Lecture 3

Animals and Human Language

A

1

Animals and Human Language

Can animals learn to communicate with humans using language?

Does human language have properties that make it impossible for animals to learn it?

Communication: Communicative signals: Signals that you send

intentionally in order to communicate with others.

Informative signals: Signals that you send unintentionally e.g. Your hair is dishevelled or your socks do not match etc…

2

Properties of human language

Communication is the primary function of human language but not a distinguishing feature.

All creatures communicate in some way.

However, they do not think about the way they communicate or talk about how they talk Reflexivity: Human language has the property of

reflexivity, meaning we can use language to think and talk about language itself.

3

Properties of human language

Displacement: Humans can talk about things that happened in the past or will happen in the future

Animal communication seems to be restricted to this moment, here and now (except for bee lang.)

This property allows language users to talk about things and events that are not present.

We often talk about Gulyabani, Superman, Kara Murat, heaven.

4

Properties of human language

Arbitrariness: The relationship between an object like table and the word that describes it is arbitrary, e.g. tree, ağaç, baum.

Languages use different signs to convey the same meaning.

Signals animals send seem to be closely related to the message conveyed.

The set of signals animals use is finite. They have limited ‘vocabulary’.

5

Properties of human language

Productivity: Humans create new words and utterances by using existing resources to describe new objects/concepts, e.g. akbil, google, email.

Other creatures do not have this kind of flexibility in their communication system.

Cicadas have only four signals and vervet monkeys have 36 vocal calls.

Not possible to produce new signals!

6

Properties of human language

Cultural Transmission: We acquire our language in a culture with other speakers. It includes our accent and expressions.

Cultural transmission is when a language is passed on from one generation to the next.

We are born with an ability to acquire any language but learn our first language in a culture.

Animals are born with a set of specific signals produced instinctively: inborn. There is also some learning!

7

Properties of human language

Duality: Human language is organized at two separate levels simultaneously: distinct sounds & distinct meaning.

A physical level at which we produce individual sounds like [t], [ş] and [u]. These forms do not have any meaning individually.

In a particular combination such as tuş and şut, we have a different level producing a meaning.

Animal communicative signals are fixed and cannot be broken into parts: meow is not m-e-o-w

8

Talking to animals

Human languages have properties not shared by the communication systems of animals.

There are people who try to teach animals human language. Can animals learn language?

It looks like animals produce a particular behavior in response to a particular sound-stimulus.

A baby and puppy growing up in the same environment will show differences!

9

Chimpanzees and language

There have been several attempts to teach human language to chimpanzees!

1930s: A chimp named Gua was trained. He was able to understand a hundred words but could not produce any of them.

1940s: Another chimp named Viki. She was taught how to speak, was able to poorly articulate words like mama, papa and cup.

Result: It was understood that non-human primates lack a physically structured vocal tract needed to produce speech sounds.

10

Chimpanzees and language

1960s: Washoe was taught American Sign Lang. She learnt how to sign more than 100 words: airplane, baby, banana. She combined word forms to produce sentences:

more fruit and open fruit drink.

Sarah and Lana: two chimps that learned to use a set of plastic shapes (word symbols) for communication with humans.

The plastic shapes represented ‘words’ and Sarah put them one after another to build ‘sentences’.

Lana learned a language that consisted of a set of symbols on a keyboard.

11

The Controversy

Herbert Terrace: Chimps simply produce signs in response to the demands of people and tend to repeat signs those people use.

This does not mean that they are taking part in ‘conversation’. The behavior of the chimps should be viewed as a type of conditioned response.

Terrace’s conclusion is that chimps are clever creatures who learn to produce a certain type of behavior (signing or symbol selection) in order to get rewards.

12

The Controversy (cont’d)

The Gardners argue that they were not animal trainers, nor were they eliciting conditioned responses from Washoe.

In the absence of any human, Washoe could produce correct signs to identify objects in pictures.

The Gardners also report that another group of younger chimps not only learned sign language, but also used signs with each other and with Washoe, even when there were no humans present.

13

Kanzi

1980s: Kanzi, the Bonobo, learned the word symbols not by being taught but by being exposed to them at an early age.

Vocabulary of 90 symbols

Could understand English

Command of syntax

14

Using Language

Were Washoe and Kanzi capable of taking part in interaction with humans by using a symbol system chosen by humans and not chimpanzees? Yes!

Did Washoe and Kanzi go on to perform linguistically on a level comparable to a human child about to begin pre-school? No!

It seems it is difficult to have a non-controversial definition of ‘using language’.

15

Using Language (cont’d)

We should stop thinking of language as a single thing that one can either have or cannot have.

There are at least two ways of thinking about what ‘using language’ means.

Language serves as a type of communication system that can be observed in a variety of different situations. The behavior of a two-year old human child talking

to her parents as an example of ‘using language’.

A similar behavior from chimpanzees or bonobos when they are interacting with humans they know!

16

Appendix

There is no natural connection between a word and the object it denotes/describes.

Figure 1 Figure 2

17