Animal communication vs. Human Language Flashcards
Animals: How much of their communication is intentional?
chirping birds,… = to signal danger, even regional/dialectical differences;
signals are fixed from birth;
not necessarily speech sounds, also sign language,…
Animal communication system vs. Human communication system
Animals communicate by systems qualitatively different from human language systems
Properties of Human Language: Reflexivity/Reflexiveness
The property of reflexivity accounts for the fact that we can use language to think and talk about language itself. (f.e. A human is able to reflect: “I wish I would not swear so much”)
Properties of Human Language: Displacement
Animal communication is designed for the moment, here and now. A dog barks when it is hungry or angry in the present moment.
In contrast, humans can refer to the past and the future. The property of displacement allows language users to talk about things and events not present or non-existent (e.g. future events, Santa Clause, unicorns,…);
(Bee dancing is a kind of exception: the food source is not present, however it must be the most recent food source)
Properties of Human Language: Arbitrariness
The linguistic signifier has no natural or “iconic” relationship with the signified
Properties of Human Language: Productivity/ creativity/ open-endedness
Humans can produce sentences never uttered before. From a limited/finite set of elements, a human speaker can create an infinite number of statements;
Animals have ‘fixed references’
Properties of Human Language: Cultural transmission
(Most of) a language is passed on from one generation to another /from one social group to another/from one local community to another => We are not born with the ability to produce an utterance in a specific language;
Animals are born with a set of specific signals that are produced instinctively
Properties of Human Language: Duality/ Double articulation/compositionality
On one level we produce sequential sounds/sound strings, on the other level we produce meaning by combining elements.
Animals have sequences that might have a fixed meaning but which cannot be broken up or rearranged (a dog’s woof is NOT a combination of w+oo+f and cannot be rearranged to f+oo+w; a word like t+i+p can be rearranged to p+i+t)
Properties of Human Language: Recursion/ Embedding
In human language we can (endlessly) embed statements into others (subordinate clauses; hypotaxis) (f.e. You think that I think that you are a fool.)
Chimpanzee research: General Information
In their natural habitat primates communicate with each other in elaborate ways (signal danger, aggressiveness, subordination, etc… in various ways).
There have been several attempts to teach chimpanzees and other apes more complex language
systems. (f.e. Kellogs raised Gua in 1930s => understood 100 words passively; Hayes raised Viki in 1940 => could say a few words poorly)
=> Apes cannot produce human sounds, physiognomy does not allow it (lips, teeth, larynx)
Chimpanzee research: Washoe
Gardners believed chimpanzees could be taught sign language => adopted female chimpanzee called Washoe and taught her American sign language over next 5 years;
Experiment took place in real world (not in a lab) and they treated her like a real child (clothing, table,…)
=> Washoe knew 350 signs by the age of 4; knew sign combinations; could combine signs to make new concepts; could emotionally interact with caregivers
Chimpanzee research: Sarah
Premarks trained Sarah with non-iconic, arbitrary symbols on colored plastic chips (f.e. a small red square symbol for banana);
Sarah was kept in a cage being trained with food reward for correct answers.
Sarah was not allowed to talk spontaneously.
Chimpanzee research: Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center (Matata and Kanzi)
Rumbaughs trained apes in Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in 1973 (4 famous apes Lana, Sherman, Austin, Kanzi):
Developed an artifical language called “Yerkish”, i.e.
lexigrams on a computer keyboard.
Savage-Rumbaugh trained bonobo called Matata who adopted a baby (Kanzi).
Matata was supposed to learn Yerkish but did badly.
Kanzi, much younger, started to use system with ease. 250+ forms and by age of 8 he could use language like a 2,5 year old human, but mostly fixed phrases.
Chimpanzee research: Nim Chimpsky
Herbert S. Terrace and his colleagues led an extended study at Columbia University that taght Nim Chimpsky (named after linguist Noam Chomsky).
Nim learned 250 ASL signs and uttered more than 20,000 utterances with one or more words.
However, he never went to a 3-word stage, rarely signed spontaneously, 40% of utterances were simple repetitions made by trainer and wasn’t very creative. (Movie = Project Nim)
Human children language capacity:
2 year-olds have the capacity to develop a complex system of sounds and computational procedures that allow them to produce extended discourse and a potentially infinite number of novel utterances.
