Language as an Adaptation to the Cognitive Niche
Pinker*, Steven
Studies in the Evolution of Language 3 (2003): 16-37
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199244843.003.0002
* Professor at Harvard
“As Ferdinand de Saussure pointed out, a word is an arbitrary sign: a connection between a signal and a concept shared by the members of the community. The word duck does not look like a duck, walk like a duck, or quack like a duck, but I can use it to convey the idea of a duck because we all have learned the same connection between the sound and the meaning. I can therefore bring the idea to mind in a listener simply by making that noise. If instead I had to shape the signal to evoke the thought using some perceptible connection between its form and its content, every word would require the inefficient contortions of the game of charades.
The symbols underlying words are bidirectional. Generally, if I can use a word I can understand it when someone else uses it, and vice versa. When children learn words, their tongues are not moulded into the right shape by parents, and they do not need to be rewarded for successive approximations to the target sound for every word they hear. Instead, children have an ability, upon hearing somebody else use a word, to know that they in turn can use it to that person or to a third party and expect to be understood.
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