Linguistic Analysis

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Human Language versus Animal Communication There are five key aspects or “design features” that will be discussed in this paper that portray and compare the difference between human language and animal communication including interchangeability, specialization, semanticity, displacement and prevarication. Evidence of these differences will branch from information in the text fifth edition Contemporary Linguistic Analysis by William O’Grady and John Archibald as well as personal experience with animals, but the main question being analyzed is can animal communication be qualified on the same level as “human language”? Interchangeability is described as all members of a species being able to send as well as receive messages. As functioning humans we send and receive all kinds of messages everyday weather they are vocal or non-vocal and there is no question that animals can make use of interchangeability as well, although on a different level then humans. Animals mostly do this through sounds and facial expressions rather then actual words and written language as humans do. An example of this would be when I babysat my cousins dog Barney and he whimpered to signal to me that he had to go pee and I said “go get the leash” and he quickly jogged over and came back with the leash in his mouth therefore he sent me the message that he had to go outside and pee and as well received the message that I needed the leash to take him out to pee. Another feature of communication that is used by both humans and animals is specialization, when the communication system serves no other function then to communicate. Some do not agree animal communication has title to specialization because their communication can be portrayed as mainly symptomatic, meaning it is not only a function of communicating but an internal state being voiced in the moment of tension, for
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