8/11/2019 Hockett_comment on design features.pdf

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/hockettcomment-on-design-featurespdf 1/4

Trustees of Indiana University

Anthropological Linguistics

A Comment on Design FeaturesAuthor(s): Charles F. HockettSource: Anthropological Linguistics, Vol. 32, No. 3/4 (Fall - Winter, 1990), pp. 361-363Published by: The Trustees of Indiana University on behalf of Anthropological LinguisticsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30028165 .

Accessed: 08/01/2011 11:58

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at  .http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=tiu. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of 

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Trustees of Indiana University and Anthropological Linguistics are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,

preserve and extend access to Anthropological Linguistics.

http://www.jstor.org

8/11/2019 Hockett_comment on design features.pdf

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/hockettcomment-on-design-featurespdf 2/4

NOTES AND RESEARCH REPORTS

361

1988

Mile-long Plymouth

with Fishtail

Fenders.

In Honor

of

Mary

Haas

(papers

from the Haas Festival

Conference on Native American

Linguistics,

1986),

edited by William Shipey, 787-93. Mouton de Gruyter.

A Comment on

Design

Features

CHARLES F.

HOCKETT

Cornell

University

and Rice

University

In the course of his

interesting

review of a recent

colloquium report

on the

origin

of

language,

M. Lionel Bender offers the

following

aside:

Another unfortunate diversion was introduced

by

the so-called

design

features

of

Hockett. The Hockett features are a

hodgepodge;

hey

do not

distinguish among

the

various elements

of

a communication

system:

the sender

and

receiver,

the

process

of

encoding

and

decoding,

the

code

itself,

and the channel. This confusion

about the nature of purported properties and the search for a crucialproperty

has resulted in

linguists' talking past

each

other

in

language

origin

discussions.

[AnthropologicalLinguistics 32:180]

Bender

gives

no

references,

rendering

it difficult to know

just

what version of

the

design-features approach

he is

talking

about. The last

paper

devoted

ex-

plicitly

to this

topic

was

Hockett

and Altmann

1968.

As that

essay

is

easily

available and contains a

listing

of all earlier

treatments,

we need not include

the

complete

bibliography

here.

I wish to offer two comments on Bender's

aside,

the first

by way

of clarifica-

tion,

the second a sort of caution.

(1) My

version of the

design-feature approach,

begun

in the

mid-195os,

was

undertaken not in the context of

glottogonic

research

but

in that of

trying

to be

less

vague

about

human

species specificity.

Every anthropological

treatise then

known to

me,

and

any

number

of other

books,

insisted on

the

germinal impor-

tance,

the

universality,

and the

uniqueness

of

language.

Doubtless

very

true,

but

pretty vague

unless we know in

just

what

ways

human

language

differs

from the communicative

systems

of other animals.

So a

comparative

examina-

tion seemed in order.

Certainly the original set of seven features (Hockett 1959) was rather a

hodgepodge.

As late as

1963,

when the list

had

expanded

to

sixteen,

it still

was. That this should have

been so is neither

surprising

nor

improper.

In the

first

place,

in the search for

potentially

recurrent

properties

one must

look

at

all

aspects

of communication

(what

Bender

calls the elements

of

a communi-

8/11/2019 Hockett_comment on design features.pdf

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/hockettcomment-on-design-featurespdf 3/4

362

NOTES

AND RESEARCH

REPORTS

cative

system),

and

noteworthy

characteristics

may crop up

in

any

of

them.

Furthermore,

insights-good

and bad-do not arrive in a

neat,

organized

fash-

ion, and it would be uncollegial to keep them private until such an order emer-

ges.

Meanwhile,

the

zoologist

Stuart A. Altmann had undertaken a

surprisingly

similar

investigation

from a somewhat different

point

of view. After

discover-

ing

each other's

work and

corresponding

about

it,

we

prepared

a

joint

summa-

ry

and restatement

(the 1968 paper already

referred

to).

That

treatment

is

carefully organized

to

reflect the various constituents and

aspects

of the com-

munication situation. I do not think

anyone

could

validly

characterize it as

a

hodgepodge. (But

perhaps

Bender did not know of this

particular paper.)

Bender's remarks are reminiscent of a comment made many years ago by a

psychologist

whose

identity

I have

unfortunately forgotten.

The

earlier

critic

lamented

my

itemization of

design

features because he felt it could

keep people

from

looking

for

others,

which

might

well be more

important.

Of

course,

no

frame of

reference should

forestall

any investigator's inquiry,

but when that

happens,

as it

sometimes

does,

one must allow for the

possibility

that

part

of

the

fault lies

with the

investigator.

(2)

The

transfer

of the

design-feature

idea from the

comparative-contrastive

context

to that

of

glottogonic

speculation

was a natural

one,

and was made

within a few years of the original notion. But I do not understand the connec-

tion,

hinted at

by

Bender,

between

design

features

and a search

for a 'crucial

property.'

There

is

nothing

in

any

of Altmann's or

my publications

to

suggest

that there is

some

single

essential feature that

differentiates

language

from all

other

communicative

systems;

if

anything,

our

approach suggests just

the

op-

posite.

The

crucial

property

notion is like

the old idea that

our ancestors rather

suddenly

crossed a

Rubicon

by

learning

to

speak.

Now,

to be

sure,

there

may

actually

have been

some

single

most vital

step, genetic

or cultural or

both,

in

the

emergence

of

language

from what

preceded;

and,

if there

was,

the feature

involved

may

be one we

have not

yet

identified. But I believe a much more

fruitful

working assumption

is what some

investigators

have

called the mosa-

ic

(or perhaps now,

the

hodgepodge )

theory.

This

theory proposes

that the

universal

human

institution we call

language,

no

matter how well

integrated

or monolithic

it now

seems to

be,

came

into

being

as

the result of the

serendip-

itous

coming

together

of

various

innovations that had occurred at diverse

times

and

places,

some of which

may

not at the outset have had

any particular

con-

nection

with

one another.

For

example,

although

the architecture of the

ear, mouth,

and throat is ex-

cellently designed

for the

production

of the kinds of sounds that are

now used

universally

and

very

efficiently

for

speech,

totally

unrelated

factors

may

have

been

responsible

for the

original

changes.

The lowered

larynx,

and

the vertical

pharynx

at

right

angles

to

the

oral

cavity, may

have

developed

as

part

of our

8/11/2019 Hockett_comment on design features.pdf

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/hockettcomment-on-design-featurespdf 4/4

NOTES AND RESEARCH REPORTS

363

adaptation

to

upright posture;

and

(assuming

that

the relative

chronology

is

appropriate)

the reduced size

of the

external

opening

of

the

oral

cavity,

which

makes it a better resonance chamber, may have been, at least in part, a side

effect of

the

reduction of

jaw

and teeth after

the

invention

of

cooking.

I am

sorry

that

my

treatment of these matters should have been

confusing

to

Bender.

Perhaps

with the

above

remarks

(and

the fuller

bibliography),

that

confusion can be alleviated.

References

Hockett,

Charles

F.,

and Stuart A.

Altmann

1968

A Note on

Design

Features. In Animal Communication: Techniques of

Study

and Results

of

Research,

edited

by

Thomas

A.

Sebeok,

61-72.

Bloomington:

Indiana

University

Press.