Bees do not use language to communicate.
Another example of nominal graded communication is the dance of the bee. A honey bee may wander until he finds a flower bed. She then returns to the hive and communicates this information to the rest of the bees.
They in turn, fly directly to the flowers!
How does the bee communicate, did you say? I'm glad you asked because it gives me the opportunity to tell the ONE joke I have accrued since I started teaching three decades ago. . . WHY DO BEES HUM? (Please click on the "Notes" for the ANSWER)
Bees have no words. They create Nominal Graded messages.
Granted, the joke is as old as I am, but it is germane to our discussion here. There are no words in the bee's message. It is NOT language. It is a nominal graded communication.
It is graded because the bee performs a dance (motor pattern) on the inside wall of the hive.
It is an oval or figure-eight which is rotated relative to the sun and gravity. It is the degree of rotatio that informs the other bees of the direction. Likewise, the degree of vigor of motion of the abdomen tells the distance.
It is nominal because the bee's dance is dictated by internal processes and conditions, such as the build-up of fatigue acids and/or the need in the body for moisture etc. (Please click on the notes to see the bees dance.)
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Newly born infants do not have language. They create Nominal Graded messages.
These movements that communicate meaning are signs. (Keep in mind that these are different than the signs in Sign Language. We will see how later.)
Another important example of nominal graded communication is the crying of an infant in the first three months of life. No one teaches the baby how to communicate so effectively. It is instinctive and determined by internal body processes.
The degree of intensity (e.g., cooing versus crying) determines the message meaning. Interestingly, you and I are wired to respond to an infants cry, just as the bees who watch the dance are wired to respond to it.
Hence, the baby's cry is more compelling and is more difficult to ignore than you might expect, even for other babies. Put one crying baby in a nursery of ten, and soon you will have eleven crying babies.
Cicadas do not have language. They create Nominal Combinative messages.
To experience that delightful sound, please click on the notes below.
Almost equally disturbing is the buzz of the 17 year Cicada. This sound is instinctive and hence, nominal, but the signal is combinative. In its clamor are combinations of clicks and scrapes.
When the order of the clicks and scrapes is changed a different message is communicated.
Like the crying of the child, which is a sign of a need for attention, the click and scrapes of the cicada are signs to help them arrange meetings that are critical to the survival of their species.
This is because, after 17 years in the soil as a grub, Cicadas emerge as winged insects with a mandate to procreate and a window of only small number of weeks in which to accomplish it.
Parrots do not use language. They create Nominal Combinative messages.
Communication is the name of the game for the survival of this species. Hence, their signals which are signs, are important, but they are NOT language.
For more information about cicadas, please click on the notes below.
(Remember, however, that material from the notes are not included in the exams.)
A nominal combinative communication which is more esoteric is found in some birds, particularly parrots.
Their calls are clearly combinative, but unlike the baby's cry or the cicada's buzz they are not instinctive but have to be learned.
The propensity to learn them, however, is instinctive and hence, the calls are considered nominal.
Babies from 3 to 6 months do not use language. They create Nominal Combinative messages--almost.
In the case of parrots (and similar birds) their flexibility in acquiring sounds is surprising, and they may learn a number of calls made up of human speech sounds.
The difference is that the meaning inferred on the sounds by a human is not shared by the bird. Polly may look adoringly at another cute parrot and say "Polly wants a cracker." But food is probably not what is on his mind.
For more information about parrots, please click on the notes below.
To continue...A close fit for humans, in terms of nominal combinative, communication is the babbling of the infant from 3 to 6 months. It is nominal because it is instinctive.
Babbling is NOT language but it is a "Species Specific" behavior which is a harbinger of its development.
All humans, regardless of race, culture or location begin to babble at around the same time of development. (Even deaf children begin to babble but quickly give it up and attend to a more rewarding though analogous activity using the hands).
I know of no other species that engage in babbling activity. As Eric Lenneberg would say, it is "Species Specific." It is combinative, because it involves the utterance of sound sequences.
It is here, however, that my analogy breaks down somewhat, because a change in the sound sequence of babbling does not to my knowledge indicate a change in meaning.
Babbling is, nevertheless, a sign, that a child is content for the time. It is a good activity for motor and auditory development.
Expressive Communications involve more control, with emotional decisions being made by the communicator.
Expressive (or emotional) Communications are more complex than nominal, being mediated by the areas of the brain dealing with emotion. Hence, there is more room for decision making on the part of the communicating participants.
A very common example of an expressive graded signal is the whimpering versus the snarling behaviors of animals, notably a dog.
Humans too, engage in a lot of expressive graded communication. The best examples are provided in a book by Edward T. Hall on Body Language.
The signs of body language are NOT language. They are an expressive graded communication.
If you go out on a cruise, for example, with a person whose body is extremely tense, you might infer from this sign, a lack of confidence in the ship.
On the other hand, if the boat was in danger of capsizing and your friend was lounging lazily in the passageway, you might infer from this sign, a lack of concern despite the situation.
Although, these signs are important, they are NOT examples of language.
It's a wonderful and important book, but ironically, it is NOT a book about language. It is a book about signs, emotional graded signs to be exact.
Graded in the sense that messages are conveyed by a degree of body function a change of voice pitch or intensity, speed of movement, degree of distance, or body tension, etc.
It is expressive because it involves emotional issues.
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Swearing
As an interesting aside to the last Baby Picture, the Dad had just received a rejection letter for a job and had ripped the letter up which totally caught the attention of the Baby who relished in the continuation of the process, and was great therapy for the Dad.
Now to continue.
This, of course, was NOT language. It is an Expressive Graded Communication, and very clearly communicated, I might add. Curiously, the psycholinguists who classified these signals could not find an example of expressive combinative communication. But, I really believe I can supply one!
You can judge for yourselves. The example I would give is swearing. This is NOT language. It is an expressive combinative communication.
The left hemisphere is typically a segmental (Language) processor. The right hemisphere is a gestalt processor.
Show me someone who is swearing and I will show you someone who is mad, surprised, scared, happy, in love, in pain, (excluding Tourettes Syndrome) -- all emotional states.
It is a combinative communication. If I hit my thumb with a hammer, it doesn't feel like I have communicated if I say, "Oh green grass!." Hence, changing the combination of sounds does change the meaning.
Here is further evidence why I say swearing is not language. It is pretty well known now that for most individuals, the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain is a segmental processor.
Hence, it carries the burden of language acquisition and use.
The right hemisphere is a gestalt processor, which ingests information in whole units. This includes such things as memories of pictures, maps and even songs.
It's the right hemisphere that swears.
Strangely, there are in the right hemisphere words and phases as they appear in songs or over-learned cliches and expressive epithets.
More like songs than language, these are pretty much set in their order and tone.
Hence, when I have a severe injury to my left cerebral hemisphere, I may find myself unable to use words to explain my plight or to understand what is being said to me. But, in my attempt to speak, in the absence of language, swear words may stream out, even to my own amazement.
(I may never have used these words before in my life, but perhaps having had teenagers, I may have heard them, and that is enough!).
In other words, when I have lost language ability, I may still be able to say many of those phrases that are not language, such as swear words, old songs, formal expressions (e.g., "How are you?") and recitations...
Signs are calls to action, and are necessary for survival.
...like the days of the week, counting from one to ten, and others. Hence, swearing is not language. It is a sign of an emotional state . (See comments in Notes on swearing parrot.)
Up to this point, all of the types of communication we have discussed that were not language and based on signs. To a large extent we can see that signs are calls to action.
The dance of the bee, babies crying, cicadas buzzing, birds calling, dogs snarling, people raising their voices or swearing all demand some response--go there, feed me, hold me, stay away, etc.
Likewise, we have seen that signs are also very important, being necessary for survival. Where would the cicadas be if they couldn't communicate?
Signs typically have an iconic or cause and effect connection to their referents
Signs, in addition, are often easy to learn. In some cases there is a genetically based connection, like in the bee's dance. In many cases there is an iconic (look-alike) connection between the sign and the thing it indicates.
A human footprint in the sand, for example, resembles a human foot and indicates that someone was there recently. For people like Robinson Crusoe , who was alone on a desert island in a part of the world inhabited by cannibals, this was definitely a call to action--look out! (See the notes for an example of a signs which is both iconic ad cause and effect.)
Signs are often connected by a cause and effect relationship to their referents (the things they indicate).
Messages transmitted by signs are not language.
We have learned through experience that dark clouds may signify rain or that a loud voice may indicate anger.
As a child I thought that clergy were always angry because they preached in loud voices. Sometimes signs are learned by simple conditioning principles, as in the case of Pavlov's dog who learned that a bell signified food.
Below, in the notes, are some examples of street signs that posses many of these qualities we have been discussing. How many of them can you read ?
So, if all these modes of communication which are based on signs, as important as they may be, are NOT language, then what is language?
Language is a Predicative Combinative Communication which uses a signal called a symbol.
And how does it differ from nominal (graded or combinative) or expressive (graded or combinative) communications?
- Language is Predicative Combinative and is based on a signal called a symbol. How are predicative messages different from nominal and expressive communications, and what is the difference between a symbol and a sign?
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These are the topics for the next lecture on "What Language Is"