Animals and Human LAnguage

Communicative and informative signals Intentional vs. unintentional

Distinctions between human language and animal communication Displacement

Distinctions between human language and animal communication Arbitrariness

Distinctions between human language and animal communication Productivity

Distinctions between human language and animal communication Cultural transmission

Distinctions between human language and animal communication Duality

Talking to animals Chimpanzees and language: Gua→ understand 100 words → did not say any of them Viki →scientists spent 5 years to get her say E words → managed to produce some words, rather poorly articulated versions of mama, papa, and cup.

Washoe → use version of ASL → by three and a half years → she came to use signs for more than 100 words → she could even combine these signs and produce sentences. Sarah → use plastic shapes to communicate with humans → the plastic shapes represented words and could be arranged in sequence to build sentences →able to produce sentences and understand complex structures.

Lana →learned a language called Yerkish → aset of symbols on a large keyboard linked to a computer. When Lana wanted some water, she had to press four symbols, in the correct sequence, to produce the message please machine give water criticism

The controversy Herbert Terrace Chimpanzees produce signs in response to the demands of people Conditional response to cues provided by human trainers Response: experiments were conducted by eliciting responses Animals reported to use sign language with or with no human presence

Home assignments Study questions 1 to 5