It is typically considered as one of the crucial characteristics distinguishing human from animal communication and provides significant support for the argument that language is learned socially within a community and not inborn where the acquisition of information is via the avenue of genetic inheritance.
[1] This is an important distinction made in the Scientific American "The Origin of Speech", where Hockett defines traditional transmission as "the detailed conventions of any one language are transmitted extra-genetically by learning and teaching".
In his paper Social Organization (1909), he describes primary groups (family, playgroups, neighborhoods, community of elders) as "those characterized by intimate face-to-face association and cooperation.
Consequently, following this line of thought, social groups play an integral role in the transmission of language from one generation to the next.
The following examples showcase a few classic case studies of rescued "wild" children who have gone through language deprivation and forms credible support for the argument of traditional transmission.
Once rescued, Anna received linguistic input and showed aptitude for understanding instructions but ultimately never acquired speaking.
Yet with linguistic input that came from her social circles then, Genie gradually acquired communication, albeit neither fluent nor smooth.
Rescued at 12, he ran away from civilisation eight times and his case was eventually undertaken by a young medical student who tried to train him to communicate.
Traditional transmission denotes naturally that learning is acquired through social interactions and built upon by teaching and enforcement.
[citation needed] The main argument to the validity of traditional transmission has always been one of social versus biological construct.
All in all, Chomsky's ideas and theories have served as the main opposing view to Hockett's design features, remaining highly controversial and a dominant area of research in the linguistics field of studies even till today.
On another front, in the domain of evolutionary linguistics, Wacewicz & Żywiczyński have argued on the whole against Hockett's design features and why his perspective is largely incompatible to modern language evolution research.