WHAT IS LANGUAGE? DEFINITIONS HUMAN AND ANIMAL LANGUAGES.
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Transcript of WHAT IS LANGUAGE? DEFINITIONS HUMAN AND ANIMAL LANGUAGES.
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WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
DEFINITIONS
HUMAN AND ANIMAL LANGUAGES
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Different definitions for different purposes
Language
as a system as a universal human capacity as a means of communication as a social phenomenon
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HUMAN AND ANIMAL LANGUAGES The issue of continuity
Are humans just a step further in practising an adapted behaviour?
What are the similarities and differences in human and animal communication?
Are they qualitative or quantitave?
- measurable?
- origin?
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Animal communication
Through sounds, smells,
visual signals and touching:
- of birds, bees, ants,
bears and dogs
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Mixed signals Species-specific (cats and dogs)
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Why are vocal signals easier to use?
Work from a distance: sender and receiver do not have to be close
Work in the dark Receiver does not have to turn toward sender Can be used simultaneously with other
activities
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What determines the nature of signals?
Higher position on the evolutionary scale?
- Of birds and chimpanzees
Social activity?
- Of cuckoos, bees and ancient hunters
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Differences (Hocket)
Use of sound signals
- vocal auditory channel
Rapidly fading signal
- special types of memory
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Total feedback- hearing our voice- talking to ourselves- difficult for the deaf
Interchangeabilty- male crickets chirp- working bees dance- male pheasants’ mating dance
Specialisation- only for communication
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Openness, creativity
- animal communication:limited set of signs, triggered by a stimulus
- human language constantly changes, new items are added, is freely applied
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Arbitrariness
- animals: often connection between signal
and meaning
- humans: no connection, interpretation is
based on consensus
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more not less.”
(Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland)
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Discreteness
Duality
Patterning- bats, stabs but NOT sbat- boathouse vs. Houseboat- Jack kissed Mary. Vs. Mary kissed Jackbut NOT Kissed Jack Mary
“But I’m not so think as you drunk I am.” (Sir J.C. Squire, writer)
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Functionality, intention
- cause, purpose consideration
- dolphins, Washoe and Sara
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Displacement
“Bees are not as busy as we think they are. They just
can’t buzz any slower.” (F.M. Hubbard, American humorist)
NO
- past
- future
- questions
Prevarification- lies
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Reflexiveness
- talking about language
Traditional transmission
- genetically imprinted behaviour vs.
socioculturally transmitted
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What is language?
Systematic and generative A set of arbitrary symbols Primarily verbal signals but also visual Conventionalised meanings Used for communication only Operates in a speech community Essentially human Both language and language learning have
universal features