Charles F. Hockett facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Charles F. Hockett
Born	Charles Francis Hockett (1916-01-17)January 17, 1916 Columbus, Ohio, U.S.
Died	November 3, 2000(2000-11-03) (aged 84) Ithaca, New York, U.S.
Education	Ohio State University (B.A., M.A.) Yale University (Ph.D.)
Spouse(s)	Shirley Orlinoff
Children	5
Scientific career
Institutions	Cornell University (1946–1982) Rice University (1986–2000)
Thesis	The Potawatomi Language: A Descriptive Grammar (1939)
Influences	Leonard Bloomfield

Charles Francis Hockett (January 17, 1916 – November 3, 2000) was an American linguist. A linguist is a scientist who studies language. Hockett came up with many important ideas in the study of language structure in America. He believed that studying language was part of anthropology, which is the study of human societies and cultures. He made big contributions to both fields.

Hockett taught for over 50 years at Cornell University and Rice University.

About Charles F. Hockett

His Education

When he was 16, Charles Hockett started college at Ohio State University. He earned two degrees there in ancient history. While at Ohio State, he became very interested in the work of Leonard Bloomfield. Bloomfield was a leading expert in how languages are built.

Hockett then went to Yale University. There, he studied anthropology and linguistics. In 1939, he earned his PhD in anthropology. At Yale, he learned from other important linguists like Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf.

His main project for his PhD was about the Potawatomi language. He wrote a paper about how Potawatomi sentences are put together. This paper was published in a journal called Language.

His Career

Hockett started teaching in 1946 at Cornell University. He was an assistant professor of linguistics. He also managed the Chinese language program there.

In 1957, Hockett joined Cornell's anthropology department. He taught both anthropology and linguistics until he retired in 1982. After that, in 1986, he took a part-time job at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He stayed active there until he passed away in 2000.

His Achievements

Charles Hockett was a member of many important groups. These included the United States National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was also the president of the Linguistic Society of America.

Besides his work in linguistics, Hockett also studied other interesting things. He looked at Whorfian Theory, which is about how language affects how we think. He also studied jokes, how writing systems work, and why people make "slips of the tongue" when they speak. He even studied animal communication and how it relates to human speech.

Outside of his academic work, Hockett loved music. He performed and composed music. He wrote an entire opera called The Love of Doña Rosita. This opera was based on a play by Federico García Lorca. It was first performed at Ithaca College.

Hockett and his wife, Shirley, helped create the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra in Ithaca, New York. To thank them, Ithaca College started the Charles F. Hockett Music Scholarship. They also created the Shirley and Chas Hockett Chamber Music Concert Series and the Hockett Family Recital Hall.

Hockett's Ideas on Language

What is Linguistics?

In one of his papers, Hockett suggested that studying language is like playing a game and doing science at the same time. He said that a linguist (language scientist) can explore all parts of a language. But they must make sure to consider all the ways people use that language.

Criticism of Noam Chomsky

Later in his career, Hockett became known for disagreeing with Noam Chomsky's ideas about language. Chomsky's ideas are called "Generative Grammar."

At first, Hockett liked Chomsky's ideas. He even called Chomsky's book, Syntactic Structures, one of the "four major breakthroughs in the history of modern linguistics." But after looking closely, Hockett decided that Chomsky's approach wasn't very helpful.

Hockett wrote a book called The State of the Art. In it, he explained his criticisms. One of Chomsky's main ideas was that any language has an endless number of correct sentences. Hockett argued that this isn't true. He believed that the set of correct sentences in a language is not endless. He said that "no physical system is well-defined."

Hockett also wrote about "slips of the tongue." He disagreed with the idea that there's a perfect "linguistic competence" inside us that creates only correct sentences. He believed that all speech, even when we make mistakes, comes from our habits. These habits include using similar patterns, mixing ideas, and editing what we say.

Even with his disagreements, Hockett was thankful to Chomsky's school of thought. He felt they helped identify real problems in older ways of studying language.

Design Features of Language

One of Hockett's most important ideas was his "design-feature" approach. He used it to compare how animals communicate with how humans use language. He wanted to find out what makes human language special.

Hockett first came up with seven features in 1959. After many changes, he decided on 13 features. He wrote about them in a magazine called Scientific American.

Hockett said that every communication system has some of these 13 features. But only human spoken language has all 13 features. This is what makes human spoken language different from animal communication and other human communication systems, like written language.

Hockett's 13 Design Features

1. Vocal-Auditory Channel: We use our voices and ears to communicate. Hockett thought this was good because it lets us talk while doing other things.
2. Broadcast transmission and directional reception: Our speech sounds go out in all directions. But a listener can tell where the sound is coming from.
3. Rapid Fading (transitoriness): Speech sounds disappear quickly. You can only hear them when they are spoken.
4. Interchangeability: We can both speak and understand the same messages. If you can hear something, you can usually say it.
5. Total Feedback: Speakers can hear themselves talk. This helps them check and change what they are saying.
6. Specialization: Human language sounds are made just for communicating. For example, when a dog pants, it's to cool down. When a human speaks, it's to share information.
7. Semanticity: Specific sounds or words have specific meanings.
8. Arbitrariness: There is no natural link between a sound and its meaning. For example, the word "dog" doesn't sound like a dog.
9. Discreteness: Speech sounds can be put into clear, separate groups. For example, the sounds /p/ and /b/ are distinct.
10. Displacement: We can talk about things that are not here now. We can talk about the past, future, or things that aren't real.
11. Productivity: We can create new and unique sentences and meanings from existing words and sounds.
12. Traditional Transmission: We learn language from other people. It's not something we are born knowing completely.
13. Duality of patterning: Small, meaningless sounds (like phonemes) are combined to make meaningful words. These words are then combined to make sentences.

Hockett believed that Traditional Transmission and duality of patterning are especially important for human language.

How These Features Work

• Vocal-Auditory Channel: This allows us to communicate while our hands are busy, like when we are eating or using tools.
• Broadcast Transmission and Directional Reception: We can usually tell where a sound is coming from, especially if it's in front of us.
• Rapid Fading: Unlike written words or animal tracks, spoken words don't last. Once said, they are gone. Hockett focused on spoken language because it came first in human history.
• Interchangeability: Humans can say anything they can understand. This is different from some animal communication. For example, male and female stickleback fish have different mating dances. A male cannot do a female's dance.
• Total Feedback: This means we can hear and understand our own speech and actions. It shows that humans are aware of what they are doing.
• Specialization: Our bodies are made for speech. For example, our larynx (voice box) helps us make speech sounds. We can also control our tongue and mouth movements. Dogs pant to cool down, which is a reflex, not a controlled communication.
• Semanticity: In English, we all connect the word "tree" with the plant. Gibbons (a type of ape) also show semanticity in their calls, but their calls are much simpler than human language.
• Arbitrariness: There's no direct link between a word and what it means. A huge animal like a cow can be called by a short word.
• Discreteness: Each basic sound unit in human language is clear and separate. The differences between sounds are absolute. But the waggle dance of honeybees, for example, is continuous, not discrete.
• Displacement: We can talk about things that are not physically present. We can talk about unicorns or outer space, even though they aren't real or nearby.
• Productivity: Human language is open-ended. We can say things that have never been said before. Gibbons, however, have a limited set of calls that they repeat.
• Traditional Transmission: While some parts of language might be natural, we learn words and our native language from others. Many animals are born with the skills they need to survive, like honeybees knowing how to do the waggle dance.
• Duality of patterning: We can combine a small number of meaningless sounds (like /t/, /a/, /c/) to make many words ("cat," "tack," "act"). Then we combine these words to make endless sentences.

Design Features in Animal Communication

Hockett also looked at how these features appear in animal communication.

Honeybees

Honey bees do a special "waggle dance" to tell other bees where to find food or water. Hockett found that the honeybee dance has some design features:

• Broadcast Transmission and Directional Reception: The dance tells other bees the direction of the food source.
• Semanticity: The dance has a clear meaning. Other bees can find the food after seeing the dance.
• Displacement: The bees are talking about food that is not inside the hive.
• Productivity: The waggle dance changes based on the direction, amount, and type of food.

Gibbons

Gibbons are small apes. Hockett noted that gibbons have the first nine design features. But they do not have the last four: displacement, productivity, traditional transmission, and duality of patterning.

• Displacement: Gibbons don't seem to talk about things that aren't present.
• Productivity: Gibbons only make a limited set of calls. They don't create new ones.
• Traditional Transmission: Hockett believed that similarities in gibbon communication come from genetics, not from learning or teaching.
• Duality of patterning: Gibbons cannot combine meaningless sounds to create new meanings, like humans can.

Later Additions to the Features

In 1968, Hockett and another scientist, Stuart A. Altmann, added three more design features. This brought the total to 16.

1. Prevarication: A speaker can say things that are false, or even meaningless.
2. Reflexiveness: Language can be used to talk about language itself.
3. Learnability: A person who speaks one language can learn another language.

Other Ideas

A scientist named Larry Trask suggested a different way to think about feature 14:

14. (a) Stimulus Freedom: You can choose to say anything or nothing in any situation.

Later, Dr. William Taft Stuart added one more feature, making it 17:

17. Grammaticality: What a speaker says follows the rules of grammar.

This relates to the definitions of grammar and syntax:

• Grammar: The study of how words work and how they are put together in sentences.
• Syntax: How words are arranged to form phrases and sentences.

Design Features and Animal Communication

Dr. Stuart also mentioned ideas from Noam Chomsky and psychologist Gary Marcus. Chomsky thought that humans are special because they can use "Total Feedback" (feature 5). This means we can correct ourselves and add extra information to a sentence without losing proper grammar.

Some studies have tried to challenge Chomsky's idea. Gary Marcus said that the ability to understand complex sentence structures might only be found in animals that can learn new vocal patterns, like songbirds, humans, and some whales. A study by Timothy Gentner found that starling songbirds use complex grammar to find "odd" parts in a song. However, this doesn't fully disprove Chomsky. It's not yet proven that songbirds can understand the meaning of these patterns.

Some experts also believe that "symbolic thought" (thinking with symbols) is needed for grammar-based speech. This means that early humans might not have understood modern speech. Their communication would have been very simple and perhaps confusing to us today.

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Selected Works

• 1939: "Potowatomi Syntax", Language 15: 235–248.
• 1942: "A System of Descriptive Phonology", Language 18: 3-21.
• 1944: Spoken Chinese; Basic Course. With C. Fang. Holt, New York.
• 1947: "Peiping phonology", in: Journal of the American Oriental Society, 67, pp. 253–267.
• 1947: "Problems of morphemic analysis", in: Language, 24, pp. 414–41.
• 1948: "Biophysics, linguistics, and the unity of science", in: American Scientist, 36, pp. 558–572.
• 1950: "Peiping morphophonemics", in: Language, 26, pp. 63–85.
• 1954: "Two models of grammatical description", in: Word, 10, pp. 210–234.
• 1955: A Manual of Phonology. Indiana University Publications in Anthropology and Linguistics 11.
• 1958: A Course in Modern Linguistics. The Macmillan Company: New York.
• 1960: "The Origin of Speech". in Scientific American, 203, pp. 89–97.
• 1961: "Linguistic Elements and Their Relation" in Language, 37: 29–53.
• 1967: The State of the Art. The Haag: Mouton
• 1973: Man's Place in Nature. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• 1977: The View From Language. Athens: The University of Georgia Press.
• 1987: Refurbishing Our Foundations. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

See also

• Animal communication
• Design features of language
• Language acquisition
• Linguistic anthropology
• Linguistic universals
• Origin of language
• Origin of speech