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HUMAN LANGUAGE VS ANIMAL LANGUAGE - Coggle Diagram
HUMAN LANGUAGE VS ANIMAL LANGUAGE
DISPLACEMENT
Animal
Most animals can communicate about things in the immediate environment only.
For example, a bird only cry when danger is present
Human
Use language to refer past, present and future
Allow human to create fiction and to describe future
ARBITRARINESS
Animal
There is a connection between the message and the signal used
The set of signals used is finite
Human
No natural connection between a linguistic form and its meaning
Some of the words are onomatopoeic (the use of words that sound like the thing they are describing)
CULTURAL TRANSMISSION
Human
Inherit physical features from parents but not language
Acquire a language in a culture with other speakers
Animal
Born with specific signals which is produce instinctively
DISCRETENESS
The property of language when each sound is treated as discrete
Speech units can be ordered, combined and split apart
DUALITY
Language is organised in two levels
Physical level
The ability to produce individual sound
b, d, a
Meaning level
Refers to the ability to combine the individual sounds into meaningful unit
Bad-dad-ad-abd
PRODUCTIVITY
Animal
Fixed reference
Have limited number of messages they can send or receive
Human
To produce new expressions and new sentences
Number of utterances is infinite