Design Features Of Human Language

Many people believe that language is a unique skill which only humans are able to acquire. Language is what distinguishes us from other animals and makes us human. However, there are people who disagree with this point of view. Some strongly believe that primates like chimpanzees and gorillas are capable of language too. A great amount of research regarding the ability of apes to learn language was done. It may be that the obtainment of language in apes could shed a light on the evolution of humans and the development of human language. The primates are mainly taught a sign language as they are not able to produce sound in the way humans do. A female gorilla called Koko was involved in one of the most far-reaching ape language experiments. …show more content…
They are called design features of human language. Those are mode of communication, temporality, interchangeability, feedback, specialization, semanticity, arbitrariness, discreteness, displacement, productivity, cultural transmission, duality of patterning, prevarication, reflexiveness, and learnability. If all the characteristics listed above are present, a communication system can be considered language (Hockett, 2013, pp. 22-26). I will look at some design features that Koko did or did not have in order to find out whether a communication system that the gorilla used can be regarded as …show more content…
Displacement is the property of the language system which enables people to talk about themselves in situations that are removed in time from the present (Yule, 2014, pp. 12-21). Dr Penny suggested that Koko could refer to things that are distant in time. According to Dr Patterson, the day after Koko had bitten a companion, Penny asked the gorilla what she did yesterday and Koko signed “wrong”. Penny asked what was wrong, Koko responded “bite” (Documentary Films, 2015). It may suggest that Koko had some concept of time. However, the feature was not convincingly