Human Language vs.

animal communication

Characteristics of Language
Experiment # 1

(Home-raised Chimpanzees) In 1930s, Two scientists Luella and Winthrop Kellogg

experimented by raising an infant chimpanzee, Gua, together with their baby son

In 1940s, a chimpanzee named Viki was reared in the same fashion by another couple
(Catherine and Keith Hayes) in their own home as she was a human child. She was given
Speech Therapy which involved the Hayeses (her adoptees) manipulating her lower jaw.

The nine months of non-stop parenting and scientific work did not make Gua to produce
human language but she was able to understand about a hundred words. Besides, baby son
started imitating Gua's chimp noises and language retardations of Donald was about to
happen.

Spending five years with Viki as foster parents made her say four poorly articulated versions
of words like cup, mama, papa and up. This extremely limited success was at first interpreted
as evidence that apes were not capable of using human language.

Experiment # 2 (Washoe and American Sign Language)

Experiment A scientist couple, Beatrix and Allen Gardner, raised Washoe like a human child
in a domestic environment and made to use/learn a version of American sign language.

Result

Washoe came to use signs for than a hundred words like airplane, baby, and More etc. you

impressively, Washoe was able to make and combine these forms to produce short
expressions and phrases.

Limitation

Washoe demonstrated the aspect of productivity and also was capable of holding rudimentary
conversations mainly the form of question-answer sequences.

Limitations of Koko's Sign language Comparing Koko's sign language with that of human
children is possible but difficult; hearing human children are exposed from birth to the
language in which they will ultimately communicate, whereas Koko was a year old when the
project began.

Age-dependent Acquisition:

By the time children reach age five, their vocabularies are normally well over 1,000 words,
and in some cases as high as 5,000 by the time they reach age six (Nelson, 1974). In contrast,
at age five Koko was emitting 500 to 600 signs
Cognition level

Koko was very rarely able to ask and answer WH. questions

Articulation

Koko acquired non- touch signs (signs in which the hands do not. contact the body) more
slowly than touch signs

Experiment # 3 (Sarah and Lana)

David Premack trained another chimpanzee called Sarah with plastic tokens to use human
language. The plastic shapes presented words and Sarah put them one after another to built
"sentences"

In 1970s, Lana was made to learn a different language system called, electronic keyboard.
When Lana pressed a key with a lexigram on it, that key would light up and the lexigram
would appear on a projector

"Properties of Human Language

Ask yourself!

Is it possible that a non-human creature may learn to communicate with humans using
language?

Can animals understand our language

Does human language have special properties that make it unique and different than any other
communication systems found in nature?

"Properties of Human Language

The properties of language make reference to those special characteristics that can be only
found in human language

1. Displacement

It allows languages users to talk about things and events not present in immediate
environment. Indeed, Displacement allows us to talk about things and place whose existence
we cannot even be sure of. For this reason, in the world of humans, fictional and mythical
creatures such as angels and demons too exist.

Whereas, animal communication is almost designed for THIS moment, here and now. It
cannot be used to relate events which are far in place and time.

2. Arbitrariness:

Human language is symbolic, using a number of sounds (phonemes) and characters

(alphabets). These symbols are ambiguous, arbitrary and abstract. The human linguistic form
has no natural or iconic relationship with the object it represents. This unclear connection
between form and meaning is called arbitrariness. Linguistics forms/symbols can have
several or range of meaning.

Abstracts ideas too exist in human language like the linguistic form can exist in thoughts but
might not have a physical or concrete existence because human language is arbitrary

Whereas, animal signaling show clear connection between message conveyed and signal
used. Usually one signal has one meaning. For example, honey bee perform round dance only
when she wants to inform that nectar is within 20 feet of the hive and the sickle dance is
performed to indicate that nectar is within 20-60 feet from the hive

3. Productivity

It refers to the creation of new expressions and novel utterances by manipulating their
linguistic resources to describe new objects and situations because language is flexible.

Multiple names can be given to one situation and a person

Writers may discuss/write about one idea but all of them write in unique way

Language evolves and new words keep becoming the part of it. New words can be invented
easily

Whereas, animal signals have a feature called fixed reference or little flexibility which is
relating to a particular object or occasion. They have very limited number of combinations
they can use to communicate. For example, meowing is the ONLY expression a cat has to use
for referring to multiple situations.

4. Cultural Transmission:

The assumption is that there is no genetic component (although Noam Chomsky challenges
this with his theory of Universal Grammar) which would enable a child to simply start
speaking e.g. English at a certain age, but rather that children need to be exposed to a
language (and culture) in order to acquire it. Humans inherit physical features from their
parents but not language. Many animals, however, do seem to pass the ability to
communicate on to their offspring genetically e.g. dogs will bark even if they have never
heard another dog. So, cultural transmission of a specific language is crucial in the human
language acquisition process.

Animal are born with a set of specific signals that are produced instinctively. For example,
lion roars, bees buzz, apes gibber, raven caws, and snakes hiss.

Human infants, growing up in isolation, produce 'instinctive' language.

For example,

for example, that a child born in Korea to Korean parents but then adopted by French parents
in France will tend to grow up speaking French as his/her first language and not Korean.
5. Duality/Double Articulation Duality refers to two separate layers of language working
together to provide us with a pool of sounds which we can combine to communicate with one
another. On the one hand, we have a limited number of discrete sounds (e.g. the 44 phonemes
in English) which in isolation have no inherent meaning e.g. b, i, or n. On the other hand, we
have a virtually unlimited number of distinct meanings which we can create by combining
these sounds in certain ways e.g. bin, or nib. Various other combinations such as *bni are not
meaningful in English, but could possibly be in other languages

Human language is organized at 2 levels or layers simultaneously:

At one level - distinct sounds At another level - distinct meanings

Duality is one of the most economical features of human language (with a limited set of
discrete sounds, we are capable of producing a very large number of sound combinations
(e.g. words)

5. Duality/Double Articulation ANIMALS

Animals' communicative signals are fixed and cannot be broken down into separate parts

For example, meow is not m + e +o+w