Traditional transmission is a design feature of language that the anthropologist Charles F. Hockett developed to distinguish the features of human language from those of animal communication. He discovered thirteen features that all human languages have. Animals might communicate with some of the thirteen basic design features of language but never with all of them. Traditional transmission is exemplified by the fact that language is learned in social groups. Although there is disagreement about how much linguistic capability humans are born with the only way that humans learn language and refine its use as they grow is in social settings.
Famous quotes containing the word traditional:
“The traditional husband/father has always made choices concerning career, life-styles, values, and directions for the whole family, but he generally had another person on the team—called a wife. And his duties were always clear: Bring home the bacon and take out the garbage.”
—Donna N. Douglass (20th century)