Design Features of Language

The design features of language

Design Features of language

Charles Hockett’s descriptive characteristics of language

Mode of Communication

Refers to the means by which messages are transmitted and received.

Semanticity

The property requiring that all signals in a communication system have a meaning or a function.

Pragmatic Function

The specific communicative purpose or role an utterance plays in a social context. Must serve some useful purpose.

Interchangeability

Refers to the ability of individuals to both transmit and receive messages.

Cultural Transmission

There are aspects of language that we can acquire only through communicative interaction with other users of the system.

Arbitrariness

Refers to the fact that the meaning is not in any way predictable from the form, nor is the form dictated by the meaning.

Discreteness

The property of language that allows us to combine discrete units in order to create larger communicative units.

Displacement

The ability of a language to communicate about things, actions, and ideas that are not present in space or time while speakers are communicating.

Productivity

Refers to a language’s capacity for novel messages to be built up out of discrete units.