Animal communication: Flashcards

1
Q

Language is not just. . .

A

Cognitive, biological, and adaptive but, it is complex.
- Inherently social
- Cultural resource
- Communicative (arbitrariness, and indexicality)

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2
Q

What are the two ways to try to understand how human language operates, and what it means?

A
  • How are meanings in language created (culture, history, geography, beliefs).
  • Is language inherently human?
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3
Q

What are the ways anthropologists can analyse animal communication?

A
  • Do animals have language?
  • Do animals have the capacity for language?
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4
Q

How do animals communicate?

A

Scent, Posture, colour, and facial expressions

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5
Q

What is Hocketts design feautures?

A

Hocketts was a linguist
- 13 characteristics of language which from communication systems
- If a system does not have one of these features it is not a language

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6
Q

What are the five main characteristics of Hocketts’ design features?

A
  1. Arbitraniess
  2. Transmission
  3. Producitivity
  4. Displacement
  5. Reflexity
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7
Q

What is arbitrariness?

A

The connection of a word and its meaning is arbitrary rather than inherent.
- Animals communicate through “Icons and indexicality” (it points to something through language and social interaction).

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8
Q

What are examples of arbitrariness?

A

a. Dancing bees (they communicate the distance, and food quality by little dances)
b. East Asian Vervet monkets have

three different calls (3 different predators, different responses)

  • Eagle: hide in the middle of the tree
  • Snake: stand up on your behind legs
  • Leopard: hide high up in the tree
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9
Q

What is transmission?

A

Hockett argued that at least some aspect of language should be learned from others (ex: how vervet monkeys make mistakes).

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10
Q

What is productivity?

A

Humans can come up with an infinite number of novel sentences, and others will still understand them
- But Hockket argued animals do not have the ability to create new signals or signs

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11
Q

What is displacement?

A

Human can talk about things that arent present (talk about future events, present, past, creative, and abstract comments).
- Animal systems are focused on “here and now”

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12
Q

What is reflexivity?

A

Language can be used to talk about language
- Metalanguage: “Dogs don’t bark about barking”

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13
Q

Who were washo and koko:

A

Washoe was taught ASL in the 1970s

  • She learned over 130 signs with her teachers claimed she used without being prompted

They also claimed she demonstrated productivity (can create meaning from past, present, and ideas) (water-bird example)

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14
Q

Nim Chomsky:

A

A chimpanzee raised as a human child learned sign language quite rapidly (shows that if animals are taught human language, they have the environment to learn effectively)

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15
Q

Gua and Vicky:

A
  • Gua was raise together with Donald, the child of the scholars raising her
    VS.
  • Vicky was raised as a human child and her “parents” would shape her lips for her to pronounce certain words.
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16
Q

Kanzi the bonbon:

A
  1. Uses lexigrams to point to words (appearded to be more of a conscious choice rather than a lucky guess/following trainers clues)
  2. Leaves less room for trainers to be inscribed
  3. Knows a lot of words, understand complex requests, but hasnt been observed to combine words