Hockett's design features

Last updated October 08, 2023

Hockett's Design Features are a set of features that characterize human language and set it apart from animal communication. They were defined by linguist Charles F. Hockett in the 1960s. He called these characteristics the design features of language. Hockett originally believed there to be 13 design features. While primate communication utilizes the first 9 features, the final 4 features (displacement, productivity, cultural transmission, and duality) are reserved for humans.^{[ citation needed ]} Hockett later added prevarication, reflexiveness, and learnability to the list as uniquely human characteristics. He asserted that even the most basic human languages possess these 16 features.

Charles Hockett

Charles Hockett was an American linguist and anthropologist, who lived from 1916 to 2000. Hockett graduated from Yale in 1939, and later taught at both Cornell and Rice. Hockett made significant contributions to structural linguistics, as well as the study of Native American, Chinese, and Fijian languages. His work focused mainly on detailed linguistic analysis, particularly morphology and phonology, and on the concepts and tools that facilitated such analysis.^[1] Up until the 1950s, language was largely viewed as a social-behavioral phenomenon. Hockett was challenged in this belief by Noam Chomsky, who argued that language is biologically based and innate. Chomsky believed that humans share a universal grammar that ties all languages together. Hockett staunchly opposed this "Chomskyan" concept of the nature of language. However, Hockett is most famous for defining what he called the design features of language, which demonstrated his beliefs about the commonalities among human languages.^[2]

Design features of language

Vocal-auditory channel Refers to the idea that speaking/hearing is the mode humans use for language. When Hockett first defined this feature, it did not take sign language into account, which reflects the ideology of orality that was prevalent during the time.^[3] This feature has since been modified to include other channels of language, such as tactile-visual or chemical-olfactory.

Broadcast transmission and directional reception When humans speak, sounds are transmitted in all directions; however, listeners perceive the direction from which the sounds are coming. Similarly, signers broadcast to potentially anyone within the line of sight, while those watching see who is signing. This is characteristic of most forms of human and animal communication.

Transitoriness Also called rapid fading, transitoriness refers to the temporary quality of language. Language sounds exist for only a brief period of time, after which they are no longer perceived. Sound waves quickly disappear once a speaker stops speaking. This is also true of signs. In contrast, other forms of communication such as writing and Inka khipus (knot-tying) are more permanent.

Interchangeability Refers to the idea that humans can give and receive identical linguistic signals; humans are not limited in the types of messages they can say/hear. One can say "I am a boy" even if one is a girl. This is not to be confused with lying (prevarication): The importance is that a speaker can physically create any and all messages regardless of their truth or relation to the speaker. In other words, anything that one can hear, one can also say.

Not all species possess this feature. For example, in order to communicate their status, queen ants produce chemical scents that no other ants can produce (see animal communication below).

Total feedback Speakers of a language can hear their own speech and can control and modify what they are saying as they say it. Similarly, signers see, feel, and control their signing.

Specialization The purpose of linguistic signals is communication and not some other biological function. When humans speak or sign, it is generally intentional.

An example of non-specialized communication is dog panting. When a dog pants, it often communicates to its owner that it is hot or thirsty; however, the dog pants in order to cool itself off. This is a biological function, and the communication is a secondary matter.

Semanticity Specific sound signals are directly tied to certain meanings.

Arbitrariness Languages are generally made up of both arbitrary and iconic symbols. In spoken languages, iconicity takes the form of onomatopoeia (e.g., "murmur" in English, "māo" [cat] in Mandarin). For the vast majority of other symbols, there is no intrinsic or logical connection between a sound form (signal) and what it refers to. Almost all names a human language attributes an object are thus arbitrary: the word "car" is nothing like an actual car. Spoken words are really nothing like the objects they represent. This is further demonstrated by the fact that different languages attribute very different names to the same object. Signed languages are transmitted visually and this allows for a certain degree of iconicity ("cup", "me," "up/down", etc. in ASL). For example, in the ASL sign HOUSE, the hands are flat and touch in a way that resembles the roof and walls of a house.^[4]^{[note 1]} However, many other signs are not iconic, and the relationship between form and meaning is arbitrary. Thus, while Hockett did not account for the possibility of non-arbitrary form-meaning relationships, the principle still generally applies.

Discreteness Linguistic representations can be broken down into small discrete units which combine with each other in rule-governed ways. They are perceived categorically, not continuously. For example, English marks number with the plural morpheme /s/, which can be added to the end of any noun. The plural morpheme is perceived categorically, not continuously: we cannot express smaller or larger quantities by varying how loudly we pronounce the /s/.

Displacement Displacement refers to the idea that humans can talk about things that are not physically present or that do not even exist. Speakers can talk about the past and the future, and can express hopes and dreams. A human's speech is not limited to here and now. Displacement is one of the features that separates human language from other forms of primate communication.

Productivity Productivity refers to the idea that language-users can create and understand novel utterances. Humans are able to produce an unlimited amount of utterances. Also related to productivity is the concept of grammatical patterning, which facilitates the use and comprehension of language. Language is not stagnant, but is constantly changing. New idioms are created all the time and the meaning of signals can vary depending on the context and situation.

Traditional transmission Also known as cultural transmission, traditional transmission is the idea that, while humans are born with innate language capabilities, language is learned after birth in a social setting. It differs critically from Chomsky's idea of Universal Grammar but rather purports that people learn how to speak by interacting with experienced language users. Significantly, language and culture are woven together in this construct, functioning hand in hand for language acquisition.

Duality of patterning Meaningful messages are made up of distinct smaller meaningful units (words and morphemes) which themselves are made up of distinct smaller, meaningless units (phonemes).

Prevarication Prevarication is the ability to lie or deceive. When using language, humans can make false or meaningless statements. This is an important distinction made of human communication, i.e. language as compared to animal communication. While animal communication can display a few other design features as proposed by Hockett, animal communication is unable to lie or make up something that does not exist or have referents.

Reflexiveness Humans can use language to talk about language. Also a very defining feature of human language, reflexiveness is a trait not shared by animal communication. With reflexiveness, humans can describe what language is, talk about the structure of language, and discuss the idea of language with others using language.

Learnability Language is teachable and learnable. In the same way, as a speaker learns their first language, the speaker is able to learn other languages. It is worth noting that young children learn language with competence and ease; however, language acquisition is constrained by a critical period such that it becomes more difficult once children pass a certain age.

Design features in animal communication

Hockett distinguished language from communication. While almost all animals communicate in some way, a communication system is only considered language if it possesses all of the above characteristics. Some animal communication systems are impressively sophisticated in the sense that they possess a significant number of the design features as proposed by Hockett.

Ants

Ants make use of the chemical-olfactory channel of communication. Ants produce chemicals called pheromones, which are released through body glands and received by the tips of the antenna. Ants can produce up to twenty different pheromone scents, each a unique signal used to communicate things such as the location of food and danger, or even the need to defend or relocate the colony. When an ant is killed, it releases a pheromone that alerts others of potential danger. Pheromones also help ants distinguish family members from strangers. The queen ant has special pheromones which she uses to signal her status, orchestrate work, and let the colony know when they need to raise princesses or drones.^[5] Ants will even engage in warfare to protect the colony or a food source. This warfare involves tactics that resemble human warfare. Marauder ants will capture and hold down an enemy while another ant crushes it. Ants are loyal to their colony to the death; however, the queen will kill her own in order to be the last one standing. This level of "planning" among an animal species requires an intricate communication.^[6]

Birds

Bird communication demonstrates many of the features: the vocal-auditory channel, broadcast transmission/directional reception, rapid fading, semanticity, and arbitrariness. Bird communication is divided into songs and calls. Songs are used primarily to attract mates, while calls are used to alert conspecifics of food and danger and coordinate movement with the flock. Calls are acoustically simple, while songs are longer and more complex.^[7] Bird communication is both discrete and non-discrete. Birds use syntax to arrange their songs, where musical notes act as phonemes. The order of the notes is important to the meaning of the song, thus indicating that discreteness exists. Bird communication is also continuous in the sense that it utilizes duration and frequency. However, the fact that birds have "phonemes" does not necessarily mean that they can infinitely combine them. Birds have a limited number of songs that they can produce. The male indigo bunting only has one song, while the brown thrasher can sing over 2000 songs.^[8] Birds even have unique dialects, depending on where they are from.^[9]

Two different bird species, the Southern Pied Blabber and the Japanese Tit have been observed to be using the duality of patterning, which is another feature thought to only be used by humans. ^[10]

Honeybees

Honeybee communication is distinct from other forms of animal communication. Rather than vocal-auditory, bees use the space-movement channel to communicate. Honeybees use dances to communicate—the round dance, the waggle dance, and the transitional dance. Depending on the species, the round dance is used to communicate that food is 20–30 m from the hive, the waggle dance that food is 40–90 m from the hive, and the transitional dance that food is at a distance in between.^[11] To do the waggle dance, a bee moves in a zig-zag line and then loops back to the beginning of the line, forming a figure-eight. The direction of the line points to the food. The speed of the dance indicates the distance to the food. In this way, bee dancing is also continuous, rather than discrete. Their communication is also not arbitrary: They move in a direction and pattern that physically points out where food is located.

Honeybee dancing demonstrates displacement, which is generally considered a human characteristic. Most animals will only give a "food-found" call in the physical presence of food, yet bees can talk about food that is over 100 m away.

Notes and references

Footnotes

Explanatory

↑ This sign can be non-iconic if said house is not shaped like that. Depicting Verbs (formerly thought to be classifiers) are meant to modify (give more information about) the actual visual appearance or process. For instance, the sign used for the generic idea of "box" is different from the one used for "PO box" because the latter has specific shapes that often do not conform to other items sharing this label; he sign and depicting verb for "tree" does not encompass bamboo trees.

Citations

↑ Kemmer, Suzanne. Biographical sketch of Charles Hockett. 23 February 2008. Retrieved 12 May 2013 from http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Found/hockettbio.
↑ Fox, Margalit (13 November 2000). "Charles Hockett, 84, Linguist With an Anthropological View". The New York Times. Retrieved 12 May 2013.
↑ See, for instance, Anne-Marie Christin (1995).
↑ William Vicars, American Sign Language University. (n.d.) Retrieved 12 May 2013 from http://lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-signs/h/house.htm
↑ Chemical pheromone communication between ants. antARK, 2010. Retrieved 11 May 2013 from http://www.antark.net/ant-life/ant-communication/pheromones.html
↑ Moffett, Mark W. Battles among ants resemble human warfare, Scientific American. 8 January 2012. Retrieved 13 May 2013 from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ants-and-the-art-of-war
↑ Duhamel, D. (October 2009). Retrieved from http://people.eku.edu/ritchisong/birdcommunication.html
↑ All About Birds: Vocal Development. Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. (n.d.) Retrieved 11 May 2013 from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/studying/birdsongs/vocaldev
↑ CJ Kazilek, David Pearson and Pierre Deviche. "Birds and their songs", Ask a Biologist. Arizona State University. (n.d) Retrieved 11 May 2013 from http://askabiologist.asu.edu/explore/birds-and-their-songs
↑ Russell, Andrew F, and Simon W Townsend. (2017) Communication: Animal Steps on the Road to Syntax? Current Biology 27.
↑ Rinderer, T. E.; Beaman, L. D. (October 1995). "Genic control of honey bee dance language dialect". Theoretical and Applied Genetics. 91 (5): 727–732. doi:10.1007/bf00220950. ISSN 0040-5752. PMID 24169907. S2CID 31542946.

Related Research Articles

Communication is usually understood as the transmission of information. The term can also refer to the message itself and to the field of inquiry studying these transmissions, also known as communication studies. Its precise definition is disputed. Controversial issues are whether unintentional or failed transmissions are included and whether communication does not only transmit meaning but also creates it. Models of communication are simplified overviews of its main components and their interaction. Many models include the idea that a source uses a coding system to express information in the form of a message. The message is sent through a channel to a receiver who has to decode it to understand it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles F. Hockett</span> American linguist (1916–2000)

Charles Francis Hockett was an American linguist who developed many influential ideas in American structuralist linguistics. He represents the post-Bloomfieldian phase of structuralism often referred to as "distributionalism" or "taxonomic structuralism". His academic career spanned over half a century at Cornell and Rice universities. Hockett was also a firm believer of linguistics as a branch of anthropology, making contributions that were significant to the field of anthropology as well.

Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and written forms, and may also be conveyed through sign languages. The vast majority of human languages have developed writing systems that allow for the recording and preservation of the sounds or signs of language. Human language is characterized by its cultural and historical diversity, with significant variations observed between cultures and across time. Human languages possess the properties of productivity and displacement, which enable the creation of an infinite number of sentences, and the ability to refer to objects, events, and ideas that are not immediately present in the discourse. The use of human language relies on social convention and is acquired through learning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pheromone</span> Secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species

A pheromone is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Pheromones are chemicals capable of acting like hormones outside the body of the secreting individual, to affect the behavior of the receiving individuals. There are alarm pheromones, food trail pheromones, sex pheromones, and many others that affect behavior or physiology. Pheromones are used by many organisms, from basic unicellular prokaryotes to complex multicellular eukaryotes. Their use among insects has been particularly well documented. In addition, some vertebrates, plants and ciliates communicate by using pheromones. The ecological functions and evolution of pheromones are a major topic of research in the field of chemical ecology.

Cultural behavior is behavior exhibited by humans that is extrasomatic or extragenetic—in other words, learned.

Symbolic communication is the exchange of messages that change a priori expectation of events. Examples of this are modern communication technology and the exchange of information amongst animals. By referring to objects and ideas not present at the time of communication, a world of possibility is opened. In humans, this process has been compounded to result in the current state of modernity. A symbol is anything one says or does to describe something, and that something can have an array of many meanings. Once the symbols are learned by a particular group, that symbol stays intact with the object. Symbolic communication includes gestures, body language and facial expressions, as well as vocal moans that can indicate what an individual wants without having to speak. Research argues that about 55% of all communication stems from nonverbal language. Symbolic communication ranges from sign language to braille to tactile communication skills.

Animal languages are forms of non-human animal communication that show similarities to human language. Animals communicate through a variety of signs, such as sounds or movements. Signing among animals may be considered complex enough to be a form of language if the inventory of signs is large. The signs are relatively arbitrary, and the animals seem to produce them with a degree of volition. In experimental tests, animal communication may also be evidenced through the use of lexigrams by chimpanzees and bonobos.

Animal communication is the transfer of information from one or a group of animals to one or more other animals that affects the current or future behavior of the receivers. Information may be sent intentionally, as in a courtship display, or unintentionally, as in the transfer of scent from predator to prey with kairomones. Information may be transferred to an "audience" of several receivers. Animal communication is a rapidly growing area of study in disciplines including animal behavior, sociology, neurology and animal cognition. Many aspects of animal behavior, such as symbolic name use, emotional expression, learning and sexual behavior, are being understood in new ways.

Semiosis, or sign process, is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. A sign is anything that communicates a meaning, that is not the sign itself, to the interpreter of the sign. The meaning can be intentional such as a word uttered with a specific meaning, or unintentional, such as a symptom being a sign of a particular medical condition. Signs can communicate through any of the senses, visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or taste.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dog communication</span> Communication of dogs with other dogs and as well as humans

Dog communication is the transfer of information between dogs, as well as between dogs and humans. Behaviors associated with dog communication are categorized into visual and vocal. Visual communication includes mouth shape and head position, licking and sniffing, ear and tail positioning, eye gaze, facial expression, and body posture. Dog vocalizations, or auditory communication, can include barks, growls, howls, whines and whimpers, screams, pants and sighs. Dogs also communicate via gustatory communication, utilizing scent and pheromones.

Waggle dance is a term used in beekeeping and ethology for a particular figure-eight dance of the honey bee. By performing this dance, successful foragers can share information about the direction and distance to patches of flowers yielding nectar and pollen, to water sources, or to new nest-site locations with other members of the colony.

In animal communication, an alarm signal is an antipredator adaptation in the form of signals emitted by social animals in response to danger. Many primates and birds have elaborate alarm calls for warning conspecifics of approaching predators. For example, the alarm call of the blackbird is a familiar sound in many gardens. Other animals, like fish and insects, may use non-auditory signals, such as chemical messages. Visual signs such as the white tail flashes of many deer have been suggested as alarm signals; they are less likely to be received by conspecifics, so have tended to be treated as a signal to the predator instead.

Human–animal communication is the communication observed between humans and other animals, ranging from non-verbal cues and vocalizations to the use of language.

Animal culture can be defined as the ability of non-human animals to learn and transmit behaviors through processes of social or cultural learning. Culture is increasingly seen as a process, involving the social transmittance of behavior among peers and between generations. It can involve the transmission of novel behaviors or regional variations that are independent of genetic or ecological factors.

In the study of the biological sciences, biocommunication is any specific type of communication within (intraspecific) or between (interspecific) species of plants, animals, fungi, protozoa and microorganisms. Communication basically means sign-mediated interactions following three levels of rules. Signs in most cases are chemical molecules (semiochemicals), but also tactile, or as in animals also visual and auditive. Biocommunication of animals may include vocalizations, or pheromone production, chemical signals between plants and animals, and chemically mediated communication between plants and within plants.

Articulatory gestures are the actions necessary to enunciate language. Examples of articulatory gestures are the hand movements necessary to enunciate sign language and the mouth movements of speech. In semiotic terms, these are the physical embodiment (signifiers) of speech signs, which are gestural by nature.

Traditional transmission is one of the 13 design features of language developed by anthropologist Charles F. Hockett to distinguish the features of human language from that of animal communication. Critically, animal communication might display some of the thirteen features but never all of them. It is typically considered as one of the crucial characteristics distinguishing human from animal communication and provides significant support for the argument that language is learned socially within a community and not inborn where the acquisition of information is via the avenue of genetic inheritance.

In linguistics, displacement is the capability of language to communicate about things that are not immediately present ; i.e., things that are either not here or are not here now.

Trail pheromones are semiochemicals secreted from the body of an individual to affect the behavior of another individual receiving it. Trail pheromones often serve as a multi purpose chemical secretion that leads members of its own species towards a food source, while representing a territorial mark in the form of an allomone to organisms outside of their species. Specifically, trail pheromones are often incorporated with secretions of more than one exocrine gland to produce a higher degree of specificity. Considered one of the primary chemical signaling methods in which many social insects depend on, trail pheromone deposition can be considered one of the main facets to explain the success of social insect communication today. Many species of ants, including those in the genus Crematogaster use trail pheromones.

Vocal-auditory channel is the first of 13 design features proposed by Charles F. Hockett in characterizing human language and distinguishing it from animal communication. It describes the way vocal signals can be used to produce language. The speaker uses a vocal tract to produce speech sounds, and the hearer employs an auditory apparatus to receive and process the speech sounds. This is why human language is said to be based on speech sounds produced by the articulatory system and received through the auditory system. The vocal channel is a particularly excellent means through which speech sounds can be accompanied or substituted by gestures, facial expressions, body movement, and way of dressing. However, Hockett considers this design feature one which is fundamentally advantageous for primates as "it leaves much of the body free for other activities that can be carried on at the same time."

References

Christin, A.-M. L'Image écrite ou la déraison graphique, Paris, Flammarion, coll. « Idées et recherches », 1995
Ottenhiemer, H. J., Pine, Judith M. S. (2018). The Anthropology of Language. (4 ed., pp. 257-263). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
Hockett, Charles F. The Problem of Universals in Language in Joseph H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of Language, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, pp. 1-22.