There is
much disagreement over what specifically defines language. Some scholars define it by six
properties: productivity, arbitrariness, duality, discreetness, displacement, and cultural
transmission. (I have found some lists of five, but these often combine two of the various six
into a single characteristic.)
Productivity means
language has some purpose beyond making sounds, gestures, or markings. Language helps us
accomplish tasks and share information.
Arbitrariness acknowledges that the words we speak, gestures we
make, and markings we use in writing do not really represent what we are talking about. For
example, the word "apple" is not really an apple, just a word we have assigned for
discussing the fruit. There is an exception to this in speaking, though: onomatopoeic
soundslike crash, bang, and plopdirectly mimick an
actual sound.
Duality is the property of language that
is at work when we create words or gestures which have meaning out of sounds which are otherwise
meaningless. An easily recognized instance of duality is the use of prefixes and suffixes. For
example, the sound re- on its own does not have any meaning, but when it is
added to the beginning of a word in English, it means to do something again, as in
revisit, retry, and
review.
Discreetness of language
is somewhat connected to duality. The many sounds and symbols we use in language (like the
sound re-) are understood to be separate entities from one another. We use
the letter A when we mean to convey a certain sound, and we don't use other letters in place of
it. Different languages may have different sets of sounds or symbols to work with, but it is
this set of symbols and sounds which acts like a palette of distinct colors to make words
from.
Displacement is at work when we talk about people,
things, or ideas which are not presently happening around us. This flexibility is highly
distinctive of human language. Most other animals are only capable of creating call sounds in
response to present stimulifood, danger, or a desire to mate, for instance. As humans, we can
say things like, "I wonder what I'll have for dinner later," even if we are not
presently hungry.
Finally, cultural transmission is a
vital part of human language. While other animals are born with an understanding of their bodily
and vocal languages, humans learn language through the process of enculturation. This aspect of
learning language is of interest to many psychologists, and
people who have not been exposed to language can provide deeper understanding of human
development and the role language plays in our lives.
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