Chapter 3- Lesson 2 FEATURES OF HUMAN LANGUAGE BY HOCKETT

• A lot of scholars have defined the characteristics of human language. Charles Hockett (1967) has created a checklist for language. It is like a set of ingredients that makes up all human language. These are the design features incorporating the amazing similarities that all languages all over the world display together.
•  Vocal Auditory Channel – Human language occurs as vocal type of communication, which perceived by hearing. The basic mode of communication by the vast majority makes use of sounds, secondary to writing. An exception are the people who use sign language in communication.
• Broadcast transmission and directional reception – Message goes out in all directions; receiver can tell what direction of the message comes from. (Sign language uses line-of-sight transmission instead.)
• Rapid Fading – Message is transitory and does not persist.
• Interchangeability – Transmitters can become receivers, and vice versa; we can each repeat any message.
• Total Feedback – We can hear ourselves while we speak.
• Specialization – Humans have lips, tongue, throat, etc. and each organ has its own specific function in speech.
• Semanticity – Every signal there is a corresponding meaning. Symbols used (phonemes, morphemes) have particular meanings. 
• Arbitrariness – Symbols are arbitrary: the work "loud" can be spoken softly;

  "whale" is a smaller word than "microorganism";"dog","perro", "chien", "hund", "canis" all means the same.
• Discreteness – The basic speech units can be categorized. Symbols are made by combining smaller symbols that differ discontinuously (e.g., "bin", "pin"). 
• Displacement – Sometimes we speak about the things in the past or future, and our language allows us to do. We can talk about the distant things like planets and even things which do not exits
• Productivity – We can create never-before-hand utterances. (Novel utterances can be made and understood.)
• Traditional Transmission – Languages are socially learned (not genetic), and are passed down through generations.
• The duality patterning – The smaller symbols ("p", "t") have no meaning of their own, and can be combined in various ways ("pit", "tip").