6.1.2 A Waggle is Not a Word: The Complexity of Language

Consider the famous “waggle dance” of the honeybee. Upon finding a good source of nectar such as a grove of wildflowers, a worker bee returns to the hive and performs a special flight pattern consisting of a figure-eight waggle followed by a return loop alternating right and left. The direction and duration of the waggle communicate the direction and distance to the location of the desirable food source (Seeley 2010; Frisch 1993).

The waggle dance is certainly a complex and effective form of communication, but does it qualify as language? Communication refers to the transfer of information from a sender to a receiver. Communication can be voluntary or involuntary, simple or complex. Language is a specific, complex, systematized form of communication involving the use of vocal or gestural units (words or signs) that can be combined and recombined in larger structures (sentences) that can convey an infinite array of complex meanings. Language is a form of communication. Not all communication is language.

Central to the infinite possibilities of language is a set of rules that govern just how sounds, signs, words, and phrases may be combined. These rules structure the order of words, dictating, for example, where to put subjects and actions in an utterance so that listeners will be able to find them. Rules also tell us whether words indicate a single thing or multiple things and whether actions occur in the past, present, or future. Complex forms of animal communication such as the waggle dance do contain some systematic rules governing the sequence, duration, and intensity of certain segments of the communication, but they are highly constrained to very limited contexts. For example, the waggle dance can be used to signal nectar sources near and far, but it cannot be used to discuss the weather or comment on the laziness of the queen. Unlike the relatively “closed” systems of communication common among animals, human language is open-ended. Our languages have the distinctive quality of allowing actors to combine units in an infinite number of ways to produce new meanings.