Transcript Dias nummer 1

Lecture 7
Studies of “Animal language”
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
Based on evidence and arguments given in
the previous lectures
 “What is language?”
 “Systems of animal communication”
 and the course literature, please discuss in groups:
1. Is the distinction between animal
communication and (human) language
mostly quantitative or qualitative? (Why?)
2. What are the major differences?
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Feature
Animal communication
Language
(1) Degree of learning
Mostly genetically
determined
Mostly learned from
experience
(2) Conscious control
Minimal
High
(3) Contextuality
Tied to a particular context Flexible, relatively
independent from specific
context
(4) Interpretation
Relatively fixed response
Flexible, “negotiable”
(5) Communicative
relations
Mostly dyadic:
Subject-Recipient
(6) Systematicity
None, or very limited
Mostly triadic:
Speaker-AddresseeReferent
High
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
“No animal in the wild has anything
approaching the socially transmitted,
voluntary controlled, contextually flexible,
triadic semiotic system that is language”
(Zlatev, Persson, Gärdenfors 2005: 3)

What about:
 in a human home?
 in the lab?
 in a hybrid ”Pan/Homo culture”?
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
Gua (Kellogg 1931) – vocal language,
comprehension, but not production;
sensorimotor skills surpassing Donald
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Viki (Hayes 1951) – mama, papa, up, cup
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
Washoe (Gardner & Gardner 1966)
“When the Gardners realized that
Washoe was not going to acquire
language in a spontaneous fashion,
they introduced sign training. This
consisted of showing Washoe an
object, demonstrating the sign,
then taking Washoe’s hands and
molding them into the proper
hand configuration for the sign.
Slowly, the molding was less
emphasized until Washoe produced
the sign on her own.”
(http://www.greatapetrust.org)
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

Nim Chimpsky (Terrace 1979): ASL training,
initial enthusiasm, turned into
disillusionment
Terrace: one of the most bitter critiques of
”ape language” studies: ”a Clever Hans
effect”?
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
LANA project (1971-1976):
“…the lexigram keyboard, developed by
Duane Rumbaugh, which has served as
the primary communicative interface for
ape language research at Decatur,
Georgia, for the last several decades. This
keyboard is composed of three panels
with approximately 384 noniconic
arbitrary symbols. When the apes depress
a key, the word represented there is
spoken by a digital voice and the lexigram
is displayed on a video screen”
See video
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
Sherman and Austin (SavageRumbough 1975-1980)
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Focus on chimp-chimp
communication, ”negotiation” of
meaning: ”Pointing back and forth
between the token and the item,
they establish jointly the
correspondence between referent
and symbol...” (: 131)

No comprehension of spoken
langauge
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Kanzi (Savage-Rumbough 1980-1993):
 Spontaneous early acquisition
 Informal social environment
 Controlled comprehension
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CHASE (lexigram)
YOU (point at person)
(Greenfield and Savage-Rumbough 1990)

Panpanzee and Panbanisha (Savage-Rumbough
1986-1990):
 Similar comprehension of English
 No essential differences b/n
Pan paniscus and
Pan troglodytes
 The key role of ”enculturation”:
”a shared way of living containing characteristic
activites, tools, environments, communication
means, social relations, personalities, games,
gestures, and so on” (Segerdahl et al. 2005: 8)
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
Koko (Patterson 1981): gorilla, taught a simplified form of
American Sign Language

Chantek (Miles 1990): orangutan, “(Chantek) can talk about places
he doesn’t see. He can talk about things that aren’t present. I can
ask him to sign better and he will. ”
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
”The ape language literature contains rather
convincing evidence that apes can:
• Comprehend the referential (representational) function of
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spoken words, ASL signs, visual lexigrams, and the
combinations of these;
Use the sign-tokens in the absence of their referents, i.e.
”displancement” (Hockett 1960);
Acquire a considerable vocabulary of words/signs;
according to some measurements extending 600 signs,
but even according to the most conservative criteria no
less that 140 signs;
Understand novel combinations of spoken or signed
words;
Produce novel combinations of signs”
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
Alex (Pepperberg 2001): grey parrot, over 100
English words, including superordinate terms
such as color, shape, how many...
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Betsy (Kaminski 2001): border collie, over 300
words, spoken English comprehension
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Phoenix and Akeakamai (Herman 1984):
bottlenose dolphins, comprehesion of simple
grammar: GOAL THEME ACTION
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
All great apes ”have the intelligence for a
rudimentary, referential, generalizable,
imitative, displacebale symbol system” (Miles
1999: 204)
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Dogs, Dophins, Parrots?
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Is this language, or at least some
substantial part of it? Implications?
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