Review of Assigned Readings

Language Files

File 2: Animal Communication

We began the class with the claim that language is an instinct, and we provided some arguments regarding what we mean by instinct. These are posted in the first set of lecture notes. Here, we'll address an independent, though intuitively related issue. Specifically, we'll address the big question of whether other animals possess the language capability that we find in humans. The reason that this is an independent issue is that even if some other animal exhibited the "language instinct", such a state of affairs wouldn't make language any less of an instinct in humans.  In fact, perhaps what is more surprising is that language does appear to be limited to humans, despite efforts of some researchers to prove that this can't be the case.

What we'll do here is lay out the basic concepts involved in attempting to characterize the properties that human languages have. Specifically, it is important to distinguish between "language" in the sense that we are using it in this course and a "communication" system, which many species have. Here are the fundamental concepts that it is crucial to be in command of.
 

All communications systems have:

• a mode of communication, i.e. the means by which messages are transmitted
• semanticity, i.e. the signals used in the system have meaning
• pragmatic function, i.e. the communication serves a useful purpose for the species (e.g. helps for survival)

• interchangeability (which means that individuals using the system can both send and receive messages). The silkworm moth, for example, uses a system in which the female secretes a chemical that the male uses to trace back to her. The male cannot secrete this. He is only a receiver.
• cultural transmission (some aspect of the system is learned through interaction with other members of the users of the system)
• arbitrariness (the form of the signal need not be related to its meaning)
• discreteness (complex messages are built up out of smaller parts)

• displacement (the users are able to use the system to refer to times other than the present and places other than the "here")
• productivity (this goes back to the idea of making infinite use of finite media, i.e. of combining the discrete elements in potentially infinite ways)

One claim for those defending the ability of other primates to acquire language is that their vocal tracts are not configured to allow them to produce human language sounds. But, even in studies that have used ASL (all primates (even us) are very manually adept (as long as we aren't trying to assemble a grill...)), non-human primates have really never shown evidence of the creative, spontaneous use of language that even very young children do. They never develop a complex syntax. They never develop particularly large vocabularies of signs. They don't initiate conversation but rather limit themselves to responding when signed to. In short, they don't develop language the way that human beings seem effortlessly (or at least naturally) to be able to.

Summary of arguments against other primates having human language capabilities:
 

• 1) other primates rarely initiate signing, unlike human children
• 2) overwhelming majority of signs (40% in Nim Chimsky experiment) were repetitions, only 12% spontaneous
• 3) vanishingly rare use of unsolicited statements or questions
• 4) lack of turn taking awareness, non-human pattern of interruption
• 5) in multiple sign utterances, variable word order, i.e. no evidence of grammatical regularization of syntax
• 6) rare use of more than two sign combinations, with additional signs rarely adding new information
• 7) training procedures seem to focus on problem solving, not language use; experiments thus show that primates are good problem solvers but not human language acquirers
• 8) many of the claims made were much grander than the evidence itself actually suggested