The Difference Between Human Language and Animal Communication

韓曉鵬

一、Introduction

Whether animal communication is essentially different from human language seems a easy question and would be regarded meaningless by many people.Nonetheless,the research about the true nature of animal communication would provide us more perspectives and a better understanding of human language,which,in turn may exert favorable effects on linguistics,translation theories,second language acquisition,etc.

Today most people have agreed that animals can communicate in various ways,but insisted that animal communication is not a kind of language.The controversies revolve around two basic questions: 1.Is the difference between human intelligence and animal intelligence qualitative or quantitative? 2.Is the difference between human language and animal communication qualitative or quantitative?

The first question involves animal cognition,ethology,behavioral ecology,evolutionary psychology,etc.There is more and more evidence showing that some animals do have memories,self-consciousness,the ability to reason and plan (Johansson,2001).This article will focus on the second enquiry in more detail in the next sections,discussing the distinguishing features which have been argued to separate language from animal communication respectively.

二、The definition of animal communication and language

Animal communication is any behaviour on the part of one animal that has an effect on the current or future behaviour of another animal (Here the animal refers to non-human) (wikipedia).

As for the language definition,“A language is a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs,sounds,gestures,or marks having understood meanings” (Crystal,2000: 400).Most definitions of language involve two elements: a system of symbols and the expression of thought.The expression of thought involves animal cognition.This issue has been briefly discussed in the first part.Here I’ll focus on “a system of symbols”.Some researchers have argued that there are properties of language that make it significantly different from animal communication.But recent experiments have shown that many of these properties seem not so unique.

三、The properties of human language

The properties of human language,that it is argued make human language unique are: arbitrariness,discreteness,duality,productivity,cultural transmission and displacement.(Crystal,2000; wikipedia)

First,arbitrariness: in human language,the relation between a sound or sign and its meaning is arbitrary.Most animal vocalizations are supposed to be affective,like the dog’s bark or the grunt of a pig.But a study of the alarm calls of vervet monkeys (Seyfarth et al,1980; cited in Johansson,2001) may shake this opinion.The monkeys have three different alarm calls for three kinds of predators(snakes,leopards,and eagles).One thing one needs to pay attention to is that these calls don’t seem iconic (Carstairs-McCarthy,1996; cited in Johansson,2001).None of the calls sounds like the sounds of predators.These calls not only seem intentional,but also seem arbitrary.

Second,discreteness: the units in the language are discrete,i.e.,they clearly contrast with each other.People use a combination of these units to create meaning.Most animal vocalizations are constant,but there are exceptions.The celebrated bonobo,Kanzi,had learned 348 lexigrams by 2006,and understands over 3000 English words(wikipedia).His ability to understand simple grammatical sentences strongly suggests that animals can comprehend the combinations of discrete units.

Third,duality: Language works on two levels - the sounds of language don’t have meaning,but the combinations of sounds have meaning.Most animals only use one basic sound to communicate,but humans use various combinations of sounds to convey meaning.However,the scope of human hearing ability is very limited compared with some animals.The frequency range of human hearing is 16-20000 Hz,dogs can hear up to 38000 Hz.The auditory and vocal apparatuses between human and animals are enormously different,there are so many animal sounds that humans can’t detect or interpret,it would be too early and arrogant to claim that duality only belongs to human language.

Fourth,productivity: a finite number of units can be used to produce an infinite number of meanings.The number of meanings animals use to communicate are considered limited and fixed.But “use finite to express infinite” is also a property of songs of birds and whales; at least they express limited meanings by infinite combinations of units (Johansson,2001).

Fifth,cultural transmission: Language is passed from one user to another,or one generation to the next.Most animal communication is transmitted genetically,e.g.bee dance.But some is transmitted from one animal to the next.E.g.,chimps in the experiments learned sign language not only from their trainer,

but also from other chimps.The “dialects” of birdsongs (Wiener,1986; Baker,1996; cited in Johansson,2001) also showed some features of cultural transmission.

Sixth,displacement: Language could be used to talk about events that are remote spatially or temporally.Most animal cries can only reflect the immediate situations.But the bee dance may be the most obvious exception.It always conveys the information that is spatially remote (the position of the food) (Crystal,2000).

四、Conclusion

Noam Chomsky used to say that claiming chimps can talk is like claiming humans can fly,for humans can fly (jump) about 30 feet in the Olympics,which is totally meaningless.(Johnson,1995) But as more and more experiments about animal language are conducted more scientifically,there are increasingly more different opinions.As I argued in section 3,many properties of language that were supposed to separate it significantly from animal communication now can be attained by chimps and some other animals.Hence it’s too early to draw any conclusion about qualitative or quantitative difference between human language and animal communication,more research will be warranted.

[1]Crystal D.The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language[M].2nd edition.Beijing:Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press & Cambridge University Press,2000.

[2]Johansson S.Animal communication,animal mind,and animal language[D][OL].http://hem.hj.se/～lsj/langevoc.pdf,2001.

[3]Johnson G.Chimp Talk Debate: Is It Really Language?[OL].The New York Times,http://www.santafe.edu/%7Ejohnson/articles.chimp.html,1995.