Essay On Human Language

791 Words4 Pages

According to the research and discussion about the animal communication versus human language, there are several aspects of Hockett’s Design Features that animals lack, and thus makes human language remarkable. Additionally, prevarication, reflexiveness, and learnability are the main characteristics that are unique to human language because they are not found in other animal species. However, I believe that reflexiveness is the most outstanding feature that makes human language different from animal communication because it is the key that supports humans to achieve other language features. Firstly, a reflexive feature has emerged a study of language, in other word, linguistics, and hence, lead us to a critical question ‘What is the most …show more content…

To elaborate, language rules are learned at an early age, as in Eng­lish we can say “blog” but we would not say “lbog.” As a consequence, this has led to a feature of total feedback, that allows humans to interpret and make corrections on language mistakes. In addition, Noam Chomsky (1957), an American linguist, described Syntactic Structures, which is known as grammar. It incorporates several aspects of languages, including phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. As a result, those elements have influenced sentences to be formed infinitely, but each sentence may have a finite sequence of sounds or letters. At the same time, those aspects of grammar also allow humans to be able to break down a word into smaller units, and make up meaningful messages from meaningless units, which are the feature of discreteness and duality of patterning. Moreover, Yule also mentioned that the grammatical labels also set up rules for a proper use of language, in other words, prescriptive approach, which describes how language should be used correctly and appropriately. For example, Lucy and Yule mentioned that one shouldn’t say ‘Damn it’ in front of children, or a teacher might correct ‘Me and my family’ to ‘My

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