The Linguistics Of Primates By Washoe And Koko

In the article,”Of Primates and Personhood: Will According Rights and “Dignity” to Nonhuman Organisms Halt Research?”, author Ed Yong implies that different types of primates such as apes should be treated more like human beings. He starts by stating a claim the there is some type of schism between different types of scientists and the world. Yong also explains the the Swiss law and how it protects the “dignity” of organisms. He also states that the apes are basically in “battle” Yong then starts to talk about what measures the GAP tries to take in order to give the apes some type of rights. He also explains the different measures that other countries have taken to help the apes within their country, and then he makes another claim in which

According to “When Animals Communicate, They Are Not Using “Language” “, Mia Lewis says “...scientists insist that when chimpanzees or other animals are taught to use words or signs, more often or not they are simply performing a kind of trick in order to receive a reward - usually food. That is why animals don’t go on to create more words or complex sentences. A human baby, on the other hand, rapidly progresses from saying a single word to being able to form complex sentences”. Animals only perform actions of language for treats or rewards because of the ‘thing’ that they lack in their brain. However, since humans have this ‘thing’, we start saying words as a baby, than as we grow, form them into complex sentences, and make

     I think that if culture is defined as learned behavior, than it is reasonable to say that primates posses a form of culture. Primates have been observed making tools to aid in collecting food and developing communication system, both of which are learned behaviors.

Terrace (1984) believed that Washoe’s multi-word requests were not grammatical. They were merely “creative juxtapositions of signs” (Terrace, 1984). This was also found to be the case in other chimpanzees—Nim, Ally, Booee—along with Koko the gorilla. These animals were showing signs of learning and possible signs of thinking. Upon later review of the video footage from the teaching sessions, Terrace (1984) found that an interaction between the primate and handler caused the signing. The trainers gave unintentional cues causing the primate to make a certain response in order to receive a reward. Boysen, Rumbaugh, and Savage-Rumbaugh (1978) express the view “that there is no evidence, other than richly-interpreted anecdote, to suggest that Washoe and other signing apes are producing anything more than short-circuited iconic sequences.” This data confirms that primates were not thinking about the words, but became classically conditioned to respond. Other animals have not shown any language learning abilities.

Can animals learn to use language or is it all a load of monkey business? Animals can not use language because language is an exclusive skill that belongs to humans. Chimpanzees can communicate with each other, but that doesn’t qualify as language. One type of Chimpanzee is learning in a laboratory, however, they are only learning simplistic symbols.

Animals communicate to each other just as we do by making sounds to warn another. However, some nonhuman animals developed languages and cognitive capacities; psychologist refer it as animal cognitive. From the psychology 7th edition textbook by Sandra E. Hockenbury, Susan A. Nolan, and Don H. Hockenbury stated that "Going beyond languages, psychologists today study many aspects of animal behavior, including memory, problem solving, planning, cooperation, and even deception. Collectively, such research reflects an active area of psychological research that is referred to as animal cognitive or comparative cognitive. (289) There are many examples of intelligent nonhuman animals, such as chimpanzees and elephants. Furthermore, the animal that

The study of the communication of animals and the comparison of their communication to ours as humans is linguistic ethology (McNulty, 2017). And with all discussions of animal communication, it is important to remember that communication, and even language doesn’t necessarily equate to speech. The species of monkeys has been the most commonly discussed concept of animal communication that I have been exposed to, which is what interested me in this topic. Reading Ammie Kalan’s research on this, she focuses on the communication amongst wild chimpanzees and their food calls. However, their ability for communication has the ability to extend further. It has been discovered many times in the past that chimpanzees have the capacity to communicate

Have you ever wished you could talk to animals? Well, then you should meet a Bonobo! Bonobos manifest that animals can learn and use language.

Human behavior is so enigmatic and multifaceted that it 's difficult to connect it to past influences, but how did we become the linguistic, cultured, and hugely successful animals that we are? Our closest relatives — the mentally complex and socially skilled primates--offer insightful clues. The language competence of non-human primates is one of the most controversial issues in present-day linguistics, with disbelief ranging from bored indifference to caustic accusations of fraud. By definition, language is any system of formalized symbols, signs, sounds, gestures, or the like used or conceived as a means of communicating thought, emotion, etc. An evaluation of primate behavior demonstrates true emotions, feelings, planning and communication, that not only other primates understand, but humans can understand as well. This is far beyond primates mimicking their counterparts, and evidence strongly suggests that there is much more thoughts and feelings linked to their human like communicative abilities. (King 1999.) Human beings behave in ways that are deeply unique; such as creating art, music, solving mathematical equations, planning for the future and developing religions. These behavior patterns have led many to believe that modern humans stand apart from the rest of nature. Regardless of those differences, human beings “are one

Human language is different from animal call systems in that it is symbolic, biocultural, complex, and unique. We have a language unlike any other species and it can be translated in many different ways. Human language can be spoken, written, morse code, body language, or American Sign Language, just to name a few. Human language allows us to understand someone else’s cultural experiences and communicate our own, in a flexible and creative way. Our language is more open that way as compared to other species. Compared to us, nonhuman species have closed call systems because animals can only produce calls in appropriate situations (danger, sexual interest, hunger, etc.). Also, animals communicate using channels of transmission rather than voice

The article states that some research indicates that apes are capable understanding language and using sign to communicate and provides some example of support. However, the professor maintains that the investigations aren’t still enough for a certain conclusion and explains this by means of two reasons.

This allows humans to say one thing and think about another. Animals simply cannot do that. What is essential to language is the ability for symbolic thinking. Symbols are signs that act as a substitute for something they are not. Words are symbols in that they are a replacement for mental images or concepts, with which they are paired in an arbitrary fashion. A human can build off of collective knowledge and be innovative. We have symbolic meaning in items which animals do not. We have a full understanding of what we are saying. There have been cases where animals also understand what we are saying, but not as broad as humans. In the case of Alex the Parrot, yes he did have the intelligence of a five year old having not yet reached his full potential. But, was the reason behind his ability to communicate parroting? I believe that his understanding with communication and using human language would have been stronger if he could picture description words and have a use of symbolic language and opposed meanings. This is similar to the part of human language of being able to communicate but it is also different in the way that little understanding and symbolic language is shown. In chimpanzee communication, they have a rich repertoire with a both complex and sophisticated method of communication. They can be taught symbols and signs of human language and can combine them into useful sentences. But, they

An intelligent young monkey from the Indianapolis Zoo has been reported to be able to imitate the “pitch and tone of human sounds,” said by his handlers. This noteworthy 11-year-old orangutan is named Rocky, and he can produce sounds that can be made out as the letter “A” and is heard as “Ah.” Robert Shumaker, the director of the zoo, has stated,“What we have to consider now is the possibility that the origins of spoken language are not exclusively human…” Through this statement, we can see that this discovery with Rocky may indicate that the origins of spoken language could have begun by the great apes. There is no definite answer to whether or not the spoken language did start with monkeys. However, I believe that this could be a possibility.

On planet earth, there are a lot of smart animals and primates, however, none of them can talk to each other in the way that human beings do. The biggest distinction between humans and animals, is language (The Children of the Code Project, 2012). Language is a shared symbolic system, it is a means to expressing ideas and concepts, it is inquisitive, and it is also the link between the past and the future (Woolfolk & Margetts, 2013, p. 97). Language consists of groups and combinations of words and is the prime means of communication between humans (Fellowes & Oakley, 2014, p. 17). Many linguists question whether language is a naturally inherited process, or whether it emerges and develops through instruction. Others however, like Noam Chomsky, an American linguist and cognitive scientist, believe that with more than 4000 languages existing today, some are too complex to the learned through formal instruction and that children possess an inborn “language acquisition device” (O'Donnell et al., 2016, p. 127). Chomsky believed that language is made of words, nouns, verbs and subsequently, the rules on how those are moved around for example syntax and grammar (O'Donnell et al., 2016, p. 127); this is also known as a cognitive phenomenon (Gee & Hayes, 2011, p. 6). During his / her career, a teacher will have in the classroom a vast variety of students with diverse linguistic backgrounds, and it is imperative that educators use language as the social bridge that connects his /

Animals communicate, but their way of communication is based on cries consisted of limited number of symbols which have general meaning.