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:
“There are two kinds of fathers in traditional households: the fathers of sons and the fathers of daughters. These two kinds of fathers sometimes co-exist in one and the same man. For instance, Daughter’s Father kisses his little girl goodnight, strokes her hair, hugs her warmly, then goes into the next room where he becomes Son’s Father, who says in a hearty voice, perhaps with a light punch on the boy’s shoulder: “Goodnight, Son, see ya in the morning.””
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)