1

What is linguistics?
This chapter explains how linguistics differs from traditional grammar
studies, and outlines the main subdivisions of the subject.

Most people spend an immense amount of their life talking,

listening and, in advanced societies, reading and writing. Normal
conversation uses 4,000 or 5,000 words an hour. A radio talk,
where there are fewer pauses, uses as many as 8,000 or 9,000
words per hour. A person reading at a normal speed covers 14,000
or 15,000 words per hour. So someone who chats for an hour,
listens to a radio talk for an hour and reads for an hour possibly
comes into contact with 25,000 words in that time. Per day, the
total could be as high as 100,000.

The use of language is an integral part of being human. Children

all over the world start putting words together at approximately
the same age, and follow remarkably similar paths in their speech
development. All languages are surprisingly similar in their basic
structure, whether they are found in South America, Australia or
near the North Pole. Language and abstract thought are closely
connected, and many people think that these two characteristics
above all distinguish human beings from animals.

Insight
Normal humans use language incessantly: speaking, hearing,
reading and writing. They come into contact with tens of
thousands of words each day.

1. What is linguistics? 3
 An inability to use language adequately can affect someone’s status
in society, and may even alter their personality. Because of its
crucial importance in human life, every year an increasing number
of psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, teachers, speech
therapists, computer scientists and copywriters (to name but a
few professional groups) realize that they need to study language
more deeply. So it is not surprising that in recent years one of the
fastest-expanding branches of knowledge has been linguistics – the
systematic study of language.

Linguistics tries to answer the basic questions ‘What is language?’

and ‘How does language work?’. It probes into various aspects of
these problems, such as ‘What do all languages have in common?’,
‘What range of variation is found among languages?’, ‘How does
human language differ from animal communication?’, ‘How does
a child learn to speak?’, ‘How does one write down and analyse
an unwritten language?’, ‘Why do languages change?’, ‘To what
extent are social class differences reflected in language?’ and so on.

What is a linguist?
A person who studies linguistics is usually referred to as a linguist.
The more accurate term ‘linguistician’ is too much of a tongue-
twister to become generally accepted. The word ‘linguist’ is
unsatisfactory: it causes confusion, since it also refers to someone
who speaks a large number of languages. Linguists in the sense of
linguistics experts need not be fluent in languages, though they must
have a wide experience of different types of language. It is more
important for them to analyse and explain linguistic phenomena
such as the Turkish vowel system, or German verbs, than to make
themselves understood in Istanbul or Berlin. They are skilled,
objective observers rather than participants – consumers of languages
rather than producers, as one social scientist flippantly commented.

Insight
A linguist in the sense of someone who analyses languages
need not actually speak the language(s) they are studying.

4
Our type of linguist is perhaps best likened to a musicologist.
A musicologist could analyse a piano concerto by pointing out
the theme and variations, harmony and counterpoint. But such
a person need not actually play the concerto, a task left to the
concert pianist. Music theory bears the same relation to actual
music as linguistics does to language.

How does linguistics differ from traditional grammar?

One frequently meets people who think that linguistics is old
school grammar jazzed up with a few new names. But it differs in
several basic ways.

First, and most important, linguistics is descriptive, not prescriptive.

Linguists are interested in what is said, not what they think ought
to be said. They describe language in all its aspects, but do not
prescribe rules of ‘correctness’.

Insight
Those who work on linguistics describe languages; they do
not dictate how to use them.

It is a common fallacy that there is some absolute standard of

correctness which it is the duty of linguists, schoolteachers,
grammars and dictionaries to maintain. There was an uproar in the
USA when in 1961 Webster’s Third New International Dictionary
of the English Language included words such as ain’t and
phrases such as ants in one’s pants. The editors were deliberately
corrupting the language – or else they were incompetent, argued
the critics. ‘Webster III has thrust upon us a dismaying assortment
of the questionable, the perverse, the unworthy and the downright
outrageous,’ raged one angry reviewer. But if people say ain’t and
ants in one’s pants, linguists consider it important to record the
fact. They are observers and recorders, not judges.

‘I am irritated by the frequent use of the words different to on

radio and other programmes’ ran a letter to a daily paper.

1. What is linguistics? 5
 ‘In my schooldays of fifty years ago we were taught that things
were alike to and different from. Were our teachers so terribly
ignorant?’ This correspondent has not realized that languages
are constantly changing. And the fact that he comments on the
frequent use of different to indicates that it has as much right
to be classified as ‘correct’ as different from.

The notion of absolute and unchanging ‘correctness’ is quite

foreign to linguists. They might recognize that one type of speech
appears, through the whim of fashion, to be more socially
acceptable than others. But this does not make the socially
acceptable variety any more interesting for them than the other
varieties, or the old words any better than new ones. To linguists
the language of a pop singer is not intrinsically worse (or better)
than that of a duke. They would disagree strongly with the Daily
Telegraph writer who complained that ‘a disc jockey talking to the
latest Neanderthal pop idol is a truly shocking experience of verbal
squalor’. Nor do linguists condemn the coining of new words.
This is a natural and continuous process, not a sign of decadence
and decay. A linguist would note with interest, rather than
horror, the fact that you can have your hair washed and set in a
glamorama in North Carolina, or your car oiled at a lubritorium
in Sydney, or that you can buy apples at a fruitique in a trendy
suburb of London.

A second important way in which linguistics differs from

traditional school grammar is that linguists regard the spoken
language as primary, rather than the written. In the past,
grammarians have over-stressed the importance of the written
word, partly because of its permanence. It was difficult to cope
with fleeting utterances before the invention of sound recording.
The traditional classical education was also partly to blame. People
insisted on moulding language in accordance with the usage of
the ‘best authors’ of the ancient world, and these authors existed
only in written form. This attitude began as far back as the second
century bc, when scholars in Alexandria took the authors of fifth-
century Greece as their models. This belief in the superiority of the
written word has continued for over two millennia.

6
But linguists look first at the spoken word, which preceded the
written everywhere in the world, as far as we know. Moreover,
most writing systems are derived from the vocal sounds. Although
spoken utterances and written sentences share many common
features, they also exhibit considerable differences. Linguists
therefore regard spoken and written forms as belonging to
different, though overlapping systems, which must be analysed
separately: the spoken first, then the written.

Insight
Spoken and written language need to be analysed separately.
Both are important, and neither is better than the other.

A third way in which linguistics differs from traditional grammar

studies is that it does not force languages into a Latin-based
framework. In the past, many traditional textbooks have assumed
unquestioningly that Latin provides a universal framework into
which all languages fit, and countless schoolchildren have been
confused by meaningless attempts to force English into foreign
patterns. It is sometimes claimed, for example, that a phrase such
as for John is in the ‘dative case’. But this is blatantly untrue,
since English does not have a Latin-type case system. At other
times, the influence of the Latin framework is more subtle, and
so more misleading. Many people have wrongly come to regard
certain Latin categories as being ‘natural’ ones. For example, it is
commonly assumed that the Latin tense divisions of past, present
and future are inevitable. Yet one frequently meets languages which
do not make this neat threefold distinction. In some languages, it
is more important to express the duration of an action – whether it
is a single act or a continuing process – than to locate the action in
time.

In addition, judgements on certain constructions often turn out

to have a Latin origin. For example, people frequently argue that
‘good English’ avoids ‘split infinitives’ as in the phrase to humbly
apologize, where the infinitive to apologize is ‘split’ by humbly. A
letter to the London Evening Standard is typical of many: ‘Do split
infinitives madden your readers as much as they do me?’

1. What is linguistics? 7
 asks the correspondent. ‘Can I perhaps ask that, at least, judges
and editors make an effort to maintain the form of our language?’
The idea that a split infinitive is wrong is based on Latin. Purists
insist that, because a Latin infinitive is only one word, its English
equivalent must be as near to one word as possible. To linguists, it
is unthinkable to judge one language by the standards of another.
Since split infinitives occur frequently in English, they are as
‘correct’ as unsplit ones.

Insight
Each language must be described separately, and must never
be forced into a framework devised for another.

In brief, linguists are opposed to the notion that any one language
can provide an adequate framework for all the others. They are
trying to set up a universal framework. And there is no reason why
this should resemble the grammar of Latin, or the grammar of any
other language arbitrarily selected from the thousands spoken by
humans.

The scope of linguistics

Linguistics covers a wide range of topics and its boundaries are

difficult to define.

A diagram in the shape of a wheel gives a rough impression of

the range covered.

In the centre is phonetics, the study of human speech sounds.

A good knowledge of phonetics is useful for a linguist. Yet it is
a basic background knowledge, rather than part of linguistics
itself. Phoneticians are concerned with the actual physical sounds,
the raw material out of which language is made. They study the
position of the tongue, teeth and vocal cords during the production
of sounds, and record and analyse sound waves. Linguists, on the

8
Figure 1.1.

other hand, are more interested in the way in which language is

patterned. They analyse the shape or form of these patterns rather
than the physical substance out of which the units of language are
made. The famous Swiss linguist, Ferdinand de Saussure, expressed
the difference well when he compared language with a game of
chess. The linguist is interested in the various moves which the
chessmen make and how they are aligned on the board. It does not
matter whether the chessmen are made of wood or ivory. Their
substance does not alter the rules of the game.

Insight
The patterns of any language are more important than the
physical substance out of which they are made.

1. What is linguistics? 9
 Although phonetics and linguistics are sometimes referred to
together as ‘the linguistic sciences’, phonetics is not as central
to general linguistics as the study of language patterning. For
this reason, information about phonetics has been placed in an
appendix at the end of the book.

In Figure 1.1, phonetics is surrounded by phonology (sound

patterning), then phonology is surrounded by syntax. The term
‘syntax’, used in its broadest sense, refers to both the arrangement
and the form of words. It is that part of language which links
together the sound patterns and the meaning. Semantics (meaning)
is placed outside syntax. Phonology, syntax and semantics are the
‘bread and butter’ of linguistics, and are a central concern of this
book. Together they constitute the grammar of a language.

GRAMMAR

PHONOLOGY SYNTAX SEMANTICS

Figure 1.2.

But a word of warning about differences in terminology must be

added. In some (usually older) textbooks, the word ‘grammar’
has a more restricted use. It refers only to what we have called
the syntax. In these books, the term ‘syntax’ is restricted to the
arrangement of words, and the standard term morphology is used
for their make-up. This is not a case of one group of linguists
being right in their use of terminology, and the other wrong, but
of words gradually shifting their meaning, with the terms ‘syntax’
and ‘grammar’ extending their range.

Insight
The word grammar refers to sound patterns, word patterns
and meaning patterns combined, and not (as in some older
books) word order and word endings only.

10
Around the central grammatical hub comes pragmatics, which
deals with how speakers use language in ways which cannot be
predicted from linguistic knowledge alone. This fast-expanding
topic has connections both with semantics, and with the various
branches of linguistics which link language with the external
world: psycholinguistics (the study of language and mind),
sociolinguistics (the study of language and society), applied
linguistics (the application of linguistics to language teaching),
computational linguistics (the use of computers to simulate
language and its workings), stylistics (the study of language and
literature), anthropological linguistics (the study of language in
cross-cultural settings) and philosophical linguistics (the link
between language and logical thought).

These various branches overlap to some extent, so are hard to

define clearly. Psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics and stylistics are
perhaps the ones which have expanded fastest in recent years. For
this reason, they are given chapters to themselves in this book.

Finally, there are two important aspects of linguistics which have

been omitted from the diagram. The first is historical linguistics,
the study of language change. This omission was inevitable in a
two-dimensional diagram. But if the wheel diagram is regarded
as three-dimensional, as if it were the cross-section of a tree,
then this topic can be included. A grammar can be described at
one particular point in time (a single cut across the tree), or its
development can be studied over a number of years, by comparing
a number of different cuts made across the tree-trunk at different
places.

1. What is linguistics? 11
 Figure 1.3.

Because it is normally necessary to know how a system works

at any one time before one can hope to understand changes,
the analysis of language at a single point in time, or synchronic
linguistics, is usually dealt with before historical or diachronic
linguistics.

The second omission is linguistic typology, the study of different

language types. This could not be fitted in because it spreads over
several layers of the diagram, covering phonology, syntax and
semantics.

This chapter has explained how linguistics differs from traditional

grammar studies, and has outlined the main subdivisions within the
subject. The next chapter will look at the phenomenon studied by
linguistics: language.

12
THINGS TO REMEMBER
 A normal person is likely to come into contact with tens of
thousands of words each day.

 A person who studies linguistics is known as a linguist.

 A (linguistic) linguist analyses languages, but does not

necessarily speak them.

 A linguist describes languages, but does not prescribe (dictate)

how to use them.

 All languages, and all aspects of a language, are interesting.

 Languages change constantly.

 Spoken and written language need to be analysed separately.

 No language must be forced into the framework of another.

 Language patterns are more important to a linguist than the

substance out of which the patterns are formed.

 Language can be analysed at a single point in time (synchronic

linguistics), or its development over a number of years can be
studied (diachronic linguistics).

1. What is linguistics? 13
 2
What is language?
This chapter outlines some important ‘design features’ of human
language, and explores the extent to which they are found in animal
communication. It also looks at the main purposes for which language
is used.

Linguistics can be defined as ‘the systematic study of language’ –

a discipline which describes language in all its aspects and formulates
theories as to how it works.

But what exactly is language? People often use the word in a very
wide sense: ‘the language of flowers’, ‘the language of music’, ‘body
language’ and so on. This book, in common with most linguistics
books, uses the word to mean the specialized sound-signalling
system which seems to be genetically programmed to develop in
humans. Humans can, of course, communicate in numerous other
ways: they can wink, wave, smile, tap someone on the shoulder,
and so on. This wider study is usually known as ‘the psychology of
communication’. It overlaps with linguistics, but is not the concern
of this book.

It is also clear that humans can transfer language to various other

media: written symbols, Braille, sign language, and so on. Sign
language in particular has interesting characteristics which are not
all predictable from the spoken word. However, language based
on sound is more widespread, and perhaps more basic, and so has
been given priority in this book.

14
But can language be defined? And how can it be distinguished
from other systems of animal communication? A useful approach
was pioneered by the American linguist Charles Hockett. This is
to make a list of design features, and to consider whether they are
shared by other animals. Some important ones will be discussed in
the next few pages.

Use of sound signals

When animals communicate with one another, they may do so by
a variety of means. Crabs, for example, communicate by waving
their claws at one another, and bees have a complicated series of
‘dances’ which signify the whereabouts of a source of nectar.

But such methods are not as widespread as the use of sounds,

which are employed by humans, grasshoppers, birds, dolphins,
cows, monkeys, and many other species. So our use of sound is in
no way unique.

Insight
Sound signals have several advantages. They can be used in
the dark, and at some distance, they allow a wide variety of
messages to be sent, and they leave the body free for other
activities.

Humans probably acquired their sound-signalling system at a

fairly late stage in their evolution. This seems likely because all
the organs used in speech have some more basic function. The
lungs are primarily used for breathing. Teeth, lips and tongue are
primarily for eating. The vocal cords (thin strips of membrane deep
in the throat) were used primarily for closing off the lungs in order
to make the rib cage rigid for actions requiring a great effort. When
people lift something heavy, they automatically hold their breath.
This is caused by the closing of the vocal cords. The grunt when
the heavy object is dropped is caused by the air being expelled
as the vocal cords open. Millions of years ago we possibly needed

2. What is language? 15
 a rigid rib cage for swinging in the trees – but humans still need
this mechanism today for such actions as weightlifting, defecation
and childbirth.

Insight
All the organs used in speech have some more basic function,
such as eating or breathing. Humans may therefore have
acquired language at a relatively late stage in their evolution.

Arbitrariness

There is often a recognizable link between the actual signal and

the message an animal wishes to convey. An animal who wishes to
warn off an opponent may simulate an attacking attitude. A cat,
for example, will arch its back, spit and appear ready to pounce.

In human language, the reverse is true. In the great majority of

cases, there is no link whatsoever between the signal and the
message. The symbols used are arbitrary. There is no intrinsic
connection, for example, between the word elephant and the
animal it symbolizes. Nor is the phrase ‘These bananas are bad’
intrinsically connected with food. Onomatopoeic words such as
quack-quack and bang are exceptions – but there are relatively
few of these compared with the total number of words.

Insight
In most words, no link exists between the sounds used and
their meaning.

The need for learning

Many animals automatically know how to communicate without

learning. Their systems of communication are genetically inbuilt.
Bee-dancing, for example, is substantially the same in bee colonies

16
in different parts of the world, with only small variations. Even
in cases where an element of learning is involved, this is usually
minor. In one experiment a chaffinch reared in a soundproof room
away from other chaffinches developed an abnormal type of song.
Yet when the bird was exposed to only occasional tape recordings
of other chaffinches, its song developed normally.

This is quite different from the long learning process needed

to acquire human language, which is culturally transmitted.
A human brought up in isolation simply does not acquire
language, as is shown by the rare studies of children brought
up by animals without human contact. Human language is by
no means totally conditioned by the environment, and there
is almost certainly some type of innate predisposition towards
language in a new-born child. But this latent potentiality can be
activated only by long exposure to language, which requires
careful learning.

Duality
Animals which use vocal signals have a stock of basic sounds
which vary according to species. A cow has under 10, a chicken
has around 20, and a fox over 30. Dolphins have between 20
and 30, and so do gorillas and chimpanzees. Most animals can
use each basic sound only once. That is, the number of messages
an animal can send is restricted to the number of basic sounds, or
occasionally the basic sounds plus a few simple combinations.

Human language works rather differently. Each language has a

stock of sound units or phonemes which are similar in number
to the basic sounds possessed by animals; the average number is
between 30 and 40. But each phoneme is normally meaningless in
isolation. It becomes meaningful only when it is combined with
other phonemes. That is, sounds such as f, g, d, o, mean nothing
separately. They normally take on meaning only when they are
combined together in various ways, as in fog, dog, god.

2. What is language? 17
 This organization of language into two layers – a layer of sounds
which combine into a second layer of larger units – is known as
duality or double articulation. A communication system with
duality is considerably more flexible than one without it, because
a far greater number of messages can be sent.

Insight
The organization of language into two layers, one layer of
mostly meaningless sounds arranged into a second layer of
larger units, makes language powerful and flexible, and is
rare in animal communication.

At one time, it was thought that duality was a characteristic unique

to human language. But now some people claim that it exists also
in birdsong, where each individual note is meaningless. It is the
combination of notes into longer sequences which constitutes a
meaningful melody.

Displacement
Most animals can communicate about things in the immediate
environment only. A bird utters its danger cry only when danger is
present. It cannot give information about a peril which is removed
in time and place. This type of spontaneous utterance is nearer to
a human baby’s emotional cries of pain, hunger or contentment
than it is to fully developed language.

Insight
Unlike most other animals, humans can discuss objects and
events that are removed in time and place.

Human language, by contrast, can communicate about things

that are absent as easily as about things that are present. This
apparently rare phenomenon, known as displacement, does
occasionally occur in the animal world, for example, in the
communication of honey bees. If a worker bee finds a new

18
source of nectar, it returns to the hive and performs a complex
dance in order to inform the other bees of the exact location of the
nectar, which may be several miles away. But even bees are limited
in this ability. They can inform each other only about nectar.
Human language can cope with any subject whatever, and it does
not matter how far away the topic of conversation is in time and
space.

Creativity (productivity)

Most animals have a very limited number of messages they can

send or receive. The male of a certain species of grasshopper, for
example, has a choice of six, which might be translated as follows:

1 I am happy, life is good.

2 I would like to make love.
3 You are trespassing on my territory.
4 She’s mine.
5 Let’s make love.
6 Oh how nice to have made love.

Not only is the number of messages fixed for the grasshopper, but
so are the circumstances under which each can be communicated.
All animals, as far as we know, are limited in a similar way. Bees
can communicate only about nectar. Dolphins, in spite of their
intelligence and large number of clicks, whistles and squawks, seem
to be restricted to communicating about the same things again and
again. And even the clever vervet monkey, who is claimed to make
36 different vocal sounds, is obliged to repeat these over and over.

Insight
Most animals are restricted in what they can communicate
about. Humans can talk about anything, and be understood.

This type of restriction is not found in human language, which

is essentially creative (or productive). Humans can produce

2. What is language? 19
 novel utterances whenever they want to. A person can utter a
sentence which has never been said before, in the most unlikely
circumstances, and still be understood. If, at a party, someone said,
‘There is a purple platypus crawling across the ceiling,’ friends
might think the speaker was drunk or drugged, but they would still
understand the words spoken. Conversely, in an everyday routine
situation, a person is not obliged to say the same thing every time.
At breakfast, someone might say ‘This is good coffee’ on one day,
‘Is this coffee or dandelion tea?’ on the next, and ‘It would be
cheaper to drink petrol’ on the next.

Patterning
Many animal communication systems consist of a simple list of
elements. There is no internal organization within the system.

Human language, on the other hand, is most definitely not a

haphazard heap of individual items. Humans do not juxtapose
sounds and words in a random way. Instead, they ring the changes
on a few well-defined patterns.

Take the sounds a, b, s, t. In English, there are only four possible

ways in which these sounds could be arranged, bats, tabs, stab
or bast (the latter meaning ‘inner bark of lime’, Oxford English
Dictionary). All other possibilities, such as *sbat, *abts, *stba, are
excluded (an asterisk indicates an impossible word or sentence).
The starred words are not excluded because such sequences are
unpronounceable, but because the ‘rules’ subconsciously followed
by people who know English do not allow these combinations,
even for new words. A new washing powder called Sbat would
be unlikely to catch on, since English does not permit the initial
sequence sb, even though in some other languages (for example,
ancient Greek) this combination is not unusual.

Similarly, consider the words burglar, loudly, sneezed, the. Here

again, only three combinations are possible: The burglar sneezed

20
loudly, Loudly sneezed the burglar and (perhaps) The burglar
loudly sneezed. All others are impossible, such as *The loudly
burglar sneezed, or *Sneezed burglar loudly the. And had the four
words been burglars, a, sneezes, loudly, there is no way in which
these could be combined to make a well-formed English sentence.
*A burglars is an impossible combination, and so is *burglars
sneezes. In brief, English places firm restrictions on which items
can occur together, and the order in which they come.

From this, it follows that there is also a fixed set of possibilities for
the substitution of items. In the word bats, for example, a could
be replaced by e or i, but not by h or z, which would give *bhts or
*bzts. In the sentence The burglar sneezed loudly, the word burglar
could be replaced by cat, butcher, robber, or even (in a children’s
story) by engine or shoe – but it could not be replaced by into, or
amazingly, or they, which would give ill-formed sequences such as
*The into sneezed loudly or *The amazingly sneezed loudly.

Every item in language, then, has its own characteristic place in the
total pattern. It can combine with certain specified items, and be
replaced by others.
The – burglar – sneezed – loudly

A – robber – coughed – softly

That – cat – hissed – noisily

Figure 2.1.

Language can therefore be regarded as an intricate network of

interlinked elements in which every item is held in its place and
given its identity by all the other items. No word (apart from the
names of some people or objects) has an independent validity or
existence outside that pattern. The elements of language can be
likened to the players in a game of soccer. A striker, or a goal-
keeper, has no use or value outside the game. But placed among
the other players, a striker acquires an identity and value. In the
same way, linguistic items such as the, been, very, only acquire
significance as part of a total language network.

2. What is language? 21
 Structure dependence
Let us now look again at the network of interlocking items which
constitutes language. A closer inspection reveals another, more
basic way in which language differs from animal communication.

Look at the sentences: The penguin squawked. It squawked.

The penguin which slipped on the ice squawked. Each of these
sentences has a similar basic structure consisting of a subject and
a verb (Figure 2.2).

The penguin
It squawked
The penguin which slipped on the ice

Figure 2.2.

The number of words in each sentence is no guide whatsoever to its

basic structure. Simple counting operations are quite irrelevant to
language. For example, suppose someone was trying to work out
how to express the past in English. They would have no success
at all if they tried out a strategy such as ‘Add -ed to the end of
the third word.’ They might, accidentally, produce a few good
sentences such as:

Uncle Herbert toasted 17 crumpets.

But more often, the results would be quite absurd:

*Clarissa hate frogs-ed.

*The girl who-ed hate frogs scream.

In fact, it is quite impossible for anybody to form sentences and

understand them unless they realize that each one has an inaudible,
invisible structure, which cannot be discovered by mechanical
means such as counting. Once a person has realized this, they can
locate the component to which the past tense -ed must be added

22
even if they have never heard or said the sentence before, and even
if it contains a totally new verb, as in:

The penguin shramped the albatross.

In other words, language operations are structure-dependent –

they depend on an understanding of the internal structure of a
sentence, rather than on the number of elements involved. This
may seem obvious to speakers of English. But the rarity, or perhaps
absence, of this property in animal communication indicates its
crucial importance. Its presence has not been proved in any animal
system (though birdsong may turn out to be structure-dependent,
according to some researchers).

Moreover, the types of structure-dependent operation found in

language are often quite complicated, and involve considerably
more than the mere addition of items (as in the case of the past
tense). Elements of structure can change places, or even be omitted.
For example, in one type of question, the first verbal element
changes places with the subject:

1 2
[That dirty child] [must] wash,
has the related question
2 1
[Must] [that dirty child] wash?
And in the sentence,
Billy swims faster than Henrietta,

it is generally agreed that the sentence means ‘Billy swims faster

than Henrietta swims’, and that the second occurrence of swims is
‘understood’.

Such sophistication is mind-boggling compared with the 36 cries of

the vervet monkey, or even the relatively complex dances by which
bees indicate the whereabouts of honey to their colleagues.

2. What is language? 23
 Human language versus animal communication
So far, the main similarities and differences between human and
animal communication can be summed up as follows:

Human language is a signalling system which uses sounds,

a characteristic shared by a large number of animal systems.
In animal communication, there is frequently a connection
between the signal and the message sent, and the system is mainly
genetically inbuilt. In human language, the symbols are mostly
arbitrary, and the system has to be painstakingly transmitted
from one generation to another. Duality and displacement – the
organization of language into two layers, and the ability to talk
about absent objects and events – are extremely rare in the animal
world. No animal communication system has both these features.
Creativity, the ability to produce novel utterances, seems not to
be present in any natural communication system possessed by
animals. Finally, patterning and structure dependence may also
be unique language features.

To summarize: language is a patterned system of arbitrary

sound signals, characterized by structure dependence, creativity,
displacement, duality and cultural transmission.

This is true of all languages in the world, which are remarkably

similar in their main design features. There is no evidence that any
language is more ‘primitive’ than any other. There are certainly
primitive cultures. A primitive culture is reflected in the vocabulary
of a language, which might lack words common in advanced
societies. But even the most primitive tribes have languages whose
underlying structure is every bit as complex as English or Russian
or Chinese.

But one other similarity links human language with animal

communication: it is predestined to emerge. Just as frogs inevitably
croak, and cows moo, so humans are prearranged for talking.

24
Human language is innately guided. Human infants are not born
speaking, but they know how to acquire any language to which
they are exposed. They are drawn towards the noises coming out of
human mouths, and they instinctively know how to analyse speech
sounds. Bees present a parallel case: they are not born equipped with
an inbuilt encyclopedia of flowers. Instead, they are preprogrammed
to pay attention to important flower characteristics – especially
scent. So they quickly learn how to recognize nectar-filled blooms,
and do not waste time flying to kites or bus stops.

Origin of language
Language is a highly developed form of animal signalling. But there
is a missing link in the chain. How, and when, did we start to talk?

Until recently, most linguists regarded this fascinating topic as

outside linguistics, many agreeing with the nineteenth-century
linguist William Dwight Whitney that ‘the greater part of what is
said and written upon it is mere windy talk’.

Yet suddenly, language origin has become a trendy topic. Chunks

of information are being slotted into place in a giant evolutionary
jigsaw puzzle whose picture is slowly emerging.

Language probably developed in east Africa, around 100,000 years

ago. Three preconditions must have existed. First, humans had to
view the world in certain common ways: they noticed objects and
actions, for example. Second, they were able to produce a range of
sounds – a spin-off of walking upright, according to one view. Third,
they must have attained the ‘naming insight’, the realization that
sound sequences can be symbols which ‘stand for’ people and objects.

These preconditions enabled early humans to build up a store

of words. But what about linguistic ‘rules’, conventional word
arrangements? In all probability, rules came about among early

2. What is language? 25
 humans in much the same way as new rules emerge in any
language today. Briefly, preferences tend to become habits, and
habits become ‘rules’.

Original language preferences possibly reflected ways in which

humans view the world. Most languages put words for actions
near the objects which are acted upon, for example, ‘The fisherman
caught a fish’, as in English, or ‘The fisherman a fish caught’t,
the order preferred in, say, Turkish. So preferences to habits to
rules may be a natural progression. There was probably always
flexibility, which is why all languages are not the same. Eventually,
an instinctive need to maintain patterns possibly overruled any
desire to preserve a strict world-to-language link.

The role of language

But why did language begin? Social chit-chat, the meaningless

small talk of everyday life, may have played a key role, as it does
today: ‘Hallo, how nice to see you. How are you? Isn’t the weather
terrible?’ Keeping in touch via talking could have replaced the
friendly grooming indulged in by primates, according to one view.
It has even been called ‘grooming talking’.

The use of language for persuading and influencing others has

probably always been important. Yet ‘information talking’ –
swapping news and conveying essential commands – may not be
as basic as was once assumed. It is prominent primarily in public
forms of language, less so in private conversations, which form the
bulk of day-to-day interactions.

Language can of course be used to communicate feelings and

emotions, though this aspect of language is not well developed.
Humans, like other primates, can convey emotions via screams,
grunts, sobs, gestures and so on. So they need language only to
confirm and elaborate these more primitive signals.

26
These days, various other biologically less important functions of
language are also found.

Humans may use language for purely aesthetic reasons. In writing

poetry, for example, people manipulate words in the same way as
they might model clay or paint a picture. Or they may talk in order
to release nervous tension, a function seen when people mutter to
themselves in anger and frustration.

This chapter has listed some important design features of language,

and considered to what extent they are found in other animal
communication systems. It has also mentioned some of the main
purposes for which language is used.

The next chapter will outline the major directions taken by

linguists over the past two centuries, as they explored the thickets
of language.

2. What is language? 27
 THINGS TO REMEMBER
 The sound sequences used in language are arbitrary: mostly,
there is no link between the sounds and the message being
conveyed.

 Language is double-layered. A stock of basic sounds is

combined into larger units.

 Double-layering makes language flexible and powerful.

 Language can communicate about people and events removed

in time and place.

 Human language is ‘creative’, in that novel utterances can be

produced.

 Every human language rings the changes on a finite number

of patterns.

 Language is structure-dependent in that speakers understand

invisible, inaudible patterns.

 Language possibly emerged around 100,000 years ago.

 Social chit-chat may be the main reason why language

emerged.

 Information talking is not the main role of language:

persuasion and interaction may be more important.

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