The theme of differences between human language and animal communication system

Abstract EN

The assertion that humans differ from animals in their use of language has been the subject of much discussion as scientists have investigated language use by non-human species.

Researchers have taught apes, dolphins, and parrots various systems of humanlike communication, and recently, the study of animal language and behaviour in, its natural environment rather than in the laboratory has increased.

It is my aim to discuss human language within an evolutionary perspective,to step across disciplinary boundaries of different fields of science, and to show how we may consider language only as one of the many forms that animal communication has taken and that it may not be out of reach of other species.

Parts of the problem of differentiating man from the other animals is the problem of describing how human language differs from any kind of communicative behaviour carried on by non-human or pre-human species.

Until we have done this, we cannot know how much it means to assert that only man has the power of speech.

(Hockett, 1967, p.570).

In order to contrast human language with animal communication, the linguist Charles Hockett (1967, p.

574-580) introduces a generally accepted check list for language.