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| Paragraph - Special Characteristics of Human Language |
Both
human and animals have language as a system of communication. Dogs bark, cats
mew. Dolphins, bees, and ants have probably the most sophisticated animal
communications. But human language possesses certain special qualities which
other animals do not have. These qualities of human language distinguish it from
the animal language. The first of these
qualities can be called 'duality'. This refers to the way in which a stretch of
speech can be cut up into units. For
example, a sentence such 'My mother is a very pious woman' may be segmented into
words: My/mother/is/a/very/pious/woman. These segments can be split up into
further units into sounds. For example, the word 'woman' can be broken into the
sounds: w/o/m/a/n. The same sounds can be used in the construction of other
words in English. The second quality is 'creativity'. This quality enables a
human being to make an infinite number of sentences, and understand sentences
which he has not heard before. The third quality is 'arbitrariness'. It means
there is no direct connection between the sound or form of any word and the
object which it represents. For instance, to refer to a tree, German has
'Baum'. English has 'tree', and French has 'arbre'. The fourth quality is
'displacement'. It means that the language can be used — sentences can be
made and understood — at times and places
where the context referred to is not present. For example, the expression 'A
glass of water' can be understood even if the object itself is not present
there at the time of speaking. These are the four qualities which distinguish
human language from animal language.
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