Animals and human languagePhuong Dang

Properties of human language

•Displacement: human beings can talk about things that are not present• remote time (past and future) • space (here or elsewhere)• reality (things that exist or don’t exist)

•Arbitrariness: no relationship between sound sequences and meanings

Ex: dog (English), perro (Spanish), aso (Tagalog), inu (Japanese), chien (French), chó (Vietnamese)

Properties of human language

•Productivity: Human beings can understand and create never-heard-before sentences

•Cultural transmission: languages are passed on from one generation to the next

•Duality: A large number of meaningful utterances can be recombined in a systematic way from a small number of discrete parts of language

A language is composed of

• The sound system

•Words: Lexicon

• Sentence structure: Syntax

•Meaning: Semantics

•Knowledge of appropriate use: Pragmatics

What do we know when we know a language?

•Knowledge of the sound system

•Knowledge of words

•Knowledge of sentence structure

•Knowledge of appropriate use

Talking to animals

• Do animals understand human language?

• It is probably not. It is just a response to a stimulus.

Talking animals

Talking animals – Watching videos

• Bee communication

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFDGPgXtK-U

• Bird communication

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X5WMu_oJnQ

• Primate communication

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxmvRpnVXJQ

http://www.learner.org/resources/series150.html

http://www.learner.org/vod/vod_window.html?pid=1634

Can chimps be taught a spoken language? It is a complete failure.

Luella & WinthropKellogg, 1930s

Gua, an infant chimp

Raise with their son

Understand a hundred words but do not say any of them

Catherine & Keith Hayes

Viki Shape her mouth to produce words

Produce some words rather poorly articulated versions of mama, papaand cup

Sign language

American Sign Language

Can chimps be taught a sign language?General result: Varied findingsBeatrix & Allen Gardner, 1966

Washoe, a female chimp

Raise it like a human child in a comfortable domestic environment

Use signs for more than a hundred words; take these forms and combine them to make “sentences”; understand a much larger number of signs

Ann & David Premack

Sarah Associate shapes with objects or actions, remain in the animal cage and be trained with food awards

Be capable of getting an apple by selecting the correct plastic shape from a large array and producing sentences

DuaneRumbaugh

Lana Similar to Sarah Be capable of understanding the symbol-language

Terrace, 1980

NimChimsky

Learn 125 signs Master some grammatical structures;Never produce signs spontaneously

Can chimps be taught a sign language?

• Lack of grammar

•Hard to go beyond two-word stage

•Need hard training

Home assignments

• Presentation (for Group 1 only):

Group 1 prepare the answers for the study questions on page 21 and present them at the beginning of the next class.

• Homework (for all groups)

Have a group discussion regarding the two discussion topics on pages 22 and 23 and note down your discussion ideas.

Study Questions