Features of language according to Charles Hockett:

1. vocal-auditory channel describes the way vocal signals can be used to produce
language. The speaker uses a vocal tract (containing most of the speech organs) to
produce speech sounds, and the hearer employs an auditory apparatus (the sense of
hearing) to receive and process the speech sounds. This is why human language is said
to be based on speech sounds produced by the articulatory system and received through
the auditory system. The vocal channel is a particularly excellent means through which
speech sounds can be accompanied or substituted by gestures, facial expressions, body
movement, and way of dressing.
2. Broadcast transmission and directional reception When humans speak, sounds are
transmitted in all directions; however, listeners perceive the direction from which the
sounds are coming. Similarly, signers broadcast to potentially anyone within the line of
sight, while those watching see who is signing. This is characteristic of most forms of
human and animal communication.

3. Transitoriness Also called rapid fading, transitoriness refers to the idea of temporary
quality of language. Language sounds exist for only a brief period of time, after which
they are no longer perceived. Sound waves quickly disappear once a speaker.

4. Interchangeability Refers to the idea that humans can give and receive identical
linguistic signals; humans are not limited in the types of messages they can say/hear.
One can say "I am a boy" even if one is a girl. This is not to be confused with lying
(prevarication). The importance is that a speaker can physically create any and all
messages regardless of their truth or relation to the speaker.
5. Learnability In other words, a language acquisition is the process by which humans
acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language (in other words, gain the
ability to be aware of language and to understand it), as well as to produce and use
words and

6. Productivity is the degree to which native speakers use a grammatical process, especially in
word formation. It compares grammatical processes that are in frequent use to less
frequently used ones that tend towards lexicalization. Generally, the test of productivity
concerns identifying which grammatical forms would be used in the coining of new words:
these will tend to only be converted to other forms using productive processes.

Charles Francis Hockett (January 17, 1916 – November 3, 2000) was an American linguist
who developed many influential ideas in American structuralist linguistics.