Page 20 - The Modul of Psycholinguistics Studies_2

A PSYCHOLINGUISTICS PERSPECTIVE

1. A Psycholinguistics Perspective
Psychology has a very important role in human language

and that‟s why language is the property of humans only. Although
many researchers have been carried out with other animals to
observe the ability of communication and language learning but

it has been found that their communication is limited and they
are not able to retain their learning for a long time in memory.
Various linguists have tried to differentiate between human and

animals language. In 1960 Hockett identified thirteen design
features of language, which were refined by Aitchison in 1983 to

ten. Aitchison specified that four criteria were particular to the
human species: displacement, semanticists, structure
dependence and creativity. These four criteria, in summary,

indicate that humans are capable of talking about things, people
and instances, true or false, outside of the here and now spatial

and temporal environment by using a formalized, abstract set of
words, symbols and intonations each of which can have many
different meanings when used within different contexts and

between different individuals.
Human language differs from animals communication

system in a variety of ways and in the following section it will be
revealed that how these features of human language are unique
in relation to human psychology. Oral Auditory and Social

Behavior Humans have been endowed with an advanced oral
system for the production of variety sounds. But these vocal

functions are based on various intellectual reactions or thinking.
For humans language is something else than an instinctive,
20 | Fatma Yuniarti, M.Pd., B.I