Properties of human language, Systems of human communication (speech, writing, and gesture)

DISPLACEMENT

The property of displacement allows the users of language to talk about things and events not present in the immediate environment.
It is this property that allows human beings, unlike any other creature, to create fiction and to describe possible future worlds.

Displacement of language refers to the ability of human language to communicate throughout time and across space. In animals, language is primarily an exchange between stimulus and response —the meaning conveyed by animal language
 
ARBITRARINESS
 

There is an arbitrary relationship between the linguistic signs and the objects they are used indicate. Thus, these linguistic symbols do not in any way "fit" the objects they denote.

Arbitrariness of language is the fact that the symbols we use to communicate meaning to not have any natural form or meaning in and of themselves. For example, all of the words you are reading right now do not have a natural essence to them, but we have assigned these words to their particular meanings. The word table is not a table itself; rather, it is a word we have agreed means or signals for the idea of a table.
 
PRODUCTIVITY (Creativity or Open-endedness)

This is a feature of all languages that novel utterances are continually being created. It is an aspect of language which is linked to the fact that the potential number of utterances in any human language is infinite.

This property basically is related with forming new sentences and actions etc. by using already existing words of our language. It involves the infinite utterances made by the person. Production is a system in which something new or already existing is created therefore in language productivity can be defined as the quality of forming new sentences, showing different actions to make understand different meanings etc. In children, this productivity property is very strong as children are capable of forming new utterances which are unique and never heard before.

DISCRETENESS
 

Discreteness in language describes the fact that human language is composed of sets of distinct sounds. One sound on its own may convey one meaning; multiple sounds combined in a particular order convey a different meaning. Even repeated sounds have a particular meaning.

The sounds used in language are meaningfully distinct, i.e., each sound in the language is treated as discrete. Human beings have a very discrete view of the sounds of language and wherever a pronunciation falls within the physically possible range of sounds, it will be interpreted as linguistically specific and meaningfully distinct sound.

DUALITY (Double Articulation)

Language is organized at two levels or layers simultaneously. At one level, there are distinct sounds and at another level, there are distinct meaning. For example, we can produce individual sounds like p, n, and i. Individually, these discrete forms does not have any intrinsic meaning. However, if we combine them into pin then we have produced a combination of sounds which have a different meaning than the meaning of the combination nip.

CULTURAL TRANSMISSION
 

Language is both acquired by and continues the process of cultural transmission. Humans are not born with an innate understanding of communication in the way that birds or lions are. We must learn, along with other elements of culture, how to communicate with others using language.

Language is acquired in a culture with other speakers and not from parental genes. This property of human is cultural transmission wherein a language is passed on from one generation to the next within a cultural setting. Human beings are not born speaking a specific language even though it has been argued that they are born with an innate predisposition to acquire language.