displacement (n.)

A suggested defining property of human LANGUAGE (contrasting with the properties of many other SEMIOTIC systems), whereby language can be used to refer to CONTEXTS removed from the immediate situation of the speaker (i.e. it can be displaced). For example, if someone says I was afraid, it is not necessary that the speaker still is afraid, whereas animal calls seem generally tied to specific situations, such as danger or hunger, and have nothing comparable to displaced speech (unless this is artificially taught to them, as some experiments with chimpanzees have tried to do).