What Is Language Shared Between Species

Language, in its most widely understood sense, is a unique trait that all humans share. This paper will support the hypothesis that language evolved purely through natural selection, from a more primitive animal communication system. The opposing view is that the ability to learn language was a genetic mutation, rather than it being naturally selected for. Topics discussed in this paper will be the faculty of language in the broad and narrow senses, recursion and its relationship with human language, and criticisms on each side of this argument. Which language traits are shared between species? Which traits are supposedly unique to humans, if any? Why is it that only humans have the ability to communicate with such complexity, compared to other animals? This paper will attempt to answer these questions. The faculty of language …show more content…
The FLB accounts for the aspects of languages shared between species and also the properties shared with other cognitive systems such as computers, whereas the FLN is said to account for the property of language that is uniquely human (Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch, 2002). The FLN is said to include only recursion, which is the only thing making language uniquely human (Hauser, Chomsky, & Fitch, 2002). Pinker and Jackendoff (2004) disagree with Hauser, Chomsky, and Fitch (2002) in their claim that recursion is unique to language, claiming that recursion is not unique to language, but the ability to express recursive thoughts is uniquely human. The FLN may have evolved for reasons other than language, but what those reasons may be remain a mystery until more research can be done into