Let me first say that this article is excellent. Savage-Rumbaugh is a great writer, at least compared to the other extremely dry and uninteresting things written by her colleagues. She begins the article with an intriguing introduction:
A sea lion takes a frisbee to a hoop after watching a person wave her hands in a certain way. A chimpanzee waves its hands and someone then unlocks a door for it. A parrot looks at a clothespin and says "pegwood." A dolphin touches a paddle after searching its tank when someone makes particular arm movements.Each of the behaviors performed by the animals above is in some way similar to the linguistic skills of the human child. Yet science has been reluctant to conclude that a sea mammal has syntax or that a parrot can name things or answer questions. The chimpanzee shares much of our phylogenetic history, but even its ability to grasp basic linguistic functions has repeatedly come under question (Savage-Rumbaugh et al. 1980; Terrace et al. 1979). Language, as opposed to most human characteristics, is believed by many to set us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. Scientists and lay persons alike maintain that homo sapiens is the only species capable of true language, in spit of increasingly convincing evidence that the bio-linguistic substratum for language exists in other primates.
I like this introduction a lot because its kind of how I would have liked to have started an essay on this topic, if I were to write one. So she beat me to it. :) I record it here so I don't inadvertently copy her later on when I want to write something. :)
So the long and short of it is that I will probably photocopy the whole essay because this was one of the best overall reviews and commentaries on the field that I have seen so far . . . very balanced, I think, with insightful considerations on many of the studies that I have read about, comparing and contrasting their methods and what can be reasonably claimed by their results. I feel like one can trust Savage-Rumbaugh's opinions since she does seem so open to criticism and so careful in making statements about the abilities of animals, even given her successes.
Because nonhumans do not normally learn language, they must be taught the skills they acquire. And because they do not usually speak, they must be taught communication systems that do not utilize the primary channel of human language, speech."
She talks about the development of language in children, the way it is acquired, and talks about how it is a "social motivation" to communicate using share reference to "external objects" (270, quoting someone else actually) and that, at first, an infants' communications don't seem very directed at all, or very intentional, but that at some point, the communications become directed at the people they want to communicate to (looking at adults). This is a significant change, and one that she says is instigated, maybe, or at least reinforced by the adults treating these communications as intentional even if they are not. For instance, if a baby reaches up and looks like she wants to be picked up, the adult responds as though she meant she wanted to be picked up, even if that isn't really accurate. Eventually, the baby learns that the reaching gesture is interpreted that way, and can use it if she does want to be picked up.
That is, 'meaning' is imparted to the infant's actions by a caregiver who is already familiar with the communicative and linaguistic conventions of the culture. [ . . . ] Note that not only is the action interpreted by the adult but an intention is attributed to the infant by the adult, regardless of whether or not that intention is initially present in the mind of the infant.
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