Blog 3

I think that the biggest factor that distinguishes humans and animals differently has to do with the basics of language. The idea of language is not so simplistic, but the ideas of what make up language are very simple. I believe that the most important characteristic that distinguishes and differentiates animals and humans is displacement. As George Yule states" displacement allows language users to talk about things and events that are not present at that certain time." Yule discusses that only humans can decipher between the past and the present. For instance, he says “displacement allows us to talk about things and places (e.g. angels, fairies, Santa Claus, Superman, Heaven, Hell) whose existence we cannot be sure of." For example, when a frog "ribbits" he does not have a frog based (-ed) at the end if he was explaining something in the past. Everything that a frog does is the exact same, but with a few variations depending on his environment. This example shows that animals cannot explain the past and the present. They can only explain the here and now. In the article, Yule uses the example of a cat’s meow in relation to the past and present. Yule states" animal communication is generally considered to lack this property." They lack this property because they can only explain certain feelings and emotions. There is one exception though. Yule gives an example of bees in his article. Even though they are not fully capable of displacement, they can do certain things to explain where something might be located; even though they still have shortcomings. In the article bees will do a dance to explain where a beehive or a particular set of honey can be found. On the other hand, Yule’s discredits this by saying even though it is similar to displacement they are not using displacement. He says this because theses bees cannot explain vertical distances; they can only describe horizontal differences. This causes a huge problem for Yule because he thinks that since they cannot do that, there is now way they can communicate on the past and present. I believe that displacement is the most important because if you cannot communicate the when and where, understanding and communicating are near impossible. For example, think of a world when there were no have specific days or months. How would you tell someone when and where to meet you? It is obvious that life as a human would be near impossible. In conclusion, the one main point about communicating with others is not how you talk, but about how you can communicate during the past and the present.

Blog Prompt 3: Human and Animal Communication

Blog Prompt 3
Due Sept. 4, 2009

Write between 300-600 words in formal standard English on one of the following subjects. Feel free to cite the texts, or the clips that we watched, as you make your points.


1. Which of the five properties of language described in Yule do you believe to be the most important in differentiating between human and animal communication?

2. Many people believe the animals that we live with -- our pets -- understand us and communicate with us. Do you believe that a domestic animal is capable of more or less communicative power than what is described in this chapter? You might consider issues of tone, gesture, or behavior -- Yule does not give much attention to these aspects of communication.