A 65-year-old linguistics framework challenged by modern research

In a re-evaluation of Hockett's foundational features that have long dominated linguistic theory—concepts like "arbitrariness," "duality of patterning," and "displacement"—an international team of linguists and cognitive scientists shows that modern science demands a radical shift in how we understand language and how it evolved.

The conclusion? Language is not a spoken code. It's a dynamic, multimodal, socially embedded system that evolves through interaction, culture, and meaning-making.