators like Premark based on their studies on chimpanzees arrived at more interesting conclusions.

The task involved here was slightly different. Here, the chimpanzee Sara had to learn to equate certain utterances with a set of distinctly coloured and shaped plastic pieces arranged in a pattern and stuck to a plastic board. The utterances were a pattern of sticking together a set of such pieces. Results were really surprising and the chimpanzees could learn this language to a very high degree of complexity.

Here, the attempt by the experimenter does not require the animal to translate the language into human language terms. She only had to learn a non-verbal way of uttering what was uttered by the investigator. Researches like this show that while chimpanzees may not go far in learning a human language and speak the same, their ability to code, encode and decode symbolic cognitive inputs like colour pieces, cannot be written off.

Research in this area has certainly pointed out that even at the higher level of evolution, the animals are not very capable of learning and speaking the human type language and produce speech sounds. But, because of this, one cannot say with the same degree of certainty that they do not comprehend language symbols, or forms of relations among them.

The adult human beings’ capacity for mastery of human speech is infinitely superior to that of an adult chimpanzee, but at the same time there is a lot of similarity between the vocabulary of a human infant and a chimpanzee. A chimpanzee can learn a language of different types.

Of course, it does not mean much, but one or two sounds become clear. The nature and structure of the brain and the vocal apparatus at the human level thus make a qualitative and quantitative difference in the language behaviour of sub-human organism and the human being.

Apart from this basic biological structure, there are greater number of language based interactions, and also more numerous opportunities for mastering a language, at the disposal of the human being which definitely make for a difference between human language and sub-human language.

Functions of Language:

If language is such an important part of human life, then it certainly must have served human beings very well and also useful purposes. What are the various functions of language? Essentially, as a common man sees, language has two obvious functions; first it serves a person to express oneself and then communicate.

Through an expression one is able to inform, request, persuade, threaten or influence others. This means one is able to relate one’s experiences, fears, wishes, to others and similar experiences of others. This is the beginning of social life. When people are able to express to each other, naturally they are able to interact with each other and understand what others are saying or doing. Based on such an interpretation there is the beginning of action.

This phenomenon goes on. Thus, we may see that language helps in expressing, understanding, interpreting and communicating events those inside a person and when there is a reciprocal action one can see how social interaction starts. The entire fabric of social life is thus based on an ability to express, interpret, understand and influence, first reciprocally, then in an extended manner.

Thus, one may see that language is at the very foundation of human civilisation. Perhaps, this is a very simple statement of what is happening. When I say I understand and interpret, there is a cognitive function; when I say, make others accept or act, there is a social function, one of relating myself to others.

When I talk and smile, this is an affective function. Language helps people to develop, shape perception, share interpretations, share expectations, and share expressions and also feelings and emotions. We may now briefly examine some of the basic functions of language. Some of these are obvious and others are not so obvious.

Let us for a moment imagine that a sub-human organism or a primitive human being faces for the first time a condition of hunger or fear, sees another strange animal or hears a sudden noise. Cutting across all these one would have faced a condition of disturbed equilibrium which might have resulted in the feeling of fear, surprise, joy, delight, hunger, or whatever it is.

However scientific our modern researches may be, common sense tells us that the earliest form of linguistic reaction must have originated under such a situation. A classical example is the birth cry of a new born child.

In all these instances, it may be seen that the origins of language lay in an articulation or expression of the state of the organism; but while being an act of expression, it also becomes an act of trying to understand and interpret the strange feelings or state of affairs.

Now, we may begin our attempts to understand various usages, and functions served by language or linguistic behaviour which includes the sound language of some animals and also the sign language used in various categories.

The functions of language can be classified under two or three broad categories – 1. Expressive and Communicative Functions 2. Interpretative Functions 3. Control function 4. The Functions of Remembering and Thinking 5. The Discovery of One’s Name 6. Social Functions of Language 7. Creative Functions.  

Specificities of Languages:

Various languages spoken by different groups of people differ in as many dimensions as there are to language behaviour. The simple language of a stone-age tribal community is far different from one of the developed and complex languages of today. Not only this, languages also change, grow and evolve.

For example, some languages like Latin or Sanskrit are referred to as dead languages in that they have not changed over a time because of not being actively used, particularly in speech, and also because they have not interacted with other languages. But, amidst all these variations across space, and over time, are there any universal characteristics and structures of language?

Here again there is a debate with one group of scholars who argue for the existence of universal characteristics, others deny the existence of any such universal characteristics. But the controversy notwithstanding, there are some universal characteristics of language.

Some of these are as follows:

a. Discreteness :

The message (words and sentences), in any language are brought out from a limited number of units. For example even if you utter a word like ‘brother’ in different ways the listener will understand the word in the same way. Thus in-spite of differences between American spelling and British spelling of the word ‘colour’, it means the same to all those who know English.

b. Arbitrariness:

Language terms are arbitrary. No one can explain why an elephant should be called an elephant and a man by the word man. There is no reason, or if there is any reason, we do not know. Of course, there are some words in every language where one can see a similarity between a word and the object, it denotes.

For example the word ‘kaka’ in Tamil means a crow. This word is based on the sound of the crow crowing. Such a connection is called onomatopoeic – similarity in sound. This means that tomorrow if we decide to call a cat as a cow and a cow as a cat, there is nothing to stop it.

c. Openness :

As pointed out, in every language new terms, words and messages are generated easily. Every language grows, and the number of words, sentences and idioms keep on growing depending on experience, increasing complexity of life and interaction with other people and other languages. This means no one can claim that he or she has completely learnt or mastered a certain language or the messages in a particular language.

These three characteristics-discreteness, arbitrariness and openness are universal features of all languages. The presence of such universal features has raised the question as to whether there is a certain universal language or linguistic structures present in all human beings cutting across languages and therefore, not language specific.

A leading advocate of such a view is Chomsky. According to Chomsky there are some universal structures or formal operations in languages, which underline the semantic or meaning aspect. These theorists have been trying to identify certain universalities, similarities and regularities in language behaviour across language and cultural variations.

It is hoped that such research can ultimately help in building up a universal grammar. Once such universal grammar is developed, then it is easier for one person to learn another language. But more than this, if this possibility becomes true it will help us to achieve a better understanding of the entire system of cognitive processes including speech, memory, learning, thinking and perception.

Such a view would help us to understand the innate biological processes and necessities which condition language behaviour. According to Chomsky, language behaviour is not purely learnt by accident or conditioning and much of it is biological and species-specific.

Bio-Neurological Bases of Language:

The human being is basically a biological organism, born as a biological creature becoming a social and psychological organism. Certainly, some views hold that the human being is inherently social.

Assuming that the adult human being is more social than merely physiological, it may be pointed out that, elementary forms of social behaviour are evident even in lower animals. While the human being may be much more social and complex, social nature of behaviour is not an exclusive privilege of the human organism.

Secondly, all social actions of the human organism take place only through the available bio-physiological mechanisms and if human social behaviour is much more advanced than that of the lower organisms, this is very much because of the highly advanced and developed body system he or she is endowed with, particularly the human brain.

All human actions therefore, have their basis in physiological and neurological possibilities. This is true of language behaviour including speech behaviour. The question is, how far is language behaviour including speech is determined by biological endowments. Here theories of language behaviour differ, in the degree of importance they attain biological mechanism.

Though no theory questions the essential minimal requirements of the biological equipment and mechanisms for achieving normal and effective language behaviour, some scientists like Chomsky argue that there are innately endowed biological language structures which are universal. Lenneberg believes that the unique human pattern of communication is possible only because of certain biological propensities and possibilities for complex language behaviour, particularly speech.

According to Lenneberg, there must be clear specialisation in the brain in relation to its anatomical structure and other speech related mechanisms. Further, the fact that children across the culture and sub-culture show a lot of similarities in language and speech behaviour indicates that there should be a regular and uniform pattern of development in children regardless of socio-cultural variations. Lenneberg further states that there ought to be innate and biological processes of the system which makes language development possible in spite of many handicaps and disabilities.

The failure of sub-human organisms to acquire comparable language and speech abilities, according to Lenneberg is a further proof of the unique and distinct structure and specialised characteristics of the human body particularly the cerebral cortex. Finally, Lenneberg cites the existence of language universality in phonology, syntax, grammar, etc. as evidence for the existence of universal and strong biological bases.

Essay on Communication:

One of the basic functions of language is communication. Communication plays a very important role in our lives. We communicate with members of our family who are living with us, with our friends, with our colleagues, with our bosses and everyone including a pet-dog. Let us not forget that we communicate with ourselves.

Of course, this is not the same as talking to oneself. We communicate with people who are present with us. Thus, when your mother, or the father or the teacher says something to you, this is called direct communication.

Similarly, when you talk to your friend on the telephone, this is also called direct communication. But if you are leaving on some urgent work and ask your brother to pass on a message to your parents or some other friends, this is indirect communication.

Here you are passing on a message to one person through some other person. This communication is not direct, but indirect. Similarly, a teacher teaching to a class of pupils is engaged in direct communication. This is communication between an individual on one side and a group of people on the other.

So is the case where a chief executive officer of a company calls for a meeting of his senior colleagues and addresses them; this is again direct communication with a group. On the other hand when the same chief, instructs these senior executives to pass on a message to other officers of various branches, this is an individual communicating with a group, but indirect.

Thus, in direct communication we communicate with those for whom a message is meant and in indirect communication we communicate with those to whom there is a message through somebody else and the concerned people do not receive the message themselves from us.

Now what is communication? Essentially communication is a form of social interaction where two or more people are involved. There is a transmission and exchange of information, knowledge or message. When you go to a railway booking office and find out whether accommodation is available by a certain train, you get the answer as to whether it is there or not.

Here you are seeking some information and you get the same. But in a classroom, the teacher passes on not only information but also knowledge. Newspapers provide information. But, if you are reading a book on a particular subject, you get knowledge. On the other hand if you are writing a letter to a friend or talking to him on the telephone informing him that you will be reaching him the next day at a particular place and time, this is a message.

Generally, the term communication is used to describe the kind of interaction between two or more individuals where one person or a set of people interacts with others with the intention of influencing the opinions or actions, of the latter. Thus, an advertisement is a piece of communication where the advertiser wants to influence people to buy a particular product. Clearly there is an intention behind a communication.

Along with the intention, there is also an expectation as to whether the other person or persons would do what you want them to do. Thus, when you leave a message for your friend that you would be meeting him at a particular place and time, you have the intention of asking him to wait for you and also expect him to wait for you or call you back to tell you whether it is possible or not. The degree of expectation varies.

The advertiser, for example, cannot be certain that everybody who reads his advertisement will buy his product. But when a boss sends a message to a subordinate asking him to wait for him, his expectation is more. Thus the degree of certainty is decided by intention and expectation. And even if the intentions are strong, and the expectation is low, the communication may not take place. On the other hand, if both are strong, communication will take place.

Thus, whether communication occurs or not is decided by the strength of intention and the certainty of expectation. We may say that communication arises whenever there is an intention or need. Of course, factors like availability of means also decide whether communication will take place or not.

Communication involves symbols and signs. Thus, every communication involves words, gestures, movements, etc. At the human level, communication is to a large extent verbal or involves words, numbers, symbols, etc.

This type of communication involving language or related symbols is known as verbal communication. But a large part of our communication also uses non-verbal symbols like gestures, movements, lights, sounds, etc.

The traffic signal is a clear example of non-verbal communication using light symbols. The horn of an automobile behind you is an example of a non-verbal communication with a sound symbol where the driver behind intends to overtake and expects you to give him the side clearance.

Gestures are also commonly employed as in the case of the traffic constable who gestures with his hand to the vehicles coming from a particular direction to stop or move. Similarly, you are sitting in a class and your friend standing outside is asking you to come out with a gesture and you ask the friend to wait for sometime with a gesture. The umpire on the cricket field raises his finger to communicate to the batsman i.e. out, and expects him to leave. Touch is also a means of communication.

If you are sleeping in the classroom and the teacher is about to notice the same, your friend touches you and you get up. You touch or fondle a little child or a pet to show your affection. In lower organisms, even smell is used as a communication. Thus we see that the communication can make use of any sensory modality, visual, auditory, touch and smell and can involve words, sounds, figures, lights, signals, gestures, etc.

Non-Verbal Communication and Body Language:

Though verbal language is our major medium of communication, there are other forms of communication and also that, any speech is not a piece of communication. Further, in many situations we speak not only with our mouths, or words but also through our body movements, expressions of the eye, posture, etc. A speaker uses a lot of gestures, modulations of voice, movements like bending, pacing up and down and does many other things to make the communication more effective.

In recent years, there have been a lot of research studies trying to understand the role of non-verbal communication including body movement, expressions, etc. on the effectiveness of communication. Such movements, expressions, gestures, etc. have all come to be known together as ‘body language’.

The study of the role of gestures, and body movements in the process of communication has resulted in the emergence of a specialised field of study called ‘kinesis’. Attempts have been made to prepare a dictionary giving a list of body movements and the meaning they generally convey.

An American anthropologist, B.T. Hall based on a very careful study of postures, degree of bending, angle of vision, etc. employed by people of different cultures, has argued for a discipline of study called proxemics which is interested in the study of how people use timing, body posture, and distance to make the communication effective.

Body language is widely employed by lower organisms and it is also used more extensively in simple human societies where verbal language has not developed to a very high degree. People employ body language very often not as a part of conscious effort. This just flows as a supplement to reinforce and strengthen the verbal communication. However, today body communication experts are attempting to train people to use body language selectively and more effectively. In fact, dance is a learnt and organised form of body language.

Non-verbal or body language communication has been evident in arts like dance, sculpture, music, etc. from ancient times. But the disciplines which study its status as a means of communication today are linguistics, anthropology, history, clinical psychology, etc.

Some of the scientists of these disciplines brought together a long list of expressive movements in the form of a dictionary, thus, trying to associate specific meanings, motives, etc., which underline them. Some of these movements are blinking, fingering the nose, crossing the finger, finger or knuckle cracking, loosening the collar, shrugging the shoulders, shaking a leg or legs, etc. However, this type of research has a long way to go.

Psychoanalytic literature, beginning with the writings of Freud, contains many explanations of the relationship between expressive movement or gesture and an unconscious motive. For instance, according to them, blinking the eyelids may indicate a desire to conceal something or the desire to hide from others. Dittmann studied pattern of movements composed of interaction between head, hands and legs for five different moods.

The frequency of movement within each of the body segments was arrived at from motion pictures of a patient during psychotherapy. The moods were judged in accordance with what the patient was expressing verbally. It was found that anger correlated with increased movements of the head and legs, with the hands remaining inactive while a depressed mood correlated with increased leg motion, both head and hands being inactive.

Wilhelm Reich, a leading psychoanalyst, after years of working as a therapist, began to notice that people’s facial expressions, gestures, posture- their body language -often told him more about their feelings than their words. Shaking a leg while talking about one’s wife’s temper tantrums, a drooping mouth when talking about a dead child, blinking frequently and closing eyes for a longer duration, holding the lips tight when talking about sex, etc. – all these movements were extremely revealing.

Pursuing this observation, Reich began to see muscle tension as the bodily equivalent of psychological blocks and defences. Tension protects a person from threats and the dangers he does not think about consciously. People hold their breath, stiffen their arms, tense their necks and shoulder muscles when they are on the defensive.

Rigidity not only protects the person from external threats but also prevents the free flow of emotions. Reich began looking for a way to relieve these tensions. Ida Rolf, who was trained as a bio-chemist, arrived at much the same conclusion through her work in physiology.

When a person is injured, the muscles in the area tighten to compensate for the injury. Often compensation becomes habitual and persists long after the injury has healed, i.e. the tightened muscles lose flexibility. Perhaps the body reacts to emotional traumas in the same way it reacts to physical traumas. Ida Rolf began to look for a way of restoring ‘structural integration’.

Both Reich and Rolf found, to their surprise, that when they treated knotted muscles with massage, clients invariably became intensely emotional. Fears, traumas, old anger and old pain stays ‘locked in their muscles’. For many people, physical therapy seemed to promote much deeper emotional release than verbal expression which is the essence of psychoanalytic therapy.

Interest in this approach seems to be growing day by day, but it needs to go a very long way before it can shake, let alone topple, the concept of ‘verbal expression’ as an ‘exclusive emotional releaser’.

Effectiveness of Communication:

Communication is normally initiated by some individual or a group with the aim or intention of influencing the behaviour of somebody else by sending a message through a channel or a medium. It was further noted that communication plays a very crucial role in our lives.

Of course, there are instances where people get influenced by communication not specifically directed towards them, but overheard by them. Similarly, there are also instances where a communication intended to influence some particular person or persons, influences people who are not intended to be influenced. By and large every communication has an intention of influencing the ideas and behaviour of some specific set of people.

This intention can be achieved only if the process of communication takes care of certain requirements. A communication which is able to influence people in the intended manner is said to be effective. Of course, communications vary in degree of effectiveness. Some communications are more effective than others that too for sometime and not always.

The effectiveness of a communication varies depending on a number of factors. These factors have been studied extensively and certain findings have emerged which have enabled people, particularly in organisations to make communication more effective.

In every communication there is a source, a person or persons who initiate the communication, a channel like a letter or a telephonic message or signal, etc., a message which is the essence which conveys to the other person what is to be done and a receiver or audience, a person or group of persons to whom the message is directed and who are intended to be influenced. Source, channel, message and the receiver are the four important components of a communication process and all of them are important in deciding how far a particular communication is effective.

We may briefly examine how these four components can be carefully planned and built into a communication process so that the communication can achieve what it intends, to a large degree. A company may become more effective in making the people buy its products, and a political leader may influence people to vote for his party; all these can be achieved better by designing the process of communication in an effective manner.

1. Source Characteristics:

It has been found that a number of characteristics of the source contribute to the effectiveness of the communication. One such factor is credibility. Credibility refers to the perceived importance of the person. Thus, when the Prime Minister or any other highly placed person makes an appeal, people respond.

This is because the person is accepted as genuine and sincere and also capable of carrying out what he says he can do. Thus, when an expert on a subject gives some new information we accept it. When a highly qualified doctor prescribes a treatment, the patient accepts it.

We accept the authority, legitimacy, sincerity and competence of the person. In an experiment students were shown a passage of poetry and asked them to rate the same. Two groups were involved. One group was told that the poem was written by some unknown person and the other group was told that it was written by a great poet.

The second group rated the poem as of a much higher quality. But a question has been raised as to whether this credibility is very specific or general. For example, if we attribute an article on economics to a leading poet, will this have an effect on the rating of the article? On this question, research studies have brought out contradictory findings.

Some studies show that the credibility factor is specific and that an article on economics will not be rated higher if it is attributed to a poet or a film star whose credibility may be high in influencing us to buy a hair cream.

However, there are studies, which argue that there is a general effect of credibility and people will accept a film star’s advice, even on whether India should manufacture nuclear weapons, or whether the constitution should be amended to declare film stars as super citizens.

Closely related to credibility is trustworthiness. A person may be an expert. But if earlier communications from the person were found to be unrealistic and misleading, then there may be a lack of trustworthiness and this may counteract against the factor of credibility.

Thus, if a person who is perceived as corrupt tries to influence the moral behaviour of people or asks them to contribute to a welfare programme, the effect may not be much, even though he may be perceived as competent or having a position. Other things being equal, if a source is perceived as a person who can reward or punish, this may have an effect on the effectiveness of the communication.

Yet, another factor appears to be the factor of similarity between the person who sends the communication, the source, and the receiver. Thus young people are generally more influenced by sources which are similar in educational background, age, background and status. Thus, it has been shown that characteristics relating to the sources do have a crucial influence on the effectiveness of the communication.

2. Channel Characteristics :

Channel is the medium by which the message is passed and presented. The channel may be direct and personal or through media like telephone, radio, newspaper, etc. The choice of the channel or medium depends on a number of factors like the nature of message, its coverage, importance, whether it is private, the size of the audience, their characteristics, etc.

Research studies have shown that direct communication is more effective especially as it permits use of body language like the expressions of the eyes, posture, etc. In terms of distance, a distance of about four meters between the source and the receiver has been found to be effective. Here again a number of factors have to be taken into account. For example, in a classroom a teacher cannot maintain a distance of four meters from all students. Nor is it possible in any direct audience situation.

One issue which has been investigated in more detail and depth relates to the question whether films or audio-visual aids are always more effective. Some studies have shown that films are more effective in communicating factual information and sometimes also in bringing about attitudinal changes, but there have been other studies which have shown that if the receiver is more educated and mature, printed communication is more effective.

The fact appears to be that effectiveness of a channel or medium seems to depend upon a number of factors like the nature and size of the audience, the nature of the message, the time available, the urgency of the message, etc.

3. Message:

The message is the core component of any communication. If there is no message, there is no communication, even though people may be talking. Some studies have attempted to study some of the necessary characteristics that may contribute to more effective communication. One important characteristic is known as loading which refers to the amount of information in that communication.

For example, if a boss wants to ask one of his own subordinates to go and meet and discuss a particular issue with somebody, he may simply say “regarding the matter, please meet Mr. A. at 3.30 p.m. today and talk to him”.

This is simple, brief and direct but adequate. If he says “I was with Mr. A yesterday and we had dinner. While talking to him I found that he has lot of experience in matters related to the issue which we discussed two days ago. You try to meet him and see if he can help us.”

Here we can see that the amount of unnecessary information is much more than what is necessary for the young person to act and it is possible that the message is too elaborate and confusing and the receiver misses the essential part. Such a lengthy communication with too much of unnecessary details is said to be overloaded.

On the other hand the boss may tell the young person, “meet Mr. A, and I want to have a discussion with him”. This is certainly brief but not very clear to the person who is expected to discuss with Mr. A. He is not sure about what to discuss with A, where and when. Such communications will create a need for a series of further communications on various aspects.

This is an example of what is called communication under-loading. The message should be optimally loaded while clearly communicating whatever information the receiver needs to carry out the instruction contained in the message. Thus, ‘loading’ is found to be a very important characteristic.

Messages may be of different types. Some of them may be a ‘one-way matter’. The source may expect the receiver to do something only once, but there could also be a message where a choice of action or response becomes necessary among different alternatives. This is very true of communication relating to work organizations.

It is very common that a particular person is involved in a number of transactions which are interrelated. The boss may find it necessary to send a message to him to take a particular action on a particular issue or matter. It is also possible that sometimes there are conditional messages.

For example, the boss may instruct the receiver as follows “meet Mr. A and find out what is happening. If there is some problem, ask him to talk to me and if he is not there meet Mr. R”. In such instances, it becomes difficult or even impossible for the respondent to get the message clearly unless the message is con-texted properly by clearly giving the necessary background and details.

Very often an organisation may be involved in a number of transactions involving the same client or party. So unless the background relating to a particular transaction on which action is to be taken is made clear, there may be a delay or even a wrong action at the end of the receiver.

This involves not only clarity of what to do, but also on what matter the action is to be taken. The message must provide the necessary details for the receiver to clearly identify the concerned issue. We may call this factor as “contesting or embedding”. Yet another characteristic refers to explicitness or implicitness or we may even call them degrees of explicitness.

Suppose a client is filing a legal case and his lawyer after studying all the details, comes to the conclusion that there is very little chance for the client to win the case. He may convey this directly to him and straightaway advise him to withdraw his case and arrive at a compromise. This will be an example of explicit communication.

On the other hand, the lawyer may explain to him all the details and also instances of similar cases he has handled in the past and leave the client to arrive at his own decision. This is an instance of implicit communication. Here again in-spite of a number of studies, no definite conclusion appears to be available.

Some studies by Hovland and Mandel on influencing American public opinion on the need for devaluing the dollar found that presenting an explicit conclusion was found to be more effective, but equally strong is the evidence in support of the strategy, where the message is presented without an explicit conclusion leaving it to the receiver to arrive at the conclusion. A classic example of this latter type is the oration of Mark Anthony on the death of Caesar where without explicitly inciting the people to revolt, he succeeded in making them do it.

Another message characteristic that has been investigated is with regard to the couching of the message in emotional appeals, emotional overtones and invoking reactions like love, loyalty, patriotism as part of the message. There are a number of studies on employing fear as an overtone. Extreme fear appears to have been occasionally found to be effective, but not always.

According to Janis effectiveness of fear appears to be associated with a number of factors. Appeals for dental care and hygiene were found to influence attitudes and behaviour relating to dental hygiene in inverse proportion to the degree of fear. This was shown by Janis and Fish back who found that the more intense the fear appeals were the less was the effectiveness.

One the other hand, association of moderate fear appears to be more effective. On the other hand studies by Levianthal and Nice and Singer on appeals in connection with traffic safety rules and traffic signal observance, showed that intensity of fear appeals had a greater effect.

By and large it appears fair to conclude that on the whole moderate fear appeals have a greater effect on more people, than extremely high fear or extremely low fear appeals Yet another finding was that messages for change of attitudes along with fear appeals were more effective when the message in the communication suggested ways to overcome the fearful situation.

Other aspects of the message including length, dramatization, medium, etc. have also been studied from the point of view of effectiveness in .bringing about changes in attitudes. The factors of primacy and recency, whether a communication received earlier or more recently is more effective has also been researched upon and the findings are far from conclusive let alone unanimous.

The contribution of each of the factors seems to depend on many other factors like nature of the content, demographic background of the audience, the perceived importance and even personality factors of the receiver. However, these studies have certainly exploded some myths like the universal effectiveness of emotional appeals, primacy, etc.

4. Receiver:

The receiver is the ultimate user of any type of communication. Communications are generally directed towards influencing the receiver, his opinions, attitudes, behaviour, etc. All receivers are not similar. There are group differences and individual differences. The susceptibility of the receiver to the influence of communications is called persuasibility which indicates the proneness of an individual to change in response to a communication.

Sensing and Brehm based on a series of studies have argued that after a certain stage, there emerges a condition which may be called ‘reactance’ marked by resistance to succumb to persuasion. This reactance can vary from simple indifference to positive hostility. This is a very important point for those who believe that mere volume and intensity of persuasive appeals can persuade anyone and everyone.

Educated and intelligent receivers are more difficult to persuade through emotional appeals. Some studies have shown that personality factors like high neuroticism make people less responsive.

On the basis of a series of studies Janis found that people who are either over assertive or very submissive, and who are more inner directed are more difficult to persuade. On the other hand, those who are moderately aggressive and not inner directed, less intelligent, etc., are more easily persuaded. People with more imagination have been found to be more susceptible.

From the point of view of the source initiating communication, it is necessary to make sure that the receiver attends and receives the communication, comprehends it and understands what he or she is supposed to do. The communication should be clear, brief, yet adequate and above all, it should be able to hold the interest of the receiver and provide the necessary directions and information for action.

If this is not done, the message may not have the intended effects. If such messages are repeated, the consequence may be the emergence of general apathy or even resistance or reactance. It is also necessary to develop what may be called a communicating culture where people get accustomed to receiving and sending communications.

This is particularly true in instances where the target audience involves groups of people, continuous communication and who differ in many respects. In most instances of communication, particularly in organizations, the source may send across a communication and expect a return communication.

This is particularly true of work situations and organisations where reciprocal and even multilateral communications are involved. Choosing the appropriate time for communication is an important factor. If an important communication is sent to a large number of people towards the end of the day when they are tired, the message may not register on many people.

A common occurrence found in Indian organisations particularly government organisations is that communications are often sent to people who are not at all concerned. If such irrelevant communications are frequently sent, then even a relevant subsequent communication is likely to be ignored. For instance, governments letters are very long and the real message comes at the end, if at all there is one.

5. Feedback:

How does one come to know that one’s communication has been effective and has achieved the desired purpose? As may be evident, the effectiveness of communication depends on a number of factors. Further the degree of effectiveness varies from time to time and situation to situation.

An important point is that on most occasions, there is a scope for improving the effectiveness of communication particularly in organisations. This depends on the existence of a system to asses the degree of effectiveness of the communication process and making attempts to improve the communication.

A basic requirement here is the need to establish a system of feedback on the responses and reactions of the receivers on various aspects of the communication processes, the message, the channel, the clarity or overloading or under-loading, etc.

In organisations where there is a continuous process of communication it becomes absolutely essential to provide for a system of feedback at regular intervals. Similarly, whenever a new process of communication is to be initiated, it is better to test the same on an experimental scale and get the feedback.

The feedback may be obtained directly from the receiver or indirectly through others who are in a position to observe the receiver’s behaviour. Sometimes feedback may not be verbal and may be non­verbal. Organisations should have a system whereby as complete a feedback as possible is obtained.

6. Boomerang Effects :

Researchers on communication effectiveness have come across an interesting phenomenon called boomerang effect. It has been noticed that very often communication results in an effect which is exactly antithetical to the intended effect. This has been named the boomerang effect.

One factor which appears to be associated with this is the occurrence of a direct interaction or confrontation with a person towards whom the receive has a negative attitude. One investigation to identify this type of effect was that of Mansion. For example, if an individual “A” is trying to persuade a group of people to change their attitude or behaviour, and if another person “B” who is unpopular with the group happens to be there, then boomerang effect may occur.

Similarly, when attempts are made to change the attitudes of people who have strong negative attitudes in a sudden manner, we may witness the emergence of boomerang effect leading to hostility and total rejection of not only their message but even the source.

7. Sleeper Effect :

Sleeper effect is said to occur when the effect of the process of communication is not evident for a long time and then suddenly becomes evident. According to Hove land this happens when comprehension and assimilation of a message takes a long time, and depends on a process of consolidation which is time-consuming. This possibility is very likely where the communication is long and complex.

The sleeper effect appears to be more likely when an individual has a base of earlier attitudes which are fairly strong and have to be reviewed in the light of the communication that has been presented. But sleeper effect has not been found to occur very frequently.

Barriers to Communication:

Why is it that communication is effective on certain occasions and not on others? There are also certain other factors which influence the effectiveness of communication. One important factor is what is known as noise. While physical noise either at the source or at the receiver’s end, certainly can affect the effectiveness of communication, the term ‘noise’ means any irrelevant stimulation present at the same time or at the time of initiation of or receiving the communication.

Thus, if somebody conveys a message to you on the telephone, while you are busy studying or discussing something important with your friends, you are in a hurry and do not wait to understand the telephonic message clearly. Noise here means anything that does not permit you to attend to and listen to the message with full concentration and understand it completely and clearly, because at the moment you are engaged in some activity which is more important.

It may be seen here that it is not merely the factor of being physically engaged in some other activity, but even the psychological factor of ‘perceived importance’ and ‘interest’ play a crucial role. Apart from this, one may mention a factor known as “frame of reference”.

The source or the initiator may ask the receiver to do something or not to do something which according to the source may be important. But the receiver may not perceive this as important. Discrepancies in any of these between the source and the receiver may make the communication ineffective.

At the end of our discussion, perhaps the reader is in a position to appreciate the complexity of the process of communication and the various factors which influence the effectiveness of communication. But in-spite of all these, people communicate with each other across distances and on many matters. It is impossible to think of a world where people do not communicate.

This is an indication of importance of communication in our lives. One cannot imagine how people can live and live together, if communication processes are not so robust and function in-spite of the fact that many factors are involved in it. It is this ability to communicate which has made it possible for human beings to control and master the environment. The reader may wonder, why is communication so important!

It is important because communication serves many functions. Some of these are:

1. It helps us to express our ideas, feelings, reactions, hopes, etc. Pure verbal language may not serve this purpose in all situations of life. For example, children may not have acquired vocabulary to express their feelings and express through body language. In fact, the pet dog communicates its feelings very effectively.

2. To transmit or convey information to others.

3. To change the attitudes, behaviours and actions of others, and respond or reciprocate in such a way as to achieve something or accomplish something, reach a goal or target.

4. To establish bonds, relationship with others in terms of authority, control, camaraderie, etc.

5. To establish order and predictability in behaviour where a number of people are involved as in the case of organisations.

6. To hold together, a society, a group, or organization’s culture and values which are essential to provide meaning and usefulness to actions of people. Communication, therefore, is another most important function which differentiates living from the non-living and human from sub-human.

Today we know that very crucial developments in science and technology are taking place in the field of communication and the importance of such developments is very obvious. If one should think of any single distinct characteristic of contemporary human society, certainly it is communication. Modern society is a communicating society, though it may not be rational as Aristotle thought or pleasure-seeking as other philosophers thought.

An important development these days is the rapid advances in communication technology. The information or message can be passed on in no time. In fact, the occurrence of event and its awareness are almost simultaneous. Further today one often finds more emphasis on communication.

A few years ago one could not have thought of a teleconference or a continuous chat with an astronaut who is orbiting in the outer space. Communication, is probably the lifeline of society. This is now more true of modern society which is increasingly becoming an information based society.

Related Articles:

• Human Thinking is Inseparably Linked with Language and Communication
• Brain Function and Language Behaviour | Human Behaviour | Psychology
• Relationship between Thought and Language | Human Behaviour | Psychology
• Learning More than One Language: Bilingualism | Human Behaviour | Psychology

Essay , Human Behaviour , Language and Communication , Psychology

Where Did Language Come From? (Theories)

Theories on the Origin and Evolution of Language

• An Introduction to Punctuation
• Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
• M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
• B.A., English, State University of New York

The expression language origins refers to theories pertaining to the emergence and development of language in human societies.

Over the centuries, many theories have been put forward—and almost all of them have been challenged, discounted, and ridiculed. (See Where Does Language Come From? ) In 1866, the Linguistic Society of Paris banned any discussion of the topic: "The Society will accept no communication concerning either the origin of language or the creation of a universal language ." Contemporary linguist Robbins Burling says that "anyone who has read widely in the literature on language origins cannot escape a sneaking sympathy with the Paris linguists. Reams of nonsense have been written about the subject" ( The Talking Ape , 2005).

In recent decades, however, scholars from such diverse fields as genetics, anthropology, and cognitive science have been engaged, as Christine Kenneally says, in "a cross-discipline, multidimensional treasure hunt" to find out how language began. It is, she says, "the hardest problem in science today" ( The First Word , 2007).

Observations on the Origins of Language

" Divine origin [is the] conjecture that human language originated as a gift from God. No scholar takes this idea seriously today."

(R.L. Trask, A Student's Dictionary of Language and Linguistics , 1997; rpt. Routledge, 2014)

"Numerous and varied explanations have been put forth to explain how humans acquired language—many of which date back to the time of the Paris ban. Some of the more fanciful explanations have been given nicknames , mainly to the effect of dismissal by ridicule. The scenario by which language evolved in humans to assist the coordination of working together (as on the pre-historic equivalent of a loading dock) has been nicknamed the 'yo-heave-ho' model. There's the 'bow-wow' model in which language originated as imitations of animal cries. In the 'poo-poo' model, language started from emotional interjections .

"During the twentieth century, and particularly its last few decades, discussion of language origins has become respectable and even fashionable. One major problem remains, however; most models about language origins do not readily lend themselves to the formation of testable hypotheses, or rigorous testing of any sort. What data will allow us to conclude that one model or another best explains how language arose?"

(Norman A. Johnson, Darwinian Detectives: Revealing the Natural History of Genes and Genomes . Oxford University Press, 2007)

Physical Adaptations

- "Instead of looking at types of sounds as the source of human speech, we can look at the types of physical features humans possess, especially those that are distinct from other creatures, which may have been able to support speech production. . . .

"Human teeth are upright, not slanting outwards like those of apes, and they are roughly even in height. Such characteristics are . . . very helpful in making sounds such as f or v . Human lips have much more intricate muscle lacing than is found in other primates and their resulting flexibility certainly helps in making sounds like p , b , and m . In fact, the b and m sounds are the most widely attested in the vocalizations made by human infants during their first year, no matter which language their parents are using."

(George Yule, The Study of Language , 5th ed. Cambridge University Press, 2014)

-  "In the evolution of the human vocal tract since the split with other apes, the adult larynx descended to its lower position. Phonetician Philip Lieberman has persuasively argued that the ultimate cause of the human lowered larynx is its function in producing different vowels . This is a case of natural selection for more effective communication. . . .

"Babies are born with their larynxes in a high position, like monkeys. This is functional, as there is a reduced risk of choking, and babies are not yet talking. . . . By about the end of the first year, the human larynx descends to its near-adult lowered position. This is a case of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny, the growth of the individual reflecting the evolution of the species."

(James R. Hurford, The Origins of Language . Oxford University Press, 2014)

From Words to Syntax

"Language-ready modern children learn vocabulary voraciously before they begin to make grammatical utterances several words long. So we presume that in the origins of language a one-word stage preceded our remote ancestors' first steps into grammar . The term 'protolanguage' has been widely used to describe this one-word stage, where there is vocabulary but no grammar."

The Gesture Theory of Language Origin

- "Speculation about how languages originate and evolve has had an important place in the history of ideas, and it has been intimately linked to questions about the nature of the signed languages of the deaf and human gestural behavior in general. It can be argued, from a phylogenetic perspective, the origin of human sign languages is coincident with the origin of human languages; sign languages, that is, are likely to have been the first true languages. This is not a new perspective--it is perhaps as old as nonreligious speculation about the way human language may have begun."

(David F. Armstrong and Sherman E. Wilcox, The Gestural Origin of Language . Oxford University Press, 2007)

- "[A]n analysis of the physical structure of visible gesture provides insights into the origins of syntax , perhaps the most difficult question facing students of the origin and evolution of language . . .. It is the origin of syntax that transforms naming into language, by enabling human beings to comment on and think about the relationships between things and events, that is, by enabling them to articulate complex thoughts and, most important, share them with others. . . .

"We are not the first to suggest a gestural origin of language. [Gordon] Hewes (1973; 1974; 1976) was one of the first modern proponents of a gestural origins theory. [Adam] Kendon (1991: 215) also suggests that 'the first kind of behaviour that could be said to be functioning in anything like a linguistic fashion would have had to have been gestural.' For Kendon, as for most others who consider gestural origins of language, gestures are placed in opposition to speech and vocalization. . . .

"While we would agree with Kendon's strategy of examining the relationships among spoken and signed languages, pantomime, graphic depiction, and other modes of human representation, we are not convinced that placing gesture in opposition to speech leads to a productive framework for understanding the emergence of cognition and language. For us, the answer to the question, 'If language began as gesture, why did it not stay that way?' is that it did. . . .

"All language, in the words of Ulrich Neisser (1976), is 'articulatory gesturing.'

"We are not proposing that language began as gesture and became vocal. Language has been and always will be gestural (at least until we evolve a reliable and universal capacity for mental telepathy)."

(David F. Armstrong, William C. Stokoe, and Sherman E. Wilcox, Gesture and the Nature of Language . Cambridge University Press, 1995)

- "If, with [Dwight] Whitney, we think of 'language' as a complex of instrumentalities which serve in the expression of 'thought' (as he would say--one might not wish to put it quite like this today), then gesture is part of 'language.' For those of us with an interest in language conceived of in this way, our task must include working out all the intricate ways in which gesture is used in relation to speech and of showing the circumstances in which the organization of each is differentiated from the other as well as the ways in which they overlap. This can only enrich our understanding of how these instrumentalities function. If, on the other hand, we define 'language' in structural terms, thus excluding from consideration most, if not all, of the kinds of gestural usages I have illustrated today, we may be in danger of missing important features of how language, so defined, actually succeeds as an instrument of communication. Such a structural definition is valuable as a matter of convenience, as a way of delimiting a field of concern. On the other hand, from the point of view of a comprehensive theory of how humans do all the things they do by means of utterances, it cannot be sufficient."

(Adam Kendon, "Language and Gesture: Unity or Duality?" Language and Gesture , ed. by David McNeill. Cambridge University Press, 2000)

Language as a Device for Bonding

"[T]he size of human social groups gives rise to a serious problem: grooming is the mechanism that is used to bond social groups among primates, but human groups are so large that it would be impossible to invest enough time in grooming to bond groups of this size effectively. The alternative suggestion, then, is that language evolved as a device for bonding large social groups--in other words, as a form of grooming-at-a-distance. The kind of information that language was designed to carry was not about the physical world, but rather about the social world. Note that the issue here is not the evolution of grammar as such, but the evolution of language. Grammar would have been equally useful whether language evolved to subserve a social or a technological function."

(Robin I.A. Dunbar, "The Origin and Subsequent Evolution of Language." Language Evolution , ed. by Morten H. Christiansen and Simon Kirby. Oxford University Press, 2003)

Otto Jespersen on Language as Play (1922)

- "[P]rimitive speakers were not reticent and reserved beings, but youthful men and women babbling merrily on, without being so particular about the meaning of each word. . . . They chattered away for the mere pleasure of chattering . . ..  [P]rimitive speech . . . resembles the speech of little baby himself, before he begins to frame his own language after the pattern of the grownups; the language of our remote forefathers was like that ceaseless humming and crooning with which no thoughts are as yet connected, which merely amuses and delights the little one. Language originated as play, and the organs of speech were first trained in this singing sport of idle hours."

(Otto Jespersen, Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin , 1922)

- "It is quite interesting to note that these modern views [on the commonality of language and music and of language and dance] were anticipated in great detail by Jespersen (1922: 392-442). In his speculations about the origin of language, he arrived at the view that referential language must have been preceded by singing, which in its turn was functional in fulfilling the need for sex (or love), on the one hand, and the need for coordinating collective work, on the other. These speculations have, in turn, their origins in [Charles] Darwin's 1871 book The Descent of Man :

we may conclude from a widely-spread analogy that this power would have been especially exerted during the courtship of the sexes, serving to express various emotions. . . . The imitation by articulate sounds of musical cries might have given rise to words expressive of various complex emotions.

(quoted from Howard 1982: 70)

The modern scholars mentioned above agree in rejecting the well-known scenario according to which language originated as a system of monosyllabic grunt-like sounds that had the (referential) function of pointing at things. Instead, they propose a scenario according to which referential meaning was slowly grafted upon nearly autonomous melodious sound."

(Esa Itkonen, Analogy as Structure and Process: Approaches in Linguistics, Cognitive Psychology and Philosophy of Science . John Benjamins, 2005)

Divided Views on the Origins of Language (2016)

"Today, opinion on the matter of language origins is still deeply divided. On the one hand, there are those who feel that language is so complex, and so deeply ingrained in the human condition, that it must have evolved slowly over immense periods of time. Indeed, some believe that its roots go all the way back to  Homo habilis , a tiny-brained hominid that lived in Africa not far short of two million years ago. On the other, there are those like [Robert] Berwick and [Noam] Chomsky who believe that humans acquired language quite recently, in an abrupt event. Nobody is in the middle on this one, except to the extent that different extinct hominid species are seen as the inaugurators of language’s slow evolutionary trajectory.

"That this deep dichotomy of viewpoint has been able to persist (not only among linguists, but among paleoanthropologists, archaeologists, cognitive scientists, and others) for as long as anyone can remember is due to one simple fact: at least until the very recent advent of writing systems , language has left no trace in any durable record. Whether any early humans possessed language, or didn’t, has had to be inferred from indirect proxy indicators. And views have diverged greatly on the matter of what is an acceptable proxy."

(Ian Tattersall, "At the Birth of Language."   The New York Review of Books , August 18, 2016)

• Where Does Language Come From?: Five Theories on the Origins of Language
• Cognitive Linguistics  and  Neurolinguistics
• Five Theories on the Origins of Language
• Displacement in Language
• The Sound 'Schwa' With Definition and Examples in English
• Observations on What Is Language
• Universal Grammar (UG)
• Definition and Examples of Linguists
• Indeterminacy (Language)
• 10 Types of Grammar (and Counting)
• An Introduction to Semantics
• Pragmatics Gives Context to Language
• Speech in Linguistics
• Sound Symbolism in English: Definition and Examples
• Substantive (Grammar)
• English Language Sentence Structure
• Definition and Discussion of Chomskyan Linguistics
• Descriptivism in Language

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

• Publications
• Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

• Advanced Search
• Journal List

Language Evolution: Why Hockett’s Design Features are a Non-Starter

Sławomir wacewicz.

Center for Language Evolution Studies (CLES); Department of English, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Bojarskiego 1, Toruń, 87-100 Poland

Przemysław Żywiczyński

The set of design features developed by Charles Hockett in the 1950s and 1960s remains probably the most influential means of juxtaposing animal communication with human language. However, the general theoretical perspective of Hockett is largely incompatible with that of modern language evolution research. Consequently, we argue that his classificatory system—while useful for some descriptive purposes—is of very limited use as a theoretical framework for evolutionary linguistics. We see this incompatibility as related to the ontology of language, i.e. deriving from Hockett’s interest in language as a product rather than a suite of sensorimotor, cognitive and social abilities that enable the use but also acquisition of language by biological creatures (the faculty of language ). After a reconstruction of Hockett’s views on design features, we raise two criticisms: focus on the means at the expense of content and focus on the code itself rather than the cognitive abilities of its users . Finally, referring to empirical data, we illustrate some of the problems resulting from Hockett’s approach by addressing three specific points—namely arbitrariness and semanticity , cultural transmission , and displacement —and show how the change of perspective allows to overcome those difficulties.

Introduction

It is hard to overestimate the impact of the design features model, proposed and developed by Charles Hockett in the 1950s and 1960s ( 1958 ; 1959 , 1960a, [1960b] 1977 ; 1966 ; Hockett and Altmann 1968 ), which soon emerged as the default means of characterising animal communication systems and contrasting them with human language. 1 More than a classificatory scheme, it became a reference point in more general considerations regarding the nature of human language, and has since heavily influenced linguistic courses and textbooks (cf. McGregor 2009 ; Yule 2010 ). Meanwhile, the development of cognitive science in the second half of the twentieth century (the “cognitive turn”, e.g. Bechtel et al. 1998 ) converged with the growing interest in evolutionary sciences (the “adaptive turn”, e.g. Gontier and Pina 2014 ) to yield an unprecedented upsurge of publications dealing with the evolutionary origins of language (Christiansen and Kirby 2003b ). The point of view adopted in these texts was markedly different from the one inherent in Hockett’s system.

In this paper, we demonstrate that Hockett’s general theoretical perspective is largely incompatible with that of modern language evolution research, and that his classificatory system, while useful for some descriptive purposes, is of very limited use as a theoretical framework for evolutionary linguistics (and consequently, for the larger biosemiotic perspective). We see this incompatibility as deriving from Hockett’s interest in language as a product, leading to a “phenetic” classificatory system tracing superficial similarities. Specifically, we point to two underlying problems: focus on the means at the expense of content and focus on the code itself rather than the cognitive abilities of its users . We propose that the field of language evolution requires and presupposes a more “cladistic” approach to language: as a suite of sensorimotor, cognitive and social abilities that enable the use but also acquisition of language by biological creatures (the faculty of language , cf. e.g. Hauser et al. 2002 ; see also Wacewicz 2012 ). Such a stance leads to a more robust classificatory scheme that is open to extension into approaches that put a premium on the situated, social and distributed side of linguistic communication, and more general biologically grounded semiosis exceeding language (cf. “the biosemiotic turn”, Favareau 2008 ).

We begin by introducing Hockett’s system, and then contemporary research on language origins, with emphasis on the field of language evolution and the reasons behind the sudden surge of interest it has generated. Next we discuss two fundamental reasons why Hockett’s lists of design features cannot be integrated with this perspective. Those reasons are illustrated with three examples of this incommensurability: the features of arbitrariness/semanticity , cultural transmission and displacement , whose discussion we ground in recent empirical data. We conclude by proposing an alternative approach to (what we take to have been) Hockett’s primary goal, i.e. capturing the difference between the communication of humans and non-human animals.

Hockett: Language and its Design Features

Hockett’s reflection on the design features of language can be divided into three phases: the initial statement ( 1958 and 1959 ), which explains a comparative and cumulative approach to defining language; the best known presentation from “The Origin of Speech” (1960a) and the most extensive one from “Logical considerations in the study of animal communication” ([1960b] 1977 ), where Hockett enumerates thirteen design properties and proceeds to discuss them in an evolutionary framework; and later presentations ( 1966 ; 1968 ) with the most extensive list of sixteen design features, in which his attention shifts from comparative concerns to systemic properties of language.

The Original Proposal

Hockett first discussed the design features of language in A Course in Modern Linguistics , a linguistics textbook for college students. (Hockett [ 1958 ] 1967). Although Hockett adopts there the view that linguistics is an autonomous field of knowledge, 2 he also shows a distinct naturalistic sentiment. This is evident for example in his use of the biological terms “ontogeny” and “phylogeny” with reference to language acquisition ( 1958 : 353ff) and historical language development respectively ( 1958 : 353ff), or an accentuated claim that there must be a genetic component to human language ( 1958 : 353–354). But Hockett’s naturalism is most often indicated by his insistence in viewing language as behaviour—or rather a system which manifests itself in linguistic behaviours—accompanied by the methodological postulate that the study of language should be the study of such observable linguistic behaviours (see e.g. 1958 : 137–144, 322). Clearly, the concept of “habit” betrays an influence of behaviouristic psychology. However, Hockett’s emphasis that language should primarily be understood as a set of behaviours makes his description more akin to ethology than psychology. Given such an attitude, it comes as no surprise that he is interested in comparing linguistic behaviours with other communicative behaviours, including communicative behaviours of non-human animals. These comparative remarks are presented in the postscript to the book (section 64), entitled “Man’s Place in Nature” ( 1958 : 569–586), which constitutes the first exposition of “design features of language.”

At this juncture, it should be noted that Hockett adheres to the traditional, code model of communication (see Shannon 1948 ), where communication is understood as transmission of information from the sender to the receiver (allowing the former to impact the latter’s behaviour). In this particular respect, Hockett’s view aligns with the accounts of communication found in biological sciences, e.g. sociobiology (see Wilson 1975 ), ethology (Hailman 1977 ), or behavioural ecology (Krebs and Dawkins 1984 ). 3 Rather than provide strictly definitional criteria for communication and language, Hockett opts for a more heuristic approach. He compares and contrasts selected properties of language with properties of selected non-human communication systems—bee dancing (Frisch 1950 ; Carpenter 1940 ), stickleback courtship (Tinbergen 1953 ), herring gull care of offspring (Tinbergen 1953 ), and gibbon calls (Carpenter 1940 ), which he knew of from the ethological literature of his day. He also looks at selected human non-linguistic communication codes—the Morse Code and the Ogam script used by speakers of Old Irish. 4

In A Course in Modern Linguistics , Hockett doesn’t refer to these properties as “design features of language” but calls them “the key properties of language”. He enumerates seven of them: duality , productivity , arbitrariness , interchangeability , specialisation , displacement and cultural transmission ( 1958 : 574). Hockett refrains from qualifying the seven properties as more or less important but seems to treat them as equally fundamental to the characterisation of language. For comparative purposes, Hockett uses the terms ceneme and plereme borrowed from Hjelmslev’s linguistic theory, 5 when introducing the feature of duality and comparing it to other means of communication, i.e. Morse code and the Ogam script ( 1958 : 574–575). Accordingly, a communicative system possesses duality if it consists of the cenematic plane, comprising differential, signalling units (such as phonemes in language, or dots and dashes in the Morse code), and the plerematic plane, which contains units of expression with meaningful content (such as morphemes in language or Morse code combinations of dots and dashes) (Hockett 1958 : 575).

The discussion of the seven properties of language opens with a comparative chart that illustrates how, in Hockett’s opinion, each of them turns up or fails to turn up in four non-human systems of communication—bee dancing, stickleback courtship, herring gull care of offspring and gibbon calls 6 ( 1958 : 574). In this presentation and later ones (most importantly in “The Origin of Speech” from 1960 ; see below), Hockett attributes duality to none of the non-human systems of communication he describes, although he doesn’t exclude the possibility that some forms of non-human communication may actually possess it (Hockett 1958 : 575). Next, productivity is defined—rather predictably—as the ability, gained by a child during the process of linguistic ontogenesis, to produce novel utterances ( 1958 : 575–576). Hockett explains that productivity of this sort is possible through combining or “blending” simple pleremes into complex ones, and insists that, apart from human communication, it characterises honeybee waggle dance, where a worker bee “can report on an entirely new source of nectar” ( 1958 : 577). Later, he discusses arbitrariness in relation to the iconic character of bee dancing, whose moves stand for the direction and distance to a source of nectar. By way of contrast, a string of phonemes doesn’t bear any resemblance to the meaning associated with this sequence in a language. The property of interchangeability consists in alternating the sender-receiver roles in the way that is typical of conversational interaction. Hockett acknowledges that this feature is present in bee dancing and gibbon calls but denies its existence in other non-human communication systems known to him (Hockett 1958 : 578).

A more involved explanation is offered with regard to specialisation . Hockett first defines communication in general terms as a process whereby one organism takes an action that triggers a behaviour in another organism ( 1958 : 578). To determine the extent to which a communicative system is specialised, its trigger conditions and the direct physical consequences of a message must be compared—if they are closely related, a system is not specialised; if, on the other hand, there is no direct link between them, it is specialised. Language is an example of a highly specialised system of communication, because the sound waves produced by speaking are not rigidly linked to the hearer’s behaviours.

The explanation of displacement rests on the notions of antecedents (verbal messages) and consequences (behaviours caused by messages): “A message is displaced to the extent that the key features in its antecedents and consequences are removed from the time and place of transmission” ( 1958 : 579). Language possesses the property of displacement due to the fact that verbal messages can refer outside the spatial and temporal context of their production, and likewise can induce behaviours outside this context.

The section devoted to cultural transmission opens with the identification of two mechanisms responsible for establishing the conventions of a communicative system within a particular organism: one is that of genetic inheritance, the other of cultural transmission ( 1958 : 579). Cultural transmission is defined by Hockett as involving learning—such as a child learning a language or a rat learning to run a maze—and teaching, characterised by the transmission of a behaviour from one organism to another by physical demonstration ( 1958 : 579). He takes the view that the conventions of language are transmitted culturally, rather than genetically, and that no non-human communicative system that he is familiar with involves cultural transmission ( 1958 : 580).

“The Origin of Speech” and “Logical Considerations”

After A Course in Modern Linguistics , Hockett spent several years investigating the definitional criteria for language and published several papers on it. The first was “Animal ‘Languages’ and Human Language” ( 1959 ), in which he repeated his previous arguments about the seven properties of language. “The Origin of Speech”, a Scientific American contribution (1960a), and “Logical considerations in the study of animal communication” ( 1960b ) 7 saw the extension of the list and a deepening of the comparative mode of reflection, which Hockett described as the “method modeled on that of the zoologist” and whose frame of reference is such that “all languages look alike when viewed through it, but … within it human language as a whole can be compared with the communicative systems of other animals, especially the other hominoids, man’s closest relatives, the gibbons and great apes” (1960a: 5). It is also there that he elaborated on the idea of “design features,” i.e. features shared by all human languages, some of which may appear “trivial” but “become worthy of mention only when it is realized that certain animal systems—and certain human systems other than language—lack them” (1960a: 6). Hockett presented a list of 13 design features, which included the seven properties he identified previously. 8 To these he added vocal-auditory channel , broadcast transmission and directional reception , rapid fading , total feedback , semanticity , and discreteness .

With regard to the vocal-auditory channel feature, Hockett observes that “The signals used in any language consist … of patterns of sounds, produced by motions of the respiratory and upper alimentary tract” ( 1960b : 126). The definition of the channel feature is appended with an observation that the ability to control vocalisations in humans (e.g. to use vowel colour distinctively) stems from the cortical control of speech ( 1960b : 127–128). Addressing evolutionary concerns, he offers a rather simplistic comment that the primary advantage of the vocal-auditory channel consists in leaving “much of the body free for other activities that can be carried out at the same time” 9 (1960a: 6) or leaving “hand and eye for other purposes” ( 1960b : 129)

Broadcast transmission / directional reception and rapid fading are presented as directly stemming from the properties of the channel. The first of these refers to the fact that a linguistic signal can be received by any auditory system within earshot, while its origin can be traced back to a particular location (by means of binaural direction finding) (Hockett 1960 a: 6, 1960b: 131–132). Rapid fading describes the instantaneous disappearance of language utterances, which is unlike more permanent signals and signs, such as animal tracks, but similar to animal warning calls and other vocalisations (Hockett 1960a: 6, 1960b : 133–134). In Hockett’s view, redundancy characteristic of linguistic communication is an effect of the transitory nature of speech ( 1960b : 134).

The total feedback of language, Hockett argues, means that the speaker hears everything she says. This is unlike body signals that rely on the visual channel, where the sender may not be able to see their own signals. For instance, in the stickleback courtship the male cannot see the colours of its own belly and eyes, even though these are crucial for stimulating the female. (1960a: 6, 1960b : 135). The semantic property of language is explained as depending on fixed associations between elements in a message and recurrent features and situations in the world. Hockett opts for a liberal understanding of semanticity, arguing that whenever a communicative behaviour is tied in a fixed way to appropriate elements of the environment, such a behaviour should be classed as semantic; accordingly, gibbon food calls and a rate or direction of bee dance are taken by him to be semantic ( 1960b : 142). Finally, discreteness —referring to the absolute functional distinctiveness of linguistic signalling units—is contrasted with the analog, or scalar, nature of both vocal gestures, e.g. a cry of anger, and the moves of bee dancing (Hockett 1960: 6).

The introduction of the six new properties doesn’t alter Hockett’s conception of language and the way he defines it. In fact, all of them can be deduced from the old set of features. In the previous format comprised of the seven features, Hockett insists that linguistic behaviour prototypically manifests itself in the vocal auditory channel and—as already indicated—broadcast transmission/directional reception, rapid fading and to an important extent total feedback describe selected characteristics of this channel; whereas the features of semanticity and discreteness were previously subsumed under the discussion of duality. Even in “Logical considerations” ( 1960b ), which contains the most extensive exposition of the design features ever offered by Hockett, the comparative notes are grossly underdeveloped—he does not really compare language to, say, the gibbon song call system, bee dancing or stickleback courtship ritual but rather points to local similarities and contrasts between these when presenting the respective design features.

Later Presentations

The format of 13 properties is—in the tertiary literature on language and linguistics—treated as the standard presentation of Hockett’s design features (see e.g. Crystal 1987 : 396–367; Hauser 1996 : 47–48). In later accounts, “The Problem of Universals in Language” (Hockett 1966 ) and “A Note on Design Features” (Hockett and Altmann 1968 ), he concentrates on the properties of language itself. These considerations lead him to posit three additional properties— prevarication , reflexiveness and learnability —giving in total a list of sixteen features. In the 1966 account, Hockett uses the concept of design features as a platform to discuss language universals that pertain to extremely versatile properties of language, ranging from very general ones, such as the existence of a language in every human culture or the primacy of spoken language over its written form, to specific aspects of grammatical description, such as the presence of proper nouns in every language or the universality of distinctions in vowel quality.

Out of the three newly introduced design features, only learnability , which refers to the fact that speakers of a language can learn a new language, is truly innovative—with regard to prevarication and reflexiveness, Hockett demonstrates how they result from the previously discussed properties. Thus, prevarication , understood as the capacity of linguistic messages to be false or meaningless in the logical sense, depends on semanticity, without which a message couldn’t be tested for validity or meaningfulness at all. It also depends on displacement, which seems to be a precondition for a successful lie, and openness, which in turn guarantees the possibility of generating new, i.e. also meaningless, messages. The property of openness is also vital to the definition of reflexivity , whereby language allows its users to communicate about communication—Hockett notes that in an extremely open code, such as language, new meanings are easily attached to either new or old elements, giving this type of system the potential to communicate about anything, including reflexive communication about itself.

Significance

As already indicated, Hockett’s concept of design features has dominated linguists’ thinking about language origins and language in relation to other communicative systems, which is probably best reflected in linguistics textbooks (e.g. McGregor 2009 ; Yule 2010 ). While linguists as well as other scholars have routinely drawn on individual features, there has been surprisingly little targeted, critical discussion of the system as a whole (but see Hauser 1996 ). To a considerable extent, this frame of thought has been inherited by language evolution literature, where it often remains influential as a starting point, inspiration, or conceptual base (see e.g. Aitchison 2007 ; Fitch 2010 ).

But Hockett’s system has had much wider influence. For example, ethologists implemented the design-feature approach to the study of selected non-human communication systems, particularly in the 70s of the last century (e.g. Marler 1970 ; Thorpe 1972 ; Hinde 1975 ). In general semiotic and biosemiotic literatures, Hockett’s classification appears frequently as a foundational attempt to systematically differentiate between human and non-human communication (see e.g. Danesi and Perron 1999 : 109–111; Martinelli 2010 : 221; Nöth 1990 : 155–156).

Evolution of Language—a Recent Perspective

Evolution of language (or: language evolution ) is best described as a research area unified by a common goal: to explain the emergence and subsequent development of the species-specific ability of human beings to acquire and use language. It should be distinguished from both historical linguistics and a narrower notion of the evolution of languages (plural), the latter being a quasi-evolutionary, long term historical change in modern-day linguistic systems (see Hurford 1999 ). Short introductory texts include papers by Christiansen and Kirby ( 2003a ), Fitch ( 2002 ), and Hurford ( 2003 ); more recently, a handbook (Tallerman and Gibson 2011 ), as well as textbooks (Johansson 2005 ), and monographs (Fitch 2010 ) have become available.

Language evolution is a continuation of the inquiries launched by former generations of philosophers and philologists, aimed at explaining the origin of language. Nonetheless, the raison d’être of the field is making itself qualitatively different from all such previous attempts: by its drawing on interdisciplinary empirical research, its fully naturalistic, biologically-oriented framework, its increasing reliance on formalism, and its focus, for the most part, on the cognitive side of language use. As such, it is a relatively recent perspective that has nevertheless gained considerable momentum over the last two decades (possible to measure quantitatively, see e.g. Christiansen and Kirby 2003b ).

Contrary to some commentators (e.g. Gong et al. 2014 ), research on language origins was not nearly absent between the famous 1866 “ban” of the Linguistic Society of Paris and the 1990s. Gordon Hewes (one of the pioneers of modern-style language evolution research and a proponent of an early version of the gesture-first hypothesis) lists ten or so works related to language origins for every intervening decade (Hewes 1996 ). The symbolic caesura is often put at 1990, with the influential paper by Pinker and Bloom ( 1990 ). In 1991, Kendon symptomatically states:

Discussion of the problem of language origins has by now become quite widespread and certainly highly informed. It may still not be fully respectable; and many still regard it as, at best, a kind of intellectual game. If this is what it is, it is nevertheless a much more interesting and challenging game than it once was, and it provides a focus through which a wide range of highly diverse fields of knowledge and theory may be brought into relationship with one another. (Kendon 1991 : 202)

Why, then, was it the 1990s that saw the breakthrough? Before we have mentioned the “cognitive turn” and the “adaptive turn”, which we may call the Chomskyan factor and the Kuhnian factor , but they were complemented by the empirical factor . The qualitative transition from the “intellectual game” of guessing and telling “just-so stories” to a more scientific enterprise was only made possible by major advances in the availability of empirical data bearing on the question of language origins. The main contributing disciplines have been comparative studies on animal communication (e.g. Arnold and Zuberbühler 2006 ; Hauser 1996 ), animal cognition (e.g. Griffin 1992 ), neurosciences (e.g. mirror neurons, Rizzolatti et al. 1996 ), speech physiology (Fitch 2000 ), genetics (e.g. Enard et al. 2002 ), mathematical and computational modelling (e.g. Nowak et al. 2001 ), experimental psychology (e.g. Kirby et al. 2008 ), gesturology (e.g. McNeill 2005 ) and sign language studies (e.g. Emmorey 2002 ), and paleoanthropology (e.g. Wilkins and Wakefield 1995 ) and archaeology (e.g. McBrearty and Brooks 2000 ).

It is worth noting that language evolution research continues to change dynamically. Traditionally, a majority view in the field has been that “language evolved from animal cognition, not from animal communication” (Ulbaek 1998 : 33), through gradualistic Darwinian selection (Pinker and Bloom 1990 ). However, recent research has led to important revisions, extensions, or even challenges to that dominant position (Dor and Jablonka 2014 ). For example, attention to factors such as multilevel selection, niche construction or epigenetic inheritance has played an increasing role in enhancing the Darwinian paradigm in the spirit of the extended synthesis (cf. Pigliucci 2009 ). Also the role of culture and cultural evolution has been of growing importance within language evolution studies (e.g. Kirby et al. 2008 ). Critical to those debates is the foundational question of the nature of language : while influential scholars have argued for a very narrow delineation of this term (Hauser et al. 2002 ), most those in the field see language as a complex (or mosaic —Hurford 2003 ) of cognitive skills, or an even more multifaceted phenomenon, grounded in but transcending individual cognition (e.g. Gärdenfors 2004 ). All of this shows promise for the integration of the language evolution research within larger scale theoretical frameworks (cf. e.g. Barbieri 2010 ).

Criticisms of Hockett

It may seem that the standpoint of Hockett differs from that of language evolution principally in focusing on actual, existing systems as opposed to explaining continuity and descent; in reality, the conflict is much more fundamental. As we explain below, it results from profound differences in the assumed perspectives on what language is and what aspects of it are theoretically interesting. Here, we single out the criticisms against Hockett’s system that we consider particularly telling as to why it gets stuck on surface similarities and effectively fails to capture all the relevant ways in which language truly differs qualitatively from other kinds of animal communication. These shortcomings, as viewed from the perspective of language evolution, hinge upon two (closely related, but distinct) major issues: firstly, Hockett’s classificatory system focuses on the means , especially the physical properties of the medium of transmission, at the expense of content, and secondly, it focuses on the code itself , rather than the cognitive abilities of its users that make language use possible in the first place. Let us consider these reservations in turn.

Focus on the Means at the Expense of the Content

It has been observed (e.g. Lyons 1998 : 146) that Hockett’s system shows a clear, and explicitly stated, bias towards oral over gestural and other types of linguistic communication. This is reflected by the first five features from “The Origin of Speech” (1960a): Vocal-Auditory Channel, Broadcast Transmission and Directional Reception, Rapid Fading, Interchangeability, Total Feedback. Except Interchangeability, all of them directly or at least very closely concern the properties of the vocal/auditory modality. This, in turn, stems from a deeper problem, namely the focus placed on the form/structure rather than the content/function.

Favouring speech over its alternative(s) is unsubstantiated in three related ways. Firstly, as is now well known, sign languages are fully equivalent to spoken ones in practically every relevant respect, including morphosyntax, dialectisation, historical change, rough cerebral localisation, and acquisition by children (see Petitto 1994 ; Emmorey 2002 ). Secondly, language is largely modality independent, in that even if speech or sign are granted a certain special, primary status, the actual communication acts can be carried out exploiting other channels (cf. writing, the Tadoma method, or to some extent whistled languages). Thirdly, under normal circumstances, natural conversation is never unimodal, but rather multimodal (Kendon 2004 ), with co-speech gesture, and even full body movement and facial expression being parts of the complex message and complementing it with nonredundant and communicatively important semantic information (Goldin-Meadow 2011 ). This, of course, can be further extended by abandoning the code model of language altogether in favour of its alternatives, e.g. the distributed approach (e.g. Rączaszek-Leonardi 2009 , 2012 ), on which language does not constitutively depend on any specific modality or means of transfer, but rather results from a network of social practices as a means of their coordination.

Favouring speech over its alternative(s), far from remaining neutral, has ramifications for other aspects of how we define language. In the evolutionary context, it gives rise to two misconceptions. Firstly, it introduces an unfounded bias against looking for the origins of language in gestural communication. The gestural approach to language evolution inaugurated by Gordon Hewes ( 1973 ), while not without its critics (e.g. Tallerman 2011 ), has been increasingly influential and has become an extensive and vigorously explored research area in its own right; currently different versions of gesture-first theories (e.g. Corballis 2002 ; Arbib 2005 ; Armstrong and Wilcox 2007 ; see also Donald 1991 ; Zlatev 2008 ) are serious contenders in the field. Secondly, the oral/vocal bias promotes an equally unfounded assumption of continuity between language and extant vocal communication of non-human primates. Human language is qualitatively different from primate vocal communication and it is not clear whether it evolved “from” it in any interesting sense beyond the obvious anatomical substrates (“ Focus on the Code Itself, Rather than Cognitive Abilities of Its Users ” Section). Note that this is logically independent of the question of gestural primacy. Even if we assume uniform evolution of language in the vocal modality, language requires development of novel cognitive and neural mechanisms that are largely separate from those underlying e.g. alarm calls (see “ Example: arbitrariness and semanticity ” Section). 10

Thus, focus on the physical characteristics of the medium of signalling is misplaced. Hockett’s features mentioned above may be useful descriptively in capturing interesting facts about speech (e.g. how rapidity of fading relates to duality of patterning, Galantucci et al. 2010 ), but they tell us next to nothing about the qualitative difference between language and other communicative systems.

Focus on the Code Itself, Rather than Cognitive Abilities of Its Users

Undoubtedly, most or all of the features in the second part of Hockett’s list as stated in (Hockett and Altmann 1968 : 63–64), and particularly arbitrariness , displacement , and prevarication , are highly relevant to the perspective of language evolution. But when understood as the properties of the code, they have very limited explanatory value. Neither the analysis of the structural properties of individual utterances, nor of the structural properties of the entire abstract system is capable of explaining to any interesting degree how it is possible for agents to establish unmotivated conventions, to denote entities that are spatiotemporally absent from the immediate surroundings, and to intentionally convey false information. The existence of such properties in the code is possible only epiphenomenally, as a function of the cognitive-representational abilities of the users of the code. The required shift could start from a ‘move inwards’, that is refocusing from animal communication to animal cognition; this reflects a transition from a phenetic classificatory approach, which traces surface similarities, towards a more cladistics one, which is oriented to deeper-level mechanisms.

In the context of evolutionary study, this change has a vital corollary, namely a profound redefinition of evolutionary continuities and discontinuities in the emergence and development of language. According to a once popular belief, language might have arisen from animal calls becoming gradually more structurally complex (e.g. Hockett 1958 : 582). Now we know this conjecture to be false. Human language and the communication of (nonhuman) animals operate according to different principles and the gap between them cannot be bridged by reference to any modifications of the communicative medium alone, whether selectionist or chance (see e.g. Deacon 1997 ). No increase in structural complexity can in and of itself suffice to explain this transition without considering the underlying “machinery”: broader-scale cognitive abilities such as cooperation with non-relatives, shared intentionality, metarepresentation and Theory of Mind, mimesis and intentional imitation, enhanced memory and executive function, symbolic representation, open-endedness, and recursion (cf. Deacon 1997 , 2011 ; Donald 1991 , 1999 ; Hurford 2003 ; Tomasello 2008 ).

From the phylogenetic perspective of language evolution, directing attention towards the communicative code itself (and neglecting the mechanisms underlying its production and reception) creates puzzling continuities, such as between humans and bees (see footnote 13), monkeys or gibbons (cf. Hockett 1960a: 10–11). Below, we exemplify how many of those problems disappear and the expected (human—great ape) continuities reappear when we turn our attention away from communication towards general cognition; and even within communication—away from the modality towards the content.

A note is in order. In line with the majority view in language evolution, our text explicitly prioritises the “individualistic-internalistic” perspective. As we stated in section “ Evolution of language – a recent perspective ”, this should not be treated as exclusionary to other perspectives, but rather as a first step or starting point, open to enhancing with socially and ecologically oriented views, and in particular those treating language as a collective (cultural) invention. An interesting example can be found in Hurford ( 2008 ), who in his summary of the differences between language and animal communication alongside cognitive traits such as “mindreading” lists systemic traits such as “diversity” or “self-organisation”.

Example: Arbitrariness and Semanticity

Arguably the most widely discussed phenomenon in animal communication, vervet monkey alarm calls have captured the attention (and, it seems, imagination) of numerous authors after Hockett. As is well known, the calls of vervet monkeys demonstrate a kind of referential specificity, termed functional reference (e.g. Hauser 1998 )—in that each of them “denotes” a separate class of predators (where “denotes” means it is reliably produced as a response to the right stimulus on the one hand, and reliably triggers the appropriate escape strategy). Since the calls can be interpreted as being “about” certain creatures, and since their acoustic structure does not resemble the “referent” in any way, they can be ascribed semanticity and arbitrariness . This paves the way for an inflationary interpretation of vervet monkey alarm calls, with many researchers inclined to see them as a kind of proto-symbols, proto-names, possibly not unlike first words (e.g. Diamond 1992 ; Leakey 1994 ; Dunbar 1996 ; Maynard Smith and Szathmáry 1999 ; Aitchison 2000 ; Kurcz 2000 ; Calvin and Bickerton 2001 ).

This inflationary approach is clearly mistaken. Alarm calls do exhibit other interesting properties, e.g. audience effects or potential for (semantically noncompositional) productivity (see e.g. Slocombe 2011 ), which prevent their dismissal as rigid, mechanistic stimulus–response patterns. However, alarm calls exist in small innate inventories that cannot be expanded, the calls themselves are nonarbitrary and have a largely fixed innate structure, they are semantically noncompositional, they are only partly voluntary, and they are controlled by the limbic areas of the brain rather than the neocortical areas (Deacon 1997 : 54–59, 234–235). Vervet monkey alarm calls are fairly rigidly coupled with corresponding escape strategies, their apparent semanticity arising more from ecological constraints than some deeper cognitive insight (i.e. diversified alarm calls tend to be absent in species that employ a uniform escape strategy against all predators; see Manser et al. 2002 ). In short, monkey alarm calls and words are only superficially alike, while being unlike each other in most relevant respects. Finally, alarm calls are present in a number of nonprimate or even non-mammalian species (e.g. chickens, Evans et al. 1993 ).

The clearest case of arbitrariness and semanticity manifested by a non-human comes, not surprisingly, from the apes and from visual rather than vocal communication—the behaviour in question is the use of lexigrams by enculturated apes such as Kanzi (Savage-Rumbaugh and Lewin 1994 ). But an interesting phenomenon is reported in wild apes by Savage-Rumbaugh: bonobo troops during migration seem to purposefully leave branches at path crossings, possibly to indicate travel directions to other troop members. Zlatev (personal communication) points to the fact that, if supported by better documentation, this phenomenon would count as significational (representational via signs) and intentional (both as “being about” and “voluntary”).

Apes can easily complete tasks requiring processing of arbitrary tokens, even ones involving a certain level of abstraction, e.g. correctly identifying relations between relations, such as “same” or “different” (Thompson et al. 1997 ). Although similar results have been reported with monkeys (Fagot and Thompson 2011 ), they were achieved after thousands of acquisition trials, suggesting a different underlying cognitive mechanism.

Example: Cultural Transmission

In Hockett ( 1958 : 580, 1960a: 6), the calls of gibbons were credited with some potential for cultural transmission, a feature that was later changed to tradition as qualifying requirements for cultural transmission were revised (Hockett 1960 : 6). Vocal learning in general is an important feature of human language, and research on other vocal learners, such as songbirds (Fehér et al. 2009 ), sea mammals (Janik et al. 2006 ), or even the limited degree of vocal learning that is exhibited by the great apes (e.g. Taglialatela et al. 2012 ) is of course immensely relevant to language evolution. For example, comparative research offers vistas into such areas as windows/critical periods in the acquisition of vocalisations (Marler and Peters 1987 ), relaxation of selection pressures (Takahasi and Okanoya 2010 ), homologies in the anatomical and neural control of vocalisations (Ghazanfar and Hauser 1999 ), and even “deep homology” in their genetic underpinnings (Fitch 2010 : 55–57). The problem with cultural/traditional transmission so conceived is that, again, it has to do purely with the properties of the medium, i.e. the vocal patterns. This is only superficially, if at all, related to what truly counts about human cultural transmission. The qualitative difference setting off human from animal communication systems is the social transmission (vertical as well as horizontal , i.e. within and between groups and generations) of intersubjective conceptual contents , i.e. of semantic information. This mechanism enables the so-called “ratchet effect” (Tomasello 1999 )—the preservation and incremental build-up of knowledge across generations, giving rise to technological progress among other things characteristic of human-style cultures.

Interestingly, Hockett does mention proto-cultural phenomena in chimpanzees, but in a rather dismissive spirit (cf. the single sentence in Hockett ( 1960 b: 157) “[s]ome short-lived traditions have been observed among chimpanzees in captivity ( fide Spuhler)”). But once again, when we shift the perspective away from communication, we find clear patterns of group-specific, culturally transmitted behaviours in chimpanzees: “chimpanzee cultures” have been widely recognised as real at least since the influential paper by Whiten et al. ( 1999 ). Here, as in other cases, cognition is crucial. The behaviours themselves are interesting but superficial manifestations of the underlying capacity for culture, and it is this underlying “social-cognitive, social-motivational infrastructure” (Tomasello 2008 ) that should be the real focus of attention.

Example: Displacement

The celebrated example of the bees showcases another weakness to which Hockett’s system proves to be vulnerable. Many (e.g. Kurcz 2000 : 30) have noted that the unusually high rating of bee dance among animal communication systems is not substantiated on any independent grounds, especially given the phylogenetic distance of our clades. Hockett himself did not overlook this issue, commenting on the dance being limited only to one thematic variable (location of nectar), which considerably weakens the comparison to human language ( 1958 : 571; see also “ The original proposal ” Section). But such a statement is an ad hoc explanation, betraying a conceptual hole in the network of distinctions. 11

Displacement had an important place on Hockett's list, and is still considered a pivotal skill by leading language evolution researchers (e.g. Deacon 2011 ; Hurford 2011 ; Tallerman 2011 ). However, the interest of language evolution lies in displacement as a cognitive capacity rather than an externalised feature of the communicative code. So far there is no evidence of displacement in the communication of non-human great apes. However, this case presents a particularly severe “absence of evidence versus evidence of absence” problem because of methodological difficulties: the spatial and/or temporal distance constitutive of displacement prevents drawing inferences about displaced messages. Once again, what evidence we do find of displacement is not in the sphere of communication, but rather of cognition. Clearest examples come from research on food caching species, e.g. corvids, where in addition to impressive spatial memory for locations of stored food there is some evidence for episodic-like memory and advanced strategies for recovery and cache protection (e.g. Emery and Clayton 2001 ). More generalised foresight and future planning may be specific to the great ape species. For example, Gomes and Boesch ( 2009 ) report a long-term (but not short-term) tendency of females in a wild chimpanzee population to preferentially mate with males who have shared meat with them. More robustly, Osvath and Osvath ( 2008 ) experimentally demonstrated forethought and future planning in captive chimpanzees and an orangutan, who were shown to forfeit a smaller food reward in favour of a tool that they could use—later and in a different location—to retrieve a larger food reward. Another example involves deliberately caching projectiles for further use by a captive chimpanzee (Osvath 2009 ).

Conclusions

Hockett’s system of design features, although still potentially valuable for other purposes, is radically unfit for capturing the difference between the communication of human and non-human animals from an evolutionary perspective, and thus it cannot be fruitfully integrated into the larger framework of studies within this perspective. The reasons for this fundamental incompatibility lie chiefly in the misplaced interest in the structure and medium of the communicative signal, while it should be placed on its content, the minds of its users, and the social and ecological context of use.

In contrast, language evolution needs a primarily “internalistic” perspective, directly informed by modern evolutionary theory and social and ecological perspectives. An idealised “complete” evolutionary explanation for language would require an “LCA baseline” (socio-cognitive and anatomical skills of the last common ancestor of Homo and Pan ), a chronology of stepping stones (further development of those skills), and a plausible but falsifiable scenario of selection pressures that would have led to the achievement of those stepping stones. Crucial to the explanation are the social, cognitive and anatomical preadaptations (stepping stones) that are not directly visible in communication but are the necessary prerequisites. As mentioned above, the main areas whose investigation shows most promise for a better understanding of the sources and character of this uniqueness of language are: cooperation with non-relatives, shared intentionality, metarepresentation and Theory of Mind, mimesis and intentional imitation, enhanced memory and executive function, symbolic representation, open-endedness, and recursion—all of which are better understood as cognitive skills rather than features of language in the E-sense.

This paper should not be treated as a comprehensive evaluation of Hockett’s design features. For example, we do not question the descriptive value of his system, nor do we deny the productive applicability of individual features, such as “rapid fading”, to specific problems in language evolution studies (Galantucci et al. 2010 ); at a minimum, Hockett’s lists provide a useful historical yardstick. However, it is clear that overall, fruitful research into language evolution requires a distinctly non-Hockettian take.

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by grant UMO-2012/07/E/HS2/00671 from the Polish National Science Centre.

The authors want to thank Martin Edwardes for his editing advice.

1 While “human language” may be viewed as pleonastic, we do not stipulatively tie the term language to humans, i.e. we believe the exclusion of non-humans is contingent and not definitional.

2 In many places, Hockett is straightforward about his theoretical affiliation; e.g. “… in this book, we shall deal with language in the frame of reference and the terminology of linguistics, rather than in those of anthropology, philosophy, psychology, foreign language teaching, or the like” (1958: 3).

3 For an interdisciplinary discussion of various definitions of communication, including Hockett’s, see Hauser 1996 : 6–70.

4 We should note a logical error of comparing communicative systems , mapping signals/signs onto meanings (however defined), with codes , mapping symbols onto other symbols.

5 Explained in Prolegomena to a Theory of Language (Hjelmslev 1943 ).

6 The fifth communicative system included in the table is language, which by definition is endowed with all the properties.

7 Henceforth referred to as “Logical considerations” (1960b).

8 For the reasons he fails to explain from 1960’s “Origin of Speech,” Hockett uses the term “traditional transmission” instead of “cultural transmission.”

9 For an extensive discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of the vocal-auditory channel in comparison to the visual channel, see e.g. Fitch 2010 .

10 Interestingly, the fact that the first attempts to teach chimpanzees human language focussed on speech (Gill 1997 ) also evidences a popular intuitive bias towards the vocal-auditory channel of communication.

11 This can be compared to a nontrivial similarity between bees and humans, that is underlying cooperation , which leads to a stable system of cheap but honest signalling (“conspiratorial whispers”, Krebs and Dawkins 1984 ) in the communication systems of both. Once more, accounting for it is impossible from a purely communicative perspective, but requires a broader socio-cognitive perspective informed by evolutionary theory and specifically, inclusive fitness.

• Aitchison J. The seeds of speech. Language origin and evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2000. [ Google Scholar ]
• Aitchison J. The articulate mammal. 5. New York: Routledge; 2007. [ Google Scholar ]
• Arbib MA. From monkey‐like action recognition to human language: an evolutionary framework for neurolinguistics. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 2005; 28 :105–167. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Armstrong DF, Wilcox SE. The gestural origin of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2007. [ Google Scholar ]
• Arnold K, Zuberbühler K. Semantic combinations in primate calls. Nature. 2006; 441 :303. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Barbieri M. On the origin of language. Biosemiotics. 2010; 3 :201–223. [ Google Scholar ]
• Bechtel W, Abrahamsen A, Graham G. The life of cognitive science. In: Bechtel W, Graham G, editors. A companion to cognitive science. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers; 1998. pp. 1–104. [ Google Scholar ]
• Calvin W, Bickerton D. Lingua ex machina. Reconciling Darwin and Chomsky with the human brain. Cambridge: The MIT Press; 2001. [ Google Scholar ]
• Carpenter CR. A field study in Siam of the behavior and social relations of the gibbon (Hylobates lar) Comparative Psychology Monographs. 1940; 16 (5):1–212. [ Google Scholar ]
• Christiansen MH, Kirby S. Language evolution: consensus and controversies. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2003; 7 (7):300–307. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Christiansen MH, Kirby S. Language evolution: the hardest problem in science? In: Christiansen MH, Kirby S, editors. Language evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2003. pp. 1–15. [ Google Scholar ]
• Corballis MC. From hand to mouth: the origins of language. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 2002. [ Google Scholar ]
• Crystal D. The Cambridge encyclopedia of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1987. [ Google Scholar ]
• Danesi M, Perron P. Analyzing cultures‬: an introduction and handbook. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; 1999. [ Google Scholar ]
• Deacon TW. The symbolic species. The co-evolution of language and the human brain. London: Penguin Press; 1997. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Deacon TW. The symbol concept. In: Gibson KR, Tallerman M, editors. The Oxford handbook of language evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2011. pp. 393–405. [ Google Scholar ]
• Diamond J. The third chimpanzee. New York: Harper Collins; 1992. [ Google Scholar ]
• Donald M. Origins of the modern mind: three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; 1991. [ Google Scholar ]
• Donald M. Preconditions for the evolution of protolanguages. In: Corballis MC, Lea SE, editors. The descent of mind: psychological perspectives on hominid evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1999. pp. 138–154. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dor D, Jablonka E. Why we need to move from gene-culture co-evolution to culturally driven co-evolution. In: Dor D, Knight C, Lewis J, editors. The social origins of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2014. pp. 15–30. [ Google Scholar ]
• Dunbar R. Grooming, gossip and the evolution of language. London: Faber & Faber; 1996. [ Google Scholar ]
• Emery NJ, Clayton NS. Effects of experience and social context on prospective caching strategies by scrub jays. Nature. 2001; 414 (6862):443–446. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Emmorey K. Language, cognition, and brain: Insights from sign language research. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum; 2002. [ Google Scholar ]
• Enard W, Przeworski M, Fisher SE, Lai CS, Wiebe V, Kitano T, Monaco AP, Pääbo S. Molecular evolution of FOXP2, a gene involved in speech and language. Nature. 2002; 418 (6900):869–872. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Evans CS, Evans L, Marler P. On the meaning of alarm calls: functional reference in an avian vocal system. Animal Behaviour. 1993; 46 (1):23–38. [ Google Scholar ]
• Fagot J, Thompson RK. Generalized relational matching by guinea baboons (Papio papio) in two-by-two-item analogy problems. Psychological Science. 2011; 22 (10):1304–1309. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Favareau D. The biosemiotic turn. Biosemiotics. 2008; 1 :5–23. [ Google Scholar ]
• Fehér O, Wang H, Saar S, Mitra PP, Tchernichovski O. De novo establishment of wild-type song culture in the zebra finch. Nature. 2009; 459 (7246):564–568. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fitch WT. The evolution of speech: a comparative review. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2000; 4 (7):258–267. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fitch W. The evolution of language comes of age. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2002; 6 (7):278–279. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Fitch WT. The evolution of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2010. [ Google Scholar ]
• Frisch K. Bees, their vision, chemical senses, and language. Ithaca: Cornell University Press; 1950. [ Google Scholar ]
• Galantucci B, Kroos C, Rhodes T. The effects of rapidity of fading on communication systems. Interaction Studies. 2010; 11 (1):100–111. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gärdenfors P. Cooperation and the evolution of symbolic communication. In: Oller K, Griebel U, editors. The evolution of communication systems. Cambridge: MIT Press; 2004. pp. 237–256. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ghazanfar AA, Hauser MD. The neuroethology of primate vocal communication: substrates for the evolution of speech. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 1999; 3 (10):377–384. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gill JH. If a chimpanzee could talk. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press; 1997. [ Google Scholar ]
• Goldin-Meadow S. What modern-day gesture can tell us about language evolution. In: Tallerman M, Gibson KR, editors. The Oxford handbook of language evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2011. pp. 545–557. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gomes CM, Boesch C. Wild chimpanzees exchange meat for sex on a long-term basis. PLoS One. 2009; 4 (4):e5116. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Gong T, Shuai V, Comrie B. Evolutionary linguistics: theory of language in an interdisciplinary space. Language Sciences. 2014; 41 :243–253. [ Google Scholar ]
• Gontier, N. & Pina, M. (2014). Studying social communication in primates: from ethology and comparative zoology to social primatology, evolutionary psychology, and evolutionary linguistics. In M. Pina & N. Gontier (Ed.), The evolution of social communication in primates (pp. 1–28). Springer International Publishing.
• Griffin D. Animal minds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1992. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hailman JP. Optical signals: animal communication and light. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; 1977. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hauser MD. The evolution of communication. Cambridge: The MIT Press; 1996. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hauser MD. Functional referents and acoustic similarity: field playback experiments with rhesus monkeys. Animal Behaviour. 1998; 55 (6):1647–1658. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hauser MD, Chomsky N, Fitch T. The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science. 2002; 298 :1569–1579. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hewes GW. Primate communication and the gestural origins of language. Current Anthropology. 1973; 14 :5–24. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hewes GW. A history of the study of language origins and the gestural primacy hypothesis. In: Lock A, Peters C, editors. Handbook of human symbolic evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1996. pp. 571–595. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hinde R. The comparative study of non-verbal communication. In: Benthall J, Polhemus T, editors. The body as a medium of expression. London: Allen & Unwin; 1975. pp. 107–142. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hjelmslev L. Prolegomena to a theory of language. Baltimore: Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics; 1943. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hockett CF. A course in modern linguistics. New York: Macmillan; 1958. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hockett CF. Animal ‘languages’ and human language. Human Biology. 1959; 31 :32–39. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hockett CF. The origin of speech. Scientific American. 1960; 203 :88–111. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Hockett CF. The problem of universals in language. In: Greenberg J, editor. Universals of language. Cambridge: The MIT Press; 1966. pp. 1–29. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hockett CF, Altmann SA. A note on design features. In: Sebeok T, editor. Animal communication: techniques of study and results of research. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; 1968. pp. 61–72. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hockett, C. F. [1960b] (1977). Logical considerations in the study of animal communication. In In the view from language: selected essays 1948–1974. Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press. 124–162. Reprinted from: Animal <languages> and human language. In W. E. Lanyon & W. N. Tavolga (Ed.), Animal sounds and communication (pp. 392–430). Washington: American Institute of Biological Sciences.
• Hurford JR. The evolution of language and languages. In: Dunbar RIM, Knight C, Power C, editors. The evolution of culture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; 1999. pp. 173–193. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hurford JR. The language mosaic and its evolution. In: Christiansen M, Simon K, editors. Language evolution. New York: Oxford University Press; 2003. pp. 38–57. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hurford J. The evolution of human communication and language. In: D’Ettorre P, Hughes D, editors. Sociobiology of communication: an interdisciplinary perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2008. pp. 249–264. [ Google Scholar ]
• Hurford JR. The origins of meaning. In: Gibson KR, Tallerman M, editors. The Oxford handbook of language evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2011. pp. 370–381. [ Google Scholar ]
• Janik VM, Sayigh LS, Wells RS. Signature whistle shape conveys identity information to bottlenose dolphins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2006; 103 (21):8293–8297. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Johansson S. Origins of language: constraints on hypotheses. Amsterdam: John Benjamins; 2005. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kendon A. Some considerations for a theory of language origins. Man. 1991; 26 :199–221. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kendon A. Gesture: visible action as utterance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2004. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kirby S, Cornish H, Smith K. Cumulative cultural evolution in the laboratory: an experimental approach to the origins of structure in human language. PNAS. 2008; 105 (31):10681–10686. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Krebs JR, Dawkins R. Animal signals: mind-reading and manipulation. In: Krebs JR, Dawkins R, editors. Behavioural ecology: an evolutionary approach. 2. Oxford: Blackwell; 1984. pp. 380–402. [ Google Scholar ]
• Kurcz I. Psychologia języka i komunikacji. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Scholar; 2000. [ Google Scholar ]
• Leakey R. The origin of humankind. New York: Perseus Books; 1994. [ Google Scholar ]
• Lyons, J. (1998) [1991]. Chomsky. Trans. B. Stanosz. Warszawa: Prószyński. [ Chomsky . London: HarperCollins].
• Manser MB, Seyfarth R, Cheney D. Suricate alarm calls signal predator class and urgency. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2002; 6 (2):55–57. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Marler P. Birdsong and speech development: could there be parallels. American Scientist. 1970; 58 (6):669–673. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Marler P, Peters S. A sensitive period for song acquisition in the song sparrow, melospiza melodia: a case of age-limited learning. Ethology. 1987; 76 (2):89–100. [ Google Scholar ]
• Martinelli D. A critical companion to zoosemiotics. Dordrecht: Springer; 2010. [ Google Scholar ]
• Maynard Smith J, Szathmáry E. The origins of life. From the birth of life to the origin of language. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 1999. [ Google Scholar ]
• McBrearty S, Brooks A. The revolution that wasn’t: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behaviour. Journal of Human Evolution. 2000; 39 (5):453–563. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• McGregor W. Linguistics—an introduction. London: Continuum IPG; 2009. [ Google Scholar ]
• McNeill D. Gesture and thought. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 2005. [ Google Scholar ]
• Nöth W. Handbook of semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; 1990. [ Google Scholar ]
• Nowak MA, Komarova NL, Niyogi P. Evolution of universal grammar. Science. 2001; 291 (5501):114–118. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Osvath M. Spontaneous planning for future stone throwing by a male chimpanzee. Current Biology. 2009; 19 (5):R190–R191. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Osvath M, Osvath H. Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and orangutan (Pongo abelii) forethought: self-control and pre-experience in the face of future tool use. Animal Cognition. 2008; 11 (4):661–674. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Petitto LA. Are signed languages real languages? Evidence from American sign language and langue des signes Québécoise. Signpost. 1994; 7 (3):173–182. [ Google Scholar ]
• Pigliucci M. An extended synthesis for evolutionary biology. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 2009; 1168 (1):218–228. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Pinker S, Bloom P. Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 1990; 13 (4):707–784. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rączaszek-Leonardi J. Symbols as constraints: the structuring role of dynamics and self-organization in natural language. Pragmatics and Cognition. 2009; 17 (3):653–676. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rączaszek-Leonardi J. Language as a system of replicable constraints. In: Pattee HH, Rączaszek-Leonardi J, editors. Laws, language and life: Howard Pattee’s classic papers on the physics of symbols (Biosemiotics 7) Berlin: Springer; 2012. pp. 295–327. [ Google Scholar ]
• Rizzolatti G, Fadiga L, Gallese V, Fogassi L. Premotor cortex and the recognition of motor actions. Cognitive Brain Research. 1996; 3 (2):131–141. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Savage-Rumbaugh S, Lewin R. Kanzi: an ape at the brink of human mind. New York: Wiley; 1994. [ Google Scholar ]
• Shannon C. A mathematical theory of communication. The Bell System Technical Journal. 1948; 27 (3):379–423. [ Google Scholar ]
• Slocombe K. Have we underestimated great ape vocal capacities? In: Gibson KR, Tallerman M, editors. The Oxford handbook of language evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2011. pp. 90–95. [ Google Scholar ]
• Taglialatela JP, Reamer L, Schapiro SJ, Hopkins WD. Social learning of a communicative signal in captive chimpanzees. Biology Letters. 2012; 8 (4):498–501. [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Takahasi M, Okanoya K. Song learning in wild and domesticated strains of white‐rumped munia, lonchura striata, compared by cross‐fostering procedures: domestication increases song variability by decreasing strain‐specific bias. Ethology. 2010; 116 (5):396–405. [ Google Scholar ]
• Tallerman M. Protolanguage. In: Gibson KR, Tallerman M, editors. The Oxford handbook of language evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2011. pp. 479–491. [ Google Scholar ]
• Tallerman M, Gibson KR, editors. The Oxford handbook of language evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2011. [ Google Scholar ]
• Thompson RK, Boysen ST, Oden DL. Language-naive chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ) judge relations between relations in a conceptual matching-to-sample task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes. 1997; 23 (1):31–43. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Thorpe, W. (1972). Duetting and antiphonal song in birds: Its extent and significance. Behaviour (Suppl. 18), 1–197.
• Tinbergen N. Social behavior in animals. London: Metheun; 1953. [ Google Scholar ]
• Tomasello M. The human adaptation for culture. Annual Review of Anthropology. 1999; 28 :509–529. [ Google Scholar ]
• Tomasello M. Origins of human communication. Cambridge: The MIT Press; 2008. [ Google Scholar ]
• Ulbaek I. The origin of language and cognition. In: Hurford J, Studdert-Kennedy M, Knight C, editors. Approaches to the evolution of language. Social and cognitive bases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1998. pp. 30–43. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wacewicz S. The narrow faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how is it defined? Theoria et Historia Scientiarum. 2012; 10 :217–229. [ Google Scholar ]
• Whiten A, Goodall J, McGrew WC, Nishida T, Reynolds V, Sugiyama Y, Tutin CEG, Wrangham RW, Boesch C. Cultures in chimpanzees. Nature. 1999; 399 (6737):682–685. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]
• Wilkins WK, Wakefield J. Brain evolution and neurolinguistic preconditions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 1995; 18 (1):161–226. [ Google Scholar ]
• Wilson EO. Sociobiology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press; 1975. [ Google Scholar ]
• Yule G. The study of language. 4. New York: Cambridge University Press; 2010. [ Google Scholar ]
• Zlatev J. From proto-mimesis to language: evidence from primatology and social science. Journal of Physiology. 2008; 102 :137–152. [ PubMed ] [ Google Scholar ]

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

• View all journals
• Explore content
• About the journal
• Publish with us
• Sign up for alerts
• Published: 22 March 2024

Use of large language models might affect our cognitive skills

• Richard Heersmink   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0102-0308 1  

Nature Human Behaviour ( 2024 ) Cite this article

632 Accesses

14 Altmetric

Metrics details

Large language models can generate sophisticated text or code with little input from a user, which has the potential to impoverish our own writing and thinking skills. We need to understand the effect of this technology on our cognition and to decide whether this is what we want.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals

Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription

24,99 € / 30 days

cancel any time

Subscribe to this journal

Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles

111,21 € per year

only 9,27 € per issue

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Heersmink, R. Rev. Phil. Psychol. 4 , 465–481 (2013).

Article   Google Scholar  

Carr, N. The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to our Brains (W. W. Norton & Co., 2010).

Mao, Y., White, T., Sadler, P. & Sonnert, G. Educ. Stud. Math. 94 , 69–83 (2017).

Hejtmánek, L., Oravcová, I., Motýl, J., Horáček, J. & Fajnerová, I. Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud. 116 , 15–24 (2018).

Sparrow, B., Liu, J. & Wegner, D. M. Science 333 , 776–778 (2011).

Article   CAS   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Menary, R. Lang. Sci. 29 , 621–632 (2007).

Clark, A. Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension (Oxford Univ. Press, 2008).

Heersmink, R. Phenomenol. Cogn. Sci. 14 , 577–598 (2015).

Sutton, J. in The Extended Mind (ed. Menary, R.) 189–225 (MIT Press, 2010).

Heersmink, R. Minds Mach. 26 , 389–407 (2016).

Download references

Acknowledgements

I thank M. Colombo and J. Clavel Vazquez for helpful comments on an earlier draft and B. de Rooij for interesting discussions on LLMs.

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Philosophy, School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

Richard Heersmink

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Richard Heersmink .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

The author declares no competing interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article.

Heersmink, R. Use of large language models might affect our cognitive skills. Nat Hum Behav (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01859-y

Download citation

Published : 22 March 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01859-y

Share this article

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

Quick links

• Explore articles by subject
• Guide to authors
• Editorial policies

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Help | Advanced Search

Computer Science > Computation and Language

Title: skeleton-of-thought: prompting llms for efficient parallel generation.

Abstract: This work aims at decreasing the end-to-end generation latency of large language models (LLMs). One of the major causes of the high generation latency is the sequential decoding approach adopted by almost all state-of-the-art LLMs. In this work, motivated by the thinking and writing process of humans, we propose Skeleton-of-Thought (SoT), which first guides LLMs to generate the skeleton of the answer, and then conducts parallel API calls or batched decoding to complete the contents of each skeleton point in parallel. Not only does SoT provide considerable speed-ups across 12 LLMs, but it can also potentially improve the answer quality on several question categories. SoT is an initial attempt at data-centric optimization for inference efficiency, and showcases the potential of eliciting high-quality answers by explicitly planning the answer structure in language.

Submission history

Access paper:.

• HTML (experimental)
• Other Formats

References & Citations

• Google Scholar
• Semantic Scholar

BibTeX formatted citation

Bibliographic and Citation Tools

Code, data and media associated with this article, recommenders and search tools.

• Institution

arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators

arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website.

Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them.

Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs .