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Animal language

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Animal language is the modeling of human language in non human animal systems. While the term is widely used, most researchers agree[citation needed] that animal languages are not as complex or expressive as human language.

Some researchers including the linguist Charles Hockett, who proposed a list of design features of Human Language, argue that there are significant differences separating human language from animal communication even at its most complex, and that the underlying principles are not related. (Hocket , Charles F. 1960. Logical considerations in the study of animal communication. Animals sounds and animal communication, ed. W.E. Lanyon and W.N. Tavolga, pp. 392-430).

Others argue that an evolutionary continuum exists between the communication methods these animals use and human language. Examining this continuum could help explain how humanity evolved its incredibly sophisticated proficiency for language.

The following properties of human language have been argued to separate it from animal communication:

  • Arbitrariness: There is no rational relationship between a sound or sign and its meaning. (There is nothing intrinsically "housy" about the word "house".)
  • Cultural transmission: Language is passed from one language user to the next, consciously or unconsciously.
  • Discreteness: Language is composed of discrete units that are used in combination to create meaning.
  • Displacement: Languages can be used to communicate ideas about things that are not in the immediate vicinity either spatially or temporally.
  • Duality: Language works on two levels at once, a surface level and a semantic (meaningful) level.
  • Metalinguistics: Ability to discuss language itself.
  • Productivity: A finite number of units can be used to create an infinite number of utterances.

Research with apes, like that of Francine Patterson with Koko or Herbert Terrace with Nim Chimpsky, suggested that apes are capable of using language that meets some of these requirements. However, no experiment has shown a non-human being to be proficient in all of these areas.

In the wild chimpanzees have been seen "talking" to each other, when warning about approaching danger. For example, if one chimpanzee sees a snake, he makes a low, rumbling noise, signalling for all the other chimps to climb into nearby trees. In this case, the chimpanzees' communication is entirely contained to an observable event, demonstrating a lack of displacement.

Arbitrariness has been noted in meerkat calls; bee dances show elements of spatial displacement; and cultural transmission has possibly occurred between the celebrated bonobos Kanzi and Panbanisha.[1]

However, these single features alone do not qualify such instances of communication as being true language. [citation needed]}} Berliner Geowissenschaftliche Abhandlungen 3: 29-35.</ref>

Comparison of the term with "animal communication"

It is worth distinguishing "animal language" from "animal communication", no matter how complex the latter may be. In general the term "animal language" is reserved for the modeling of human language in animal systems; though there is some comparative interchange in certain cases (e.g. Cheney & Seyfarth's vervet monkey call studies). Thus "animal language" typically does not include bee dancing, bird song, whale song, dolphin signature whistles, prairie dogs, nor the communicative systems found in most social mammals. Also the features of language as listed above are a dated formulation by Hockett in 1960. Through this formulation Hockett made one of the earliest attempts to break down features of human language for the purpose of applying Darwinian gradualism. Although an influence on early animal language efforts (see below), is today not considered the key architecture at the core of "animal language" research.

Animal Language results are controversial for several reasons. (For a related controversy, see also Clever Hans.) In the 1970s John Lilly was attempting to "break the code": to fully communicate ideas and concepts with wild populations of dolphins so that we could "speak" to them, and share our cultures, histories, and more. This effort failed. The very early [chimpanzee] work was with chimpanzee infants raised as if they were human; a test of the nature vs. nurture hypothesis. Chimpanzees have a very different laryngeal structure than humans, as well as no voluntary control of their breathing. This combination made it very difficult for the chimpanzees to reproduce the vocal intonations required for human language. Researchers eventually moved towards a gestural (sign language) modality, as well as "keyboard" devices laden with buttons adorned with symbols (known as "lexigrams") that the animals could press to produce artificial language. Other chimpanzees learned by observing human subjects performing the task. This latter group of researchers studying chimpanzee communication through symbol recognition (keyboard) as well as through the use of sign language (gestural), are on the forefront of communicative breakthroughs in the study of animal language, and they are familiar with their subjects on a first name basis: Sarah, Lana, Kanzi, Koko, Sherman, Austin and Chantek.

Perhaps the best known critic of "Animal Language" is Herbert Terrace. Terrace's 1979 criticism using his own research with the chimpanzee Nim Chimpsky was scathing and basically spelled the end of animal language research in that era, most of which emphasized the production of language by animals. In short, he accused researchers of over-interpreting their results, especially as it is rarely parsimonious to ascribe true intentional "language production" when other simpler explanations for the behaviors (gestural hand signs) could be put forth. Also, his animals failed to show generalization of the concept of reference between the modalities of comprehension and production; this generalization is one of many fundamental ones that are trivial for human language use. The simpler explanation according to Terrace was that the animals had learned a sophisticated series of context-based behavioral strategies to obtain either primary (food) or social reinforcement, behaviors that could be over-interpreted as language use.

In 1985 during this anti-Animal Language backlash, Louis Herman published an account of artificial language in the bottlenosed dolphin in the human journal Cognition. A major difference between Herman's work and previous research was his emphasis on a method of studying language comprehension only (rather than language comprehension and production by the animal(s)), which enabled rigorous controls and statistical tests, largely because he was limiting his researchers to evaluating the animals' physical behaviors (in response to sentences) with blinded observers, rather than attempting to interpret possible language utterances or productions. The dolphins' names here were Akeakamai and Phoenix. Irene Pepperberg used the vocal modality for language production and comprehension in an African Grey Parrot named Alex in the verbal mode, and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh continues to study Bonobos such as Kanzi and Panbanisha. R. Schusterman duplicated many of the dolphin results in his California Sea Lions ("Rocky"), and came from a more behaviorist tradition than Herman's cognitive approach. Schusterman's emphasis is on the importance on a learning structure known as "equivalence classes."

However, overall, there has not been any meaningful dialog between the linguistics and animal language spheres, despite capturing the public's imagination in the popular press. Also, the growing field of language evolution is another source of future interchange between these disciplines. Most primate researchers tend to show a bias toward a shared pre-linguistic ability between humans and chimpanzees, dating back to a common ancestor, while dolphin and parrot researchers stress the general cognitive principles underlying these abilities. More recent related controversies regarding animal abilities include the closely linked areas of Theory of mind, Imitation (e.g. Nehaniv & Dautenhahn, 2002), Animal Culture (e.g. Rendell & Whitehead, 2001), and Language Evolution (e.g. Christiansen & Kirby, 2003).

See also

Researchers

Animals

References

  1. ^ Raffaele, P (November, 2006). "Speaking Bonobo". Simithsonian. Retrieved 2008-03-18. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

Further reading

Selected References from Primate, Parrot, Marine Mammal animal language programs, as well as the Linguistics literature:

  • Bickerton, D. (2005). Language evolution: a brief guide for linguists. link
  • Chomsky, N. (1957). Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton. Reprint. Berlin and New York (1985).
  • Chomsky, N. (1959). A Review of B.F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior. Language, 35, 26-58.
  • Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
  • Chomsky, N. (1995). The minimalist program. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Chomsky, N. & Lasnik, H. (1993). The theory of principles and parameters, in: J. Jacobs A. von Stechow, W. Sternefeld, and T. Vennemann (eds.) Syntax: an international handbook of contemporary research. Berlin: De Gruyter.
  • Christiansen, M.H. & Kirby, S.H. (Eds.)(2003). Language Evolution: The States of the Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Deacon, T. W. (1997) The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Human Brain. Allen Lane: The Penguin Press.
  • Fitch, W.T., & Hauser, M.D. (2004). Computational constraints on syntactic processing in a nonhuman primate. Science, 303, 377-380.
  • Fouts, R. S. (1973). Acquisition and testing of gestural signs in four young chimpanzees. Science, 180, 978-80.
  • Gardner, R.A., & Gardner, B.T. (1969). Teaching sign language to a chimpanzee. Science, 165, 664-672.
  • Gardner, B.T., & Gardner, R.A. (1975). Evidence for sentence constituents in the early utterances of child and chimpanzee. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 104, 244-267.
  • Gardner R. Allen and Gardner Beatrice T. (1980) Comparative psychology and language acquisition. In Thomas A. Sebok and Jean-Umiker-Sebok (eds.): Speaking of Apes: A Critical Anthology of Two-Way Communication with Man. New York: Plenum Press, pp. 287-329.
  • Gisiner, R., & Schusterman, R. J. (1992). Sequence, syntax, and semantics: Responses of a language-trained sea lion (Zalophus californianus) to novel sign combinations. Journal of Comparative Psychology, 106, 78.
  • Gomez, R.L, & Gerken, L. (2000). Infant artificial language learning and language acquisition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4, 178-186.
  • Goodall, J. (1964). Tool Using and Aimed Throwing in a Community of Free-Living Chimpanzees, Nature, 201, 1264-1266.
  • Hauser, M.D., Chomsky, N. & Fitch, W.T. (2002). The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science, 298, 1569-1579.
  • Hayes, C. (1951). The Ape in Our House. New York: Harper & Row.
  • Herman, L. M. & Forestell, P. H. (1985). Reporting presence or absence of named objects by a language-trained dolphin. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 9, 667-691.
  • Herman, L. M. Kuczaj, S. A. & Holder, M. D. (1993). Responses to anomalous gestural sequences by a language-trained dolphin: Evidence for processing of semantic relations and syntactic information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 122 (2):184-194.
  • Herman, L. M., Richards, D. G. & Wolz, J. P. (1984). Comprehension of sentences by bottlenosed dolphins. Cognition, 16, 129-219.
  • Hockett, C. (1960).The origin of speech. Scientific American, 203, 88-96.
  • Holder, M. D., Herman, L. M. & Kuczaj, S. III (1993). A bottlenosed dolphin's responses to anomalous gestural sequences expressed within an artificial gestural language. In H. R. Roitblat, L. M. Herman & P.E. Nachtigall (Eds): Language and Communication: Comparative Perspectives, 299-308. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Hurford J.R., Studdert-Kennedy, M., & Knight, C. (Eds.) (1998) Approaches to the evolution of language: Social and cognitive bases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Kako, E. (1999). Elements of syntax in the systems of three language-trained animals. Animal Learning & Behavior, 27, 1-14.
  • Kellogg, W.N., & Kellogg, L.A. (1933). The ape and the child. New York: Whittlesey House (McGraw-Hill).
  • Knight, C., Studdert-Kennedy, M., Hurford, J.R. (Eds.) (2000). The evolutionary emergence of language: Social function and the origins of linguistic form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Kohts. N. (1935). Infant ape and human child. Museum Darwinianum, Moscow.
  • Ladygina-Kohts, N.N, & de Waal, F.B.M. (2002). Infant Chimpanzee and Human Child: A Classic 1935 Comparative Study of Ape Emotions and Intelligence (Tr: B. Vekker). New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Lenneberg, E.H. (1971) Of language, knowledge, apes, and brains. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 1, 1-29.
  • Miles, H.L. (1990) "The cognitive foundations for reference in a signing orangutan" in S.T. Parker and K.R. Gibson (eds.) "Language" and intelligence in monkeys and apes: Comparative Developmental Perspectives. Cambridge Univ. Press.
  • Nehaniv C. & Dautenhahn, K.(Eds.) (2002). Imitation in Animals and Artifacts. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.
  • Patterson, F., and Linden, E. (1981) The Education of Koko. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
  • Pepperberg, I.M. (1999). The Alex Studies: Cognitive and Communicative abilities of Grey Parrots. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Pinker, S. (1984). Language Learnability and Language Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Reprinted in 1996 with additional commentary.
  • Pinker, S. (1994). The language instinct: how the mind creates language. New York: William Morrow & Co.
  • Pinker, S. & Bloom, P. (1990). Natural language and natural selection. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 13, 707-784.
  • Plooij, F.X. (1978). "Some basic traits of language in wild chimpanzees?" in A. Lock (ed.) Action, Gesture and Symbol. New York: Academic Press.
  • Premack, D. (1971). Language in a chimpanzee? Science, 172, 808-822.
  • Rendell, L. & Whitehead, H. (2001) Culture in whales and dolphins. Beharioral and Brain Sciences, 24, 309-382.
  • Roitblat, H.R., Herman, L.M. & Nachtigall, P.E. (Eds.)(1993). Language and Communication: Comparative Perspectives, 299-308. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Rumbaugh Duane M. (1980) Language behavior of apes. In Thomas A. Sebok and Jean-Umiker-Sebok(eds.): Speaking of Apes: A Critical Anthology of Two- Way Communication with Man. New York: Plenum Press, pp. 231-259.
  • Savage-Rumbaugh, E. S. (1990). Language Acquisition in a Nonhuman Species: Implications for the innateness debate. Developmental Psychobiology, 23, 599-620.
  • Savage-Rumbaugh, E.S., McDonald, K., Sevcik, R.A., Hopkins, W.D. & Rupert E, (1986). Spontaneous symbol acquisition and communicative use by pygmy chimpanzees (Pan paniscus). Journal of Experimental Psychology:General, 115, 211-235.
  • Savage-Rumbaugh, E. S. and Fields, W. M. (2000). Linguistic, cultural and cognitive capacities of bonobos (Pan paniscus). Culture and Psychology, 6, 131-154.
  • Sayigh, L.S., Tyack, P.L., Wells, R.S. & Scott, M.D. (1990). Signature whistles of free-ranging bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus): stability and mother-offspring comparisons. Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology, 247-260.
  • Schusterman, R. J. & Gisiner, R. (1988). Artificial language comprehension in dolphins and sea lions: The essential cognitive skills. The Psychological Record, 34, 3-23.
  • Schusterman, R.J. & Gisiner, R. (1989). Please parse the sentence: animal cognition in the Procrustean bed of linguistics. Psychological Record, 39:3-18.
  • Schusterman, R. J. and Kastak, D. (1993) A California Sea-Lion (Zalaphos californianus) is capable of forming equivalence relations. The Psychological Record, 43, 823-839
  • Schusterman, R. J. & Krieger, K. (1984). California sea lions are capable of semantic comprehension. The Psychological Record, 38, 311-348.
  • Seyfarth, R. M. & Cheney, D.L. (1990). The assessment by vervet monkeys of their own and other species’ alarm calls. Animal Behavior, 40, 754-764.
  • Skinner, B.F. (1957). Verbal behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
  • Terrace, H. S. (1979). Nim. New York: Knopf.
  • Terrace H.S., Petitto L.A. , Sanders R.J. and Bever T.G. (1979) Can an ape create a sentence? Science 206:891-902.
  • Wittmann, Henri (1991). "Classification linguistique des langues signées non vocalement." Revue québécoise de linguistique théorique et appliquée 10:1.215-88.[1]
  • Witzany, G. (2007) The Logos of the Bios 2. Bio-Communication. Helsinki, Umweb.

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