Chapter Two

Animals and Human Language

• Is it possible that a creature could learn to communicate
with humans using language?
• Does human language have special properties that make it
unlearnable by other creatures?
• Before answering these questions we should know some
properties of human language and review some
experiments in communication involving humans and
animals.
 Communication
What is the different between communicative
signals and informative signals???
• Communicative signals are intentional and carry meaning.
• Example: when you use language to tell a person “I’m one of the
applicants for the vacant position of English language Teacher at
the school”
• Informative signals are not intentional but still carry meaning.
• Examples: someone may note that:
1. You have a cold (you sneezed)
2. You are disordered (non-matching socks)
3. You are from elsewhere (you have a strange accent)
 Properties of human language
1. Reflexivity: The property of using language to think and talk about language
itself.
IT IS THE FIRST IMPORTATNT PROPERTY OF HUMAN LANGUAGE.
• Without this general ability, we can’t reflect or identify any of the other distinct
properties of human language.(Humans are able to reflect on language and its
uses)
• Humans are clearly able to reflect on language and its uses: I wish he
wouldn’t use so many technical terms.
• One barking dog is probably not offering advice to another barking dog
along the lines of “ Hey, you should lower your bark to make it sound
more menacing”: They are not barking about barking.
2. Displacement: it allows human users to talk about
things not present in the immediate environment ( they can
refer to past, present and future)
• It allows to talk about things and places whose existence
we cannot even be sure of (superman and fairies)
• However, animal communication lack displacement
property.
• Example: bee communication on page 65
3. Arbitrariness: The connection in this language is
arbitrary.
This means that there is no natural connection between a
linguistic form and its meaning
No connection between the word and the object it refers to
SEE PAGE 66
• Some words have less arbitrary connection which called
onomatopoeic
Such as cuckoo, crash, slurp…etc.
 Does animal communication have
the arbitrariness property?
• No
In most of the animal signals, there is a clear connection
between the conveyed message and the single used to
convey it
Because animal signaling has non-arbitrariness, the set of
signals used in communication is finite.
4. Cultural transmission: it is a process whereby a
language is passed on from one generation to the next.
It is crucial in human acquisition process.
Human inherit physical features such as brown eyes, but
they do not inherit their language.
They acquire a language in a culture with other speakers
and not from parental genes.
• Human are born with some kind of predisposition to
acquire language in a general sense.
• But; they are not born with the ability to produce
utterances in specific language (they acquire their first
language as children in a culture)
• Animals communication does NOT have the property of
cultural transmission.
• WHY?????????????????????????????????
• Animals are born with a set of specific signals that are
produced instinctively.
• See page 67
• Birds has to combine with learning
• Human infants growing up in isolation produce no
instinctive language.
5. Productivity: creativity/ open endedness
6. Duality: Double articulation
It organizes human language at two levels
A. Physical level: at which we can produce individual
sounds like n, b, t
B. The level at which we produce a large number of sound
combinations (words)which are distinct meanings
Note: the meaning of sound combination bin is different
from the meaning of the sound combination nib.
 Duality
• Human Language: Animal communication system
Layer 1: One Layer Only
Finite The No. of signals corresponds to the
No. of
Individual phonemes messages
Meaningless
Layer 2: 20 vocal signals= 20 messages
Phoneme combination
No. of phonemes= 44/ 45
No. of messages ≠ 45
 Do other creatures have duality in
their communication????
• NO
• WHY??????????????????????
• Each communicative signal appears to be a single fixed
form that cannot be broken down into separate parts
• Ex. Page 70
 Talking to animals
• Because the properties of a human language make it so unique and
different from other communication systems of other creatures
won’t be able to understand it.
• But: In many cases, a lot of spoken language is directed by humans
to animals and the animals follows what is being said
• ex,. Riders can say Whoa to horses and they stop.
• We can say heel to dogs and they will follow at heel
• Some spoken commands that are directed to animals and they go
up, down, and roll over.
 Does the animal really understand
what the words in the noise mean?????
• It doesn’t understand what the words mean
• But: animals produces a particular behavior in response to
a particular sound-stimulus or noise
• Animals do not have the ability to understand or even
produce human language
• One species of animals can’t learn to produce the signals
of another species
• See page 71
 Chimpanzees and language
• Non-human primates do not actually have a physically
structured vocal tract which is suitable for articulating the
sounds used in speech
• Apes and gorillas like Chimpanzees communicate with a
wide range of vocal calls but they just can’t make human
speech sounds
• Some experiments were carried out in the 1930s and
1940s to prove this fact:
• Read about Washoe and Sarah in the hardcopy of the
slides and on the book pages 73 and 74
 Washoe
• A female Chimpanzee.
• Washoe was taught by a scientist to use a version of American sign
language.
• Was Washoe able to learn the American sign language?
• About how many words Washoe could learn during three years
and a half?
• Was Washoe able to combine the forms and produce sentences?
• Explain: Washoe’s communication system had the potential for
productivity.
• [Link]
 Sarah
• What was Sarah being taught to use to communicate with
humans?
• What is the relation between the used plastic shapes and
the communication process with humans?
• How Sarah preferred to arrange the plastic shapes?
• How was Sarah trained to use the plastic shapes?
• How was Sarah being trained?
• Was Sarah able to use those plastic shapes to
communicate with human?
 Lana
• What kind of training technique used with Lana?
• What is the similarity between Sarah and Lana in terms of
their abilities to use symbols?