Traditional transmission (also called cultural transmission) is one of the 13 design features of language developed by anthropologist Charles F. Hockett to distinguish the features of human language from that of animal communication. Critically, animal communication might display some of the thirteen features but never all of them. 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.
In essence, the idea of traditional transmission details the process by which language is passed down from one generation to the next. In this manner, it is often also referred to as cultural transmission where it is a mechanism of iterated learning. Common processes would include imitation or teaching. The model purports that present learners acquire the cultural behaviour, that is language in this instance by observing similar behaviours in others who acquired the language the same way. 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". While culture is not unique to the human species, the way it exhibits itself as language in human society is very distinctive and one key trait of this uniqueness is the element of social groups.
