The Human Language

Do you know what makes the human language different from all the other systems of communication? If not, by the end of this post you'll know it!

As you know, we are not the only species that has a system of communication: dogs, dolphins, bees, chimpanzees and many more animals are able to do that. But not in the way we do. Even if when we give commands to our dog he reacts as if he understood what we want from him, he doesn't understand us. He just associates a sound to an action by means of conditioning: behaviours like this one were studied by Behaviourism, whose main exponents are Skinner and Pavlov.

When scientists tried to teach our language to chimpanzees (the closest species to us), the outcomes confirmed that they were "using" human language, but not producing or understanding it (see Yule G., 2020, pp.18-22).

Thus, there is something in our language and in the way we use it that makes it unique.

The following features are the most shared ones among linguists.

Speech sounds

Our language is made up of sounds, but not of ANY sound: we can produce lots of different sounds, but not all of them constitute linguistic sounds.

Speech sounds are those that fit in the range of sounds of each language (the phones) and we only differentiate between those that belong to different categories. Moreover, in order to be considered speech sounds, they have to go one after the other in a linear order. To convey the meaning of round fruit with firm, white flesh and green, red, or yellow skin, the sounds of "apple" /ˈæp.əl/ have to go in a specific order, otherwise, any other combination wouldn't convey the same meaning.

Furthermore, the ability to produce linguistic sounds is typical of the human being: we are the only species that has a vocal tract and phoning organs suitable for this function, thanks to a physiological adaptation that develops in the first years of life: the larynx lowers, leaving room for the formation of the pharynx, which functions as a resonating chamber.

Arbitrariness

The relation between the referent (or denotation) and the linguistic sign is absolutely arbitrary.

The fact that a certain sound sequence like c-u-p refers to a "handle container, usually used to drink liquids" is a convention that has been stipulated by a group of people, in this case the English-speaking community.

Proof that this is an arbitrary convention and not something related to the nature of the referent is that in other languages the sequence of sounds to indicate that element does not coincide: taza for Spanish and tazza for Italian.

Discrete

«Discrete» in statistics refers to those variables whose values can be represented through points on a scale of values.

For example, the number of children a family can have is a discrete variable: it may be 2, 3 or 4 children per family, but it cannot be 3.5 children per family.

Discrete, therefore, is opposed to «continuous», that is a variable that can assume an infinite number of possible values between two units: for example, the number of hours of study is a continuous variable, since you can be studying 20,35 hours each week.

In linguistics, then, to say that human language is discrete means that its elements have well-defined limits: we can easily distinguish between one and the other.

For example, as much as they may be perceived as similar, the sounds [t] and [d] are different, both for the speaker and the listener: we have no difficulty in perceiving how "to" and "do" are two different words.

Displacement

This i the feature that allows us to talk about things that are not present at the time in which we produce the linguistic act, or even allows us to refer to past, future, real or imaginary events.

In other words, human language allows us to "displace" the events of the moment in which they have occurred from the moment in which they are told.

Double articulation

With «articulation» we define each of the minimum units in which we can divide a discrete chain of units.

Language has double articulation, that is, we can divide its units into two different levels:

I° level: each word can be divided into smaller units, which still have a meaning, the morphemes (lexical and grammatical)

II° level: each word can be divided into minimal units that have no meaning but have distinctive function, the phonemes.

Recursion

This feature is what allows us to create new sentences: by joining new elements to a "base" sentence one could (hypothetically) follow to infinity in the creation of new sentences.

For example, we can say "a red car" and then, by means of recursion, say "Alex has a red car", "Alex, my best friend, has a red car", "Alex, my best friend, has recently bought a red car" and so on...

However, Daniel Everett (2005) in controversy with Chomsky, showed that there is a language that does not have this property: in the language of the population of the Pirahā there are no recursive structures, so Everett argued that if there is a non-recourse language, this cannot be considered a feature of human language.

Yes, but the Pirahā also speak Portuguese, which does have recursion, and the Pirahā knew how to apply it without problems.

Therefore, recursion is considered a fundamental feature of human language, whether or not different languages use it.

Cultural transmission

Human language, as well as L1, are not transmitted through formal instruction, but through the culture in which each of us grows.

At birth we have the potential to learn any language, but among all the existing languages we learn only the language(s) that our family and culture expose us to .

Reflexivity

This feature is also called "metalinguistic function" of language, and consists of the language’s ability to speak about itself.

Economy

A consecuence of doble articulatio is that human language is very «economic»: thanks to a very limited number of minimum units (phonemes) - a few tens - we can create an infinite number of words and sentences.

Structure dependency

The relationships that exist between the different elements of human language are not based on a linear order, but on the underlying structure.

This means that the order and the forms with which the words appear in a sentence or a text, are not determined by the word that precedes it, but by an element that can be found very far from the word that we are observing

E.g. The woman the children say hits me is Maria

The verb "hit me" agrees with the noun "the woman", even if they are far away in the sentence.

If we apply a linear structure, the verb should be agreed with the noun that is closest, that is "the children", obtaining the following sentence:

E.g. *The woman the children say hit me is Mary

The sentence thus put is agramatical, demonstrating then the dependence of the structure.

Well then, know you know why our language is so peculiar! If you are interested in this matter, I leave you here a list of further readings about it:

• Chomsky, N. (1988). El lenguaje y los problemas del conocimiento. Madrid: Visor.

• Everett D. (2005), Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Piraha: Another Look at the Design Features of Human Language, en Current Anthropology, vol. 46, Number 4, August-October 2005

• Graffi G., Scalise S. (2002), Le Lingue e il Linguaggio. Introduzione alla Linguistica, il Mulino: Bologna

• Luria A. (1977), Introducción evolucionista a la psicología, Fontanella: Barcelona

• Martinet A. (1960), Elementos de Lingüística General, Armand Colin: Paris.

• Pisaniello V. (2018), Curso de Lingüística general de la Universidad de Verona.

• Saussure F. (2007), Curso de lingüística general, Losada, S. A.: Buenos Aires

• Vygotsky L. (1987), Lenguaje y pensamiento, La Pleyade: Buenos Aires

• Yule G. (2020), The Study of Language, Cambridge university Press: Cambridge