[Xmca-l] language and simply communication

[Andy Blunden]

James, interesting that you use the term "simply 
communication" to distinguish the natural use of signs in 
the animal kingdom from the exclusively human use of 
language. I am interested though in getting to what exactly 
that difference is, which cannot easily be captured in words 
like "communication" versus "language".

I don't think the distinction can be captured in terms of 
language structure, either. For example, it may be the case 
that only and all human language is recursive, where as 
systems of animal calls are not, but this is a purely 
*external* differentiation. It is not the *essential* 
difference, the "difference which  makes a difference," so 
to speak.

Vygotsky gives us the clue when he shows how children 
acquire words in the process of learning to "command 
themselves," and how as a result, the entire perceptual 
field of a human being is structured (as Hegel believed) by 
signs, mainly words, not just colour and movement. So the 
difference which makes a difference is the *conscious 
control* of sign-use, which is gradually acquired in 
cultural development (both ontological and phylogenetic).

So even a single-word sentence like "Mine!" can be language, 
whereas the 50-odd distinctive calls used by gorillas do 
*not* constitute language.

What do you think?

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 21/12/2018 7:56 am, James Ma wrote:
...
> Second, animal utterances, however eloquently produced or 
> approximated like human ones, are simply communication.  
> It would be rather absurd for formal linguists to think of 
> animal utterances as language, given that in a strict 
> sense no animals are in effect as able to sustain a 
> conversation as humans do!
>
>
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