Psychology of Language Lab 1: Hockett's Design Featurs

Psychology of Language Lab 1: Hockett's Design Featurs

1. Fill in the following chart for Hockett's 13 design features. Indicate whether or not drum signals and the signals used by baseball umpires exhibit each of Hockett's 13 design features.

Design Feature	Drum signals	Baseball umpire signals

1. Vocal/Auditory
2. Broadcast/received
3. Rapid fading
4. Interchangeable
5. Total feedback
6. Specialization
7. Semanticity
8. Arbitrariness
9. Discreteness
10. Displacement
11. Productivity
12. Traditional transmission
13. Dual patterning

2. Choose another communication system (used by either animals or humans) that was not discussed in class. For each of the 13 design features, say whether this system does or does not have this feature and explain your answer.

3. The values of some the 13 design features are dependent (linked) to others for either practical or logical reasons. For each design feature, list all other features whose values depend on the value of the first feature. Explain why you think the design features are linked.

Animal communication & non-linguistic human communication systems URLs:

http://www.argyroneta.com/s4b/sem02.html

A paper with explanations of various types of signs and their interpretations.

http://www.yourdictionary.com/library/ling002.html

Light hearted essay about animal communication

http://www.angelfire.com/sc2/nhplanguage/

The homepage for a project conducted by a seminar at the University of Leuven in Belgium. Includes a paper reviewing evidence for and against the existence of language in apes, with particular attention to Savage-Rumbaugh’s work with Kanzi, the bonobo chimpanzee. Features a useful collection of links.

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Anthropology/apelang.html

Includes links to general Web sites concerned with primate research and primate communication, books and texts, newsgroups, and bulletin boards.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/chimp_5-6.html

The transcript of a PBS segment looking at both sides of the issue of language use among apes. Focuses on the work of Rumbaugh and Savage-Rumbaugh with Kanzi, the bonobo chimpanzee.

http://natzoo.si.edu/zooview/exhibits/thinktan/olp/olp.htm

Describes a language training program for orangutans at the National Zoo in Washington, DC, in which orangutans use computers with touch screens.

http://www.cages.org/research/pepperberg/index.html

Describes Irene Pepperberg's work with African Grey Parrots. Her claims for language in parrots are reported in favorable terms here

http://www.abc.net.au/oceans/whale/song.htm

Whale songs