Language And Communication

Discuss the similarities and differences between language and communication. Consider whether language is solely the property of humans. You should draw on research and evidence to support your answer.

According the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, the word “communication” refers to the process of expressing ideas and feelings or of giving people information through various mediums. Language is one of the most commonly used medium by people in all written, spoken and non-spoken form. The similarities between language and communication are that they share the same purpose, and how it is easily influenced by other defining factors which can be considered as other modes of communication. The differences between the two can be seen in which communication can occur even without language. Many linguists consider language to be unique to human and this can be seen through various theories such as Noam Chomsky’s “Universal Grammar” and Critical Period Hypothesis. Unlike language, communication is not solely the property of humans, but it can be found in animals.

Ferdinand de Saussure has created a structuralist view on language. This allows many theories and approaches to be invented towards breaking down as well as understanding how language works. Language has since been broken down into four divisions — Semantics, Pragmatics, Syntax and Phonology. Unlike communication, language has a pre-determined structure that is required to be followed. For example, in English, there is a “subject-verb-object” order. In Japanese, the order is switched to “subject-object-verb”. This order is part of syntax where sentence has to be structured in a particular order in varying languages. Sign languages also follows the same structure that languages has. For example, American Sign Language (ASL) follows the spoken Japanese syntax more closely as compared to English. This cannot be found in communication as it is purely a concept in which one is able to get a message across. Language is a subset of communication where they are related. This is because they can be influence by a defining factor — cultural norms. Other forms of communication can be through sense of touch, silence, space, facial expression and gestures. For example, when communicating with a person in a work related setting, one has to maintain a small distance with the other. However, if the speaker knows his/her listener in a more intimate level, there could be a smaller distance with him/her. But if the listener is someone who barely knows the speaker would have made it uncomfortable and to some extent, threatening. Language can be influenced in terms of speech as well as written through the choice of words. In Korean, there is a formal and informal speech. For example, honorifics are used when speaking to someone of a superior status by using special nouns or verb endings. Also, there are seven speech levels in Korean language, each level has its own unique set of verb endings which are used to indicate the level of formality of a situation. However, the difference is that the other forms of communication, it is fully determined by culture norms. Unlike in Language, for example, Standard English has the same representation of the symbol attached to a word. For instance, a tree refers to the same symbol that is represented in any other countries that uses the language.

Language have been developed and changed over time. Noam Chomsky came up with the Language Acquisition Device concept (LAD) is an instinctive mental capacity which enables an infant to acquire and produce language. This theory asserts that humans are born with the innate ability to learn language by having translated to the rules in grammar. This suggests the idea of why a child is able to acquire a language without explicit teaching. This was later further supported by the theory called Universal Grammar (UG) where the ability to learn grammar is instilled in human at birth. It suggests that all humans have a set of limited rules for grammer that are universal to all natural human languages. Thus, during a child’s first acquisition of language, it automatically wires itself to the rules of the language that the child is exposed to. Chomsky’s theories help in suggesting that language is solely the property of humans as the ability to acquire a language is only possible due to the innateness hypothesis as a result of LAD and UG.

Also, adding on to Chomsky’s theories, linguist Eric Lenneberg comes up with the theory called Critical Period Hypothesis. He believes that age plays an important role in acquiring language. According to him, a child beow the age of 2 is not fully capable of acquiring language but with the onset of puberty, it enables the child develop full competence. This further supports innateness hypothesis as it believes that presence of an inner ability that is dictating the acquisition of language rather than the feedback from the environment the child is placed in. Though language is said to be the sole property of human, there is a case in which a chimpanzee was taught ASL. She was named Washoe and she becomes the first non-human to learn a language. She has learned about 350 words in ASL and was able to sign “cry” when one of her caretakers decided to tell her the truth, signing “My baby died”. Washoe stared at her, then looked down. She finally peered into Kat's eyes again and carefully signed "CRY", touching her cheek and drawing her finger down the path a tear would make on a human. This suggest that animals might have the able to learn languages, but no spoken or written form. ASL is closely similar to other spoken or written languages as they all display variation in styles and are dialectal. They also display arbitrariness in the relation before form and meaning, allowing a level of analysis that is known as phonology. Both have a system of syntax as well. This means that both human as well as chimpanzees have the ability to acquire language. It appears to be debatable where language is a sole property of human. However, due to the minority of such cases where animals successfully acquire language, we could argue that it is solely unique to humans as we are able to converse in more complexed form of languages.

Nonetheless, this does not mean that animals do not have the ability to communicate. They are able to communicate through the five senses just like how humans can communicate through gaze, touch and gestures.