Michael Dobrovolsky Animal...

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C H A P T E RSixteen Michael Dobrovolsky

Animal communicationAs I listened from a beach-chair in the shade To all the noises that my garden made, It seemed to me only proper that words Should be withheld from vegetables and birds.

W.H. AUDEN

Communication—the passing on or exchange of information—distinguishes what is livingfrom what is non-living in nature.1 Communication is found even in the apparently

passive world of plants; trees, for example, have been found to pass on informationabout advancing predators by means of chemical signals. Animals communicate among them-selves and with humans so effectively that they are often said to use ‘language’. But the wordscommunication and (human) language do not mean the same thing. Human language is aspecific way of communicating, but not just any form of communication qualifies as language.

A question that therefore interests many linguists is whether animals make use of anysystem of communication that genuinely resembles or approximates human language. Ifanimals communicate with a system that is structured like human language, thenlanguage as we know it is not the unique property of our species. This chapter investigatesthe ways in which animal communication is like human language and the ways in whichit is different.

16.1 Non-vocal communicationOne of the most striking things about animal communication is the variety of meansthrough which it is carried out. Animals communicate not only with sounds but with scent,light, ultrasound, visual signs (see figure 16.1), gestures, colour, and even electricity. Fromthe slime mold to the Kalahari barking gecko to the giant blue whale, all living things com-municate. Some non-vocal modes of communication are described here.

Scent Chemicals used by animals specifically for communicative purposes are calledpheremones. Pheremones are used by species as different as molds, insects, and mammals.A female moth signals its reproductive readiness through the release of a pheremone into theair. Only a few of these molecules need to be sensed by a male moth for it to start flyingzigzag upwind towards its potential mate. Dogs and other canines leave a urine-based phere-mone as an identification mark to stake out their territory, and many non-human primateshave specialized scent glands for the same purpose.

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Light Probably the most well-known light user in North America is the firefly or lightning bug.This small flying beetle uses light flashes in varying patterns to signal its identity, sex, andlocation. Different species of these insects have different and distinguishing light patterns.

Electricity Certain species of eels in the Amazon River basin communicate their presenceand territoriality by means of electrical impulses at various frequencies. Each species signalsat a specific frequency range, and the transmitting frequencies, like those of radio and televi-sion stations, do not overlap.

Colour The colour (or colour pattern) of many animals plays an important role in theiridentification by members of their own species and other animals. The octopus changescolour frequently and this colouring is used for a range of messages that include territorialdefence and mating readiness.

Posture This is a common communicative device among animals. Dogs, for example, lowerthe front part of their bodies and extend their front legs when they are playful. They lowertheir whole bodies to the ground when they are submissive. Postural communication isfound in both human and non-human primates.

Gesture Humans wave their arms in recognition or farewell, dogs wag their tails in excite-ment, and cats flick their tails when irritated. Many birds perform elaborate gestures of raisingand lowering the head or racing back and forth across the water in their mating rituals. Somefish, such as the male stickleback, perform a series of distinct movements in the water as partof their mating ritual.

Facial expressions These are specific types of communicative gestures. When a malebaboon yawns, bares its fangs, and retracts its eyebrows, it is indicating a willingness to fight.A wide and recognizable variety of facial expressions is found among chimpanzees, a numberof which are shown in figure 16.1. Experiments have shown that humans can classify themeanings of these expressions quite accurately. For example, when humans draw back thecorners of their mouths into a smile, they are generally indicating co-operation. A non-human primate’s smile also indicates non-aggressiveness.

Figure 16.1Some chimpanzee facial

expressions: a. anger;b. fear-anger; c. affection;

d. frustration-sadness; e. playfulness

Source: Adapted from S. Chevalier-Skolnikoff, “Facial Expression andEmotion in Nonhuman Primates” in E. Ekman (ed.), Darwin andFacial Expression (New York: Academic Press, 1973), pp. 11–90.


16.2 Communication structure: the study of signsCertain common elements underlie the bewildering variety of communicative strategies foundin nature. An understanding of these elements is necessary for comparing the differences andsimilarities among systems of communication.

16.2.1 SignsCommunication relies on using something to stand for something else. Words are anobvious example of this: you do not have to have a car, a sandwich, or your cousin presentin order to talk about them—the words car, sandwich, and cousin stand for them instead.This same phenomenon is found in animal communication as well. Instead of fighting overterritory, for example, many animals produce sounds or make gestures that threaten andintimidate intruders—the message replaces the attack. Birds utter warning calls that repre-sent the presence of a threat. A threatening animal or human need not be seen by otherbirds before they take flight—perception of the warning call replaces visual perception ofthe threat.

Each of these things that stand for other things is technically known as a sign. The signis a unit of communication structure that consists of two parts: a signifier, be it a word, ascent, a gesture, or an electrical frequency, and something signified that exists in the realworld, and which is mentally represented by the sign’s conceptual content. The real worldcan be thought of as external, mental, or emotional, and so what is signified by a sign can beas diverse as a tree, an abstract idea, a perception, or a feeling. Because their content is con-ceptual, all signs are associated with some meaning, such as ‘danger’, or ‘item of furniturewith legs and a flat top’. Individual instances of signs are called tokens. For example, in thesentence The baby threw the rattle there are five word tokens, but only four signs; the occurstwice as a token, but it is the same sign in both instances. Figure 16.2 illustrates thesedistinctions.

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Signified Signified

Real world referent

Token[tri]‘plant, having a trunk,

with leavesor needles’

Sign

/tri/

°

Figure 16.2A sign

The signifierA signifier is that part of a sign that stimulates at least one sense organ of the receiver of amessage. The phonological component of the word tree, represented as /tri/ and pronounced




[tr� i] is a typical linguistic signifier. A signifier can also be a picture, a photograph, a signlanguage gesture, or one of the many other words for tree in different languages.

The signifiedThe signified component of the sign refers to both the real world object it represents and itsconceptual content.

The first of these is the real world content of the sign, its extension or referent (see chapter 6,section 6.1.3) within a system of signs such as English, avian communication, or sign language.In our example, the referent is represented by a drawing because there is no room to include areal tree between the pages of this book. (Of course, the signifier /tri/ could also have a pictureof a tree as its referent.) It is easiest to think of referents as concepts or persons or things butthey may be ideas or feelings as well.

The signified component of a sign also evokes an intension (see chapter 6, section 6.1.3)to users of the system in question. A word for ‘tree’ evokes concepts that probably include‘plant’, ‘having a trunk’, and ‘bearing leaves or needles’ in the minds of speakers of anylanguage who are familiar with trees. Some animals appear to conceptualize in terms ofclasses or categories as well. Certain monkeys, for example, distinguish among various typesof predators on the basis of size, shape, and motion (see section 16.5.3).

16.2.2 Types of signsSigns can be divided into three basic types, depending on (1) whether the signifier naturallyresembles its referent, (2) whether the signifier is directly linked with the referent in a physi-cal or mechanical sense, or (3) whether signifier and referent are arbitrarily associated.

Iconic signsIconic signs, or icons, always bear some resemblance to their referent. A photograph isan iconic sign, as is a stylized silhouette of a female or a male on a restroom door. Ababoon’s open-mouth threat is iconic, resembling as it does the act of biting.Onomatopoeic words like buzz, splat, and squish in English and their counterparts in otherhuman languages are also iconic in that they somewhat resemble what they signify.

Language Matters The Science of Semiotics

Semiotics, the study of signs, is a field of study that links many diverse disciplines, among them linguis-tics, anthropology, philosophy, zoology, genetics, literary study, and computer science. An understand-ing of signs is essential for understanding how messages are transmitted. So that we can understandsigns better before proceeding to an analysis of animal communication, the next section examines theirstructure in detail. To find out more, read Daniel Chandler’s Semiotics for Beginners at www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/.


Because of this inherent resemblance to these referents, icons are considered non-arbitrarysigns (see figure 16.3).

Icons are widespread in the communication systems of all animals. Many postures andgestures that are critical to animal communication are iconic, as are the postures and gesturesused by humans. Human linguistic communication, however, does not make extensive useof iconic signs.

Indexical signsAn indexical sign, or index, fulfils its function by ‘pointing out’ its referent, typically bybeing a partial or representative sample of it. Indexes are not arbitrary, since their presencehas in some sense been caused by their referent. For this reason it is sometimes said thatthere is a causal link between an indexical sign and its referent. The track of an animal, forexample, points to the existence of the animal by representing a part of it. The presence ofsmoke is an index of fire.

Most important for our discussion here is a specific kind of indexical sign called asymptomatic sign, or symptom. Symptomatic signs spontaneously convey the internalstate or emotions of the sender and thus represent the sender in an indexical manner. Forexample, the fact that our body temperature rises when we are ill is a spontaneous reflec-tion of our internal state. When someone steps on our foot and we cry out, the cry is aspontaneous reflection of our internal state (surprise and pain) and thus constitutes asymptomatic sign.

Since symptomatic signs are spontaneous, we do not consider them to be deliberatelyselected by the sender for purposes of communication. We do not choose to cry out in painin the same way as we might, for example, decide to call our dwelling place a house, home,dwelling, or residence in the appropriate circumstances. Since senders do not deliberatelychoose to transmit the sign, the message is assumed to be essentially beyond their control.2

As forms of communication, symptomatic signs are therefore used primarily by the receiverof a message to assess the internal state of the sender.

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Figure 16.3Some iconic tokens:

a. open-mouth threat by a Japanese macaque

(Macaca fuscata); b. parkrecreation signs;

c. onomatopoeic wordsin English

Source: Baboon open-mouth threat: adapted from photograph in K. R. L. Hall and I. DeVore’s“Baboon Social Behavior,” in I. DeVore (ed.), Primate Behavior (Toronto: Holt, Rinehart and

Winston, 1965), pp. 53–110. Park information signs: courtesy of Alberta Provincial Parks.

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Symbolic signsSymbolic signs bear an arbitrary relationship to their referents and in this way are distinctfrom both icons and indexes. Human language is highly symbolic in that the vast majorityof its signs bear no inherent resemblance or causal connection to their referents, as the wordsin figure 16.4 show.

Figure 16.4Arbitrary sound-

meaning correspondencein language

tako = ?mazə = ?talo = ?kum = ?berat = ?

No phonological property of the words in figure 16.4 gives you any hint as to their possiblemeaning. (Tako means ‘octopus’ in Japanese, mazə is ‘forest’ in Kabardian, talo is ‘house’ inFinnish, kum means ‘sand’ in Turkish, and berat means ‘heavy’ in Indonesian.)

We encounter many other symbolic signs in everyday life. The octagonal shape of a stopsign is symbolic—it bears no inherent connection with the message it helps to communicate.The colours used in traffic signals are symbolic as well; red has no more inherent connectionwith the act of stopping than yellow.

Mixed signsSigns are not always exclusively of one type or another. Symptomatic signs, for example, mayhave iconic properties, as when a dog spontaneously opens its mouth in a threat to bite.Symbolic signs such as traffic lights are symptomatic in that they reflect the internal state ofthe mechanism that causes them to change colour. Still, we classify a sign according to itsmajor property: if it resembles its referent, it is iconic; if it is linked to its referent in somecausal way or represents it partially in some non-arbitrary way, it is indexical (and sympto-matic if it spontaneously expresses some internal state); and if its relationship to its referentis arbitrary, it is a symbol.

SignalsAll signs can act as signals when they trigger a specific action on the part of the receiver, asdo traffic lights, words in human language such as the race starter’s “Go!” or the warningcalls of birds. Typically, a signal releases more energy in the receiver than it takes for thetransmitter to send it. For example, the simple release of a mating pheremone into the windby a female moth (a symptomatic sign and also a signal) can cause the male to fly as much assix kilometres in search of her. Signals are very common in animal communication, but onlya limited subset of human linguistic activity consists of signalling.

16.2.3 Sign structureNo matter what their type, signs show different kinds of structure. A basic distinction ismade between graded and discrete sign structure.


Graded signsGraded signs convey their meaning by changes in degree. A good example of a gradation incommunication is voice volume. The more you want to be heard, the louder you speak alongan increasing scale of loudness. There are no steps or jumps from one level to the next thatcan be associated with a specific change in meaning.

Gradation is common in many forms of communication. The hands of most clocksmove (or appear to move) in a graded manner, as does the needle of an automobilespeedometer. Many animal signs, such as the barking of dogs, are graded as well. A goose hasessentially one type of honk, which may become louder and faster as it takes off in flight, butdoes not become another kind of honking. The gradually increasing fear in the facial expres-sion of the monkey depicted in figure 16.5 is also a graded sign.

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Figure 16.5Some graded signs: the facialexpressions a, b, and c of themacaque monkey represent

just three points on a contin-uum expressing fear; a. is a

neutral face; b. expresses slightfear; and c. expresses extreme

fear. Each expression gradesinto the next. The hands of

the clock in d. express minutes and hours in a

graded manner.Source: Adapted from S. Chevalier-Skolnikoff, “Facial Expression and Emotion in

Nonhuman Primates,” in E. Ekman (ed.), Darwin and Facial Expression (New York: Academic Press, 1973), pp. 11–90.

Discrete signsDiscrete signs are distinguished from each other by categorical (stepwise) differences.There is no gradual transition from one sign to the next. The words of human languageare good examples of discrete signs. There is no intermediate stage between the words stopand go in English except that which can be expressed by other discrete words orcombinations of words, such as start to go. The digital displays of watches are discrete aswell, since they progress from one minute (or even second) to the next with no gradation.Traffic lights, too, are discrete signs; there is no gradual shifting from green to yellow tored (see figure 16.6).

Figure 16.6Some discrete signs:

a. digital time display; b. traffic lights; c. words

of a human language




Sign types and structureAll three types of signs—iconic, indexical/symptomatic, and symbolic—can be graded ordiscrete. A photograph is iconic and discrete, but a threatening canine’s gradual baring ofits fangs is iconic and graded. Morse code is symbolic and discrete, but a slowly dimminglight that signals the beginning of a theatrical performance is symbolic and graded.Symptomatic signs, too, may be discrete (the traffic light again) or graded (the crying of achild or the act of blushing).

It is possible for a discrete sign to be internally graded, and even to slip over into anothertype by degrees. Human crying, for example, is interpreted in experiments as becoming grad-ually more like screaming as the audible intake of breath between sobs becomes shorter andshorter. Figure 16.7 illustrates this phenomenon.

Figure 16.7The graded continuum

from sobbing to scream-ing (the height of the

stippled and blackenedareas represents the

audibility of the vocal-ization and the width itsduration): both sob and

scream are discretesigns, even though each

grades into the other.

Source: Adapted from D. Todt, “Serial Calling as a Mediator of InteractionProcesses: Crying,” in D. Todt, D.E. Goedeking, and D. Symmes

(eds.), Primate Vocal Communication (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1988), pp. 88–107. Reprinted by permission of he publisher.

At the extreme ends of the continuum, there is no difficulty interpreting the sound asone or the other, although it is difficult to say precisely when a ‘sob’ becomes a ‘scream’.Thus we can say that ‘sobbing’ and ‘screaming’ are discrete symptomatic signs, but each ofthem is internally graded, and their gradations overlap. The same is true of many vocaliza-tions in animal communication.


16.2.4 A view of animal communication

They’re like Swiss watches . . . they just react. Their genes and hormones and experience tellthem what to do. They don’t think about it.

ZOOKEEPER BEN BECK (ON GOLDEN LION TAMARIN MONKEYS)

Most animal communication, it is claimed, shows little arbitrariness. It is said to be largelyiconic and symptomatic and hence not deliberate or conscious in intent. Animal communica-tion is also said to lack symbols in its sign repertory. For example, if a monkey gives a certain cryin the presence of danger, it is assumed that the monkey is spontaneously signalling its fearby vocalizing, but is not deliberately warning other group members of the danger. The sympto-matic vocalization, which is a non-arbitrary symptom of the animal’s internal state, isinterpreted and used by other members of a troop for their own benefit.

It follows from this view of animal communication that the acquisition of communicativesystems by animals was in the past assumed to be largely devoid of learning and experience.Rather, it was claimed that the systems are rather strictly limited by genetic inheritance, and inthis sense are radically unlike human language, the acquisition of which requires exposure toa mature system. This limitation certainly appears to be true in some cases. When raised in isolation, animals as diverse as the fox, the elephant seal, the cat, and certain monkeys developthe full range of vocalizations typical of their species. However, as we will see in section 16.4 ofthis chapter, the situation can be more complex than this.

It is also claimed that animal communication is neither conscious nor deliberate. It is notwidely believed, for example, that a monkey assesses a situation and then deliberately chooses towarn group members of danger by selecting a sign from a repertoire of meaningful sound sym-bols at its disposal. For this reason, the term stimulus-bound is also used to describe animalcommunication, since it is often claimed that animal communication only occurs when it is trig-gered by exposure to a certain stimulus or for certain specific ends. Animals do not communicateabout anything but the here and now. As the philosopher Bertrand Russell once noted, “Nomatter how eloquently a dog may bark, it cannot tell you that its parents were poor but honest.”

With respect to structure, animal communication is said to show few traces of discretestructuring beyond the obvious fact that one group of symptomatic, graded signals maysound very different from another. Whining in dogs, for example, is clearly different frombarking, but both are assumed to be symptomatic, and the two may grade into each other.Combining and recombining of discrete units of structure such as phonemes, morphemes,and words is not characteristic of the way animals communicate. Dogs do not combinewhines and barks to produce novel messages.

This does not mean that animal communication consists of random emotional out-bursts. Nor does it mean that animal communication does not show structure. Animalcommunication is both complex and organized. Evolutionary pressure has guaranteedthat animal communication is optimally in tune with the survival requirements of eachspecies. The electrical communication of Amazonian eels is an excellent means of com-munication in muddy waters. The danger whistle of a small, tree-dwelling primate like thegalago is ideal for nocturnal communication in a dense forest. Small jungle frogs in SouthAmerica communicate by sticking out their long and colourful legs, ideal for sendingmessages in the dim and noisy jungle. But jungle frogs do not try new combinations of legmovements in order to come up with an original message, any more than the electric eel

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recombines frequencies in order to signal something it has never conveyed before. Animalcommunication appears to be limited in the messages it can convey.

But is animal communication so very unlike human language in every respect? The nextsections examine the communication systems of several kinds of animals and compare themwith human language.

16.3 The beesI have no doubt that some will attempt to ‘explain’ the performances of the bees as the results ofreflexes and instincts . . . for my part, I find it difficult to assume that such perfection and flexi-bility in behavior can be reached without some kind of mental processes going on in the smallheads of the bees.

AUGUST KROGH, SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

16.3.1 The systemForager bees display a remarkable system of communicating the location of a food source toother bees in their hive. When a food source has been discovered, the forager flies back to thehive and communicates information about it by performing special movements (whichhumans call dancing) before other members of the hive. The dancing conveys informationabout the location of the food source, its quality, and its distance from the hive.

DistanceDistance is conveyed by one of three different dances performed on the wall or floor of thehive (some species have only two different dances, and so may be said to have a different‘dialect’). In doing the round dance, the bee circles repeatedly. This indicates a food sourcewithin five metres or so of the hive. The sickle dance indicates a food source from five totwenty metres from the hive. It is performed by the bee dancing a curved figure-eight shape.The tail-wagging dance indicates distances further than twenty metres. In this dance, the beewags its abdomen as it moves forward, circles to the right back to its starting point, repeatsthe wagging forward motion, and circles left. The cycle then begins again.

DirectionThe round dance does not communicate direction, presumably since the food source is soclose to the hive. The direction of more distant food sources is indicated in the other twotypes of dance.

As the bee performs the sickle and tail-wagging dances, it is simultaneously indicating thedirection of the food source. Bees orient themselves in flight relative to the angle of the sun.When danced on the floor of the hive, the angle of the open side of the sickle dance’s figureeight or the angle of the wagging path during the tail-wagging dance indicates the direction offlight. When the dancing is performed on the vertical wall of the hive, it is apparently ‘under-stood’ that the top of the hive wall represents the current position of the sun in the sky. Duringthe sickle dance, the angle of the open side of the figure eight relative to the hive’s vertical


alignment indicates the direction of flight toward the food source relative to the sun. Whenthe bee performs the tail-wagging dance, the angle of its wagging path relative to the hive’svertical angle indicates the path of flight toward the food source relative to the sun. Figure 16.8illustrates the dances and their manner of indicating the direction of the food source.

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Figure 16.8Bee dancing

Source: K. von Frisch, The Dance Language and Orientation of Bees, trans. L.E. Chadwick (Cambridge,MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1967), p. 57. Copyright © 1967, 1993 by the

President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission of Harvard University Press.

QualityQuality of the food source is indicated by the intensity of the dancing and the number ofrepetitions of the circling movements. As the food source is depleted, the dance is performedwith less vivacity.

Other factorsThese messages are not communicated with perfect accuracy, nor are they the only onesinvolved in bee communication. Bees also leave a hive-specific pheremone trace at the site ofthe food source, thereby directing their fellow foragers to the precise location. The beesalso carry back traces of the food source odours, which further aid other bees in the search.A complex of communicative modes operating on different channels—a constellation—isthus employed in bee communication. This use of different modalities to communicate thesame information is called redundancy. Redundancy helps guarantee that communicationwill succeed in the event one or the other modalities fails or is imperfectly transmitted. Allcommunication systems make use of redundancy. (Human language is no exception. Forexample, the presence of allophonic features such as voicelessness and aspiration on syllable-initial voiceless stops, or both the length and quality differences of vowels, provides redun-dancy that assists in decoding the signals.)

16.3.2 Bees and humansHow does bee communication compare with human language? The three patterns that thebees dance are not obviously connected with the messages they communicate and so aresymbolic in nature (though it is possible to argue that relative distance is iconically represented




in that a greater distance covered by the bee in each cycle of the dance corresponds to a greaterdistance of the nectar source from the hive). The communication of direction is indexicalwhen carried out on the hive floor (in the sense that it points in the direction of flight), and inthis sense may be comparable to a human gesture. Bees are, however, capable of transformingthis information into a symbolic representation, since they transfer the horizontal flight pathto a vertical representation on the hive wall. The expression of food-source quality is, in allprobability, symptomatic: the more stimulated a bee is by the quality of the food source, thefaster it dances.

The total communicative constellation involves other, redundant sources of communi-cation as well, such as pheremones and food-source samples. The performance even involvesaudience participation. During its dancing, the returning bee is expected to provide samplesfrom the food source. If it fails to do so, it may be stung to death.

Bee communication, then, like human language, shows symbolic, indexical, and symp-tomatic traits, redundancy, and interaction between sender and receiver of the messages. Butthere is a major difference between the two systems of communication: the topic of beelanguage is severely constrained. Bees communicate only about food sources. Furthermore,their potential for communication is very limited. Only certain locations of food sources canbe conveyed. Bees cannot communicate the notion of up or down. They can be easily trickedinto communicating the wrong direction of the food source if a strong light source is placedin an incorrect position with relation to the food source. They can also be tricked into givingthe wrong information about distance to the food source if they are forced to walk or stopseveral times during their trip. This indicates that they gauge distance by time. The beesshow no means of assessing varying information and communicating this fact. Their systemof communication appears to be close-ended and limited to a specific number of facts abouta specific type of information.

It also appears that bee language is largely innate—that is, there is very little need for a newforager bee to be exposed to the system in the presence of other bees. Foragers on their firstflight perform the appropriate dances, although they refine their performance to some extentwith time and exposure to other dancing. Their flight orientation to the sun is imperfect atfirst, but it develops within a few hours.3

The innateness of bee dancing has been tested by cross-breeding Austrian bees, which donot perform the sickle dance to express intermediate distance of the food source from thehive, with Italian honeybees, which do. The results of such experiments further support agenetic interpretation of bee communication. In the cross-breeding experiment, the beesthat bore a physical resemblance to their Italian parent performed the sickle dance toindicate intermediate distance 98 percent of the time. The bees that bore a physical resem-blance to their Austrian parent performed the round dance to indicate intermediate distance96 percent of the time; they did not perform the sickle dance at all. The dance pattern usedin a specific situation appears to be inherited from a certain parent along with other moreobvious genetic traits.

In 1948, when the Danish physiologist August Krogh made the statement quoted at thebeginning of this section, he struck at the widely accepted notion that animal behaviour waseither the result of some kind of conditioning, or, in some ill-defined way, instinctive. Muchhas been learned since then about the enormous quantity of information imparted bygenetic transfer. It is now possible to state with a fair degree of certainty that the complexand sophisticated behaviour of bees and other equally remarkable insects is in all probability


largely genetically predetermined and, unlike human language, it relies very little on expo-sure to the mature system in order to be acquired.

16.4 The birdsHow intelligent is a creature that can amuse himself for 15 minutes by uttering, over and over,the following sounds: uhr, uhr, uhr, Uhr, URH, URH, Wah, Wah, wah, wah, wah.

JAKE PAGE (ON HIS AMAZON PARROT)

16.4.1 Bird vocalizationBirds, as Jake Page later found out, can do a lot more than utter sounds over and over.Indeed, research on natural communication among birds has already shed light on certainparallels in human linguistic communication.

Bird vocalization can be divided into two types, call and song. Calls are typically shortbursts of sound or simple patterns of notes. Songs are lengthy, elaborate patterns of mostlypitched sounds.

CallsCalls serve very specific functions in the bird community. They typically warn of preda-tors, co-ordinate flocking and flight activity, express aggression, and accompany nestingor feeding behaviour. The cawing of crows is a typical call. It appears to convey a general-ized mobilization because of possible danger. When a crow hears cawing, it flies up to atree if it is on the ground, or flies higher in a tree—or to another tree—if it is already inone. (If there are crows in your neighbourhood, you can test this yourself, as cawing iseasy to imitate.)

In some birds, individual calls are associated with specific activities; a danger call is quitedifferent from a call given when birds are grouped in flight. The ‘danger’ call given by smallbirds when larger avian predators threaten them is typically thin and high-pitched. This kindof sound is difficult to locate, and so can be given as a warning without revealing the positionof the caller. A flight call is generally short, crisp, and easy to locate by other group members.The honking of geese in flight is a typical example of this sort of call. Because it is loud andeasy to locate, it is well suited to enable the bird flock to stay together. Such functional utilityis typical of bird calls, and in fact, calls that serve the same communicative purpose are oftenremarkably similar among different species of birds.

SongBirdsong is different from calling. Although calls are produced year-round, singing islargely limited to spring, summer, and autumn. Furthermore, it is generally only male birdsthat sing.

The main purposes of song are, as far as we know, to announce and delimit the territoryof the male and to attract a mate. Birds establish territory for breeding purposes and defend

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it vigorously. Across Canada, as far north as Hudson Bay in the east, and well into theNorthwest Territories and the Yukon in the west, it is a common sight in the spring to see ared-winged blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus) and its mate team up to drive away a male of theirspecies that has strayed into their territory. The use of song enables male birds to establishand maintain this territory without constant patrolling and fighting. Moreover, once abird has established its territory, its song serves to attract and maintain contact with a mate.It follows that birdsong is unique from species to species, and even varies to some degreefrom bird to bird within the same species, since its purposes require identification both ofspecies and of individuals.4

In some species, songs are nothing more than a successive repetition of calls. Inothers, songs consist of complex patterns of pitches—sometimes called syllables—thatform longer repeated units or themes. The sometimes elaborate complexity of songstructure reflects individual variation among the singers, and, as pointed out previously,serves a specific purpose. Figure 16.9 shows a spectrogram (an acoustic recording thatshows pitch and intensity of sound along a time axis) of the song of the European robin(Erithacus rubecula). Note how the different subsections of the song are distinct andrecognizable. There is also some evidence that sections of a song are combined in differentorders by certain birds, but there is no evidence that recombination is associated withdifferent meanings.

Figure 16.9Spectrogram of a robin

song; pitch is shownvertically along the L-Rtime axis, intensity by

greater darkness

Source: W.H. Thorpe, Bird-Song (Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 1961).Copyright © and reprinted with the permission of Cambridge University Press.

Avian dialectsThere is evidence for both song and call dialects among bird species. Researchers even speakof avian isoglosses (lines drawn on a map to indicate shared characteristics among dialects;see chapter 14, section 14.2.2) that are based on variations in the melody of song ‘syllables’or themes (see figure 16.10). The reason for the existence of dialects is still unclear; it may beno more than a reflection of individual avian variation in song and call learning. If it is, weare led to an intriguing issue in the relationship of bird vocalization to human language—thequestion of how bird vocalizations are acquired.


16.4.2 Birds and humansThe acquisition of call and song by birds shows interesting parallels with recent hypothesesabout the acquisition of language by human children (see chapter 10). Though a great deal ofbird vocalization—particularly calling—appears to be innate, there is much that appears tobe acquired. Studies of avian dialects have shown that birds reared in the same nest acquiredifferent song dialects when they live in different dialect areas. It also appears to be the casethat singing ability is lateralized in the left brains of birds, as is linguistic ability in humans.Still more significant for linguistic study is the fact that some birds must acquire the species-specific characteristics of their song within a certain time span or critical period. A number ofbird species do not develop fully characteristic songs if they are not exposed to them duringthe early stages of their lives.

The chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) is one such bird. If chaffinches are reared in isolation, theysing, but replicate only in a general way the typical song of the species. If young chaffinchesare reared away from fully developed singers, but with other young chaffinches, the entireexperimental community develops an identical song. Finally, chaffinches that have beenexposed to only some part of the fully developed song (those that are captured in the autumnof the first year of life) will, the following spring, develop a song that is partially typical butnot completely well formed.

These experiments indicate that there are some songbirds that have both an innate and alearned component in their song. The innate component predisposes them to perform ageneral song that is extremely simplified. This has been called a template or a blueprint. Onlyexposure to the fully formed song of the species will enable them to produce the correct song.(Exposure to other songs causes some species to imitate in this direction; other species simplydo not acquire anything they are exposed to unless it is their own species-characteristic song.)Finally, it is clear that certain birds do not acquire their characteristic song in a brief span oftime, but that several seasons of exposure are required. The evidence from songbird studies,while not transferable directly to humans, gives strong support to the idea that a combinationof innate and acquired components is one way that the acquisition of complex behaviour takesplace in nature.

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Figure 16.10Avian isoglosses: callpatterns of male Hill

Mynas (black dots showmyna groups; the

shaded area showsforested hills and the

unshaded, open plain;the heavier the blacklines, the more song

characteristics areshared by the group

within its boundaries) Source: Paul Mundigner, “Microgeographic and Macrogeographic Variation in AcquiredVocalizations of Birds,” in D.E. Kroodsma, E.H. Miller, and H. Ouellet (eds.),

Acoustic Communication in Birds, Vol. 2, (New York: Academic Press, 1982), pp. 147–208.Reprinted by permission.




16.5 Non-human primatesSome animals share qualities of both man and the four-footed beasts, for example, the ape, themonkey, and the baboon.

ARISTOTLE, ON ANIMALS

Fascination with non-human primates goes far back in human history. Their social behaviourhas long been seen as an amusing (and sometimes instructive) parody of human behaviour.Since the recent establishment of the fact that we are closely related genetically to theseanimals—some 99 percent of our genetic matter is shared with chimpanzees and gorillas—theresemblance of their behavioural, social, and communicative traits to ours has been seen asmore than a droll counterpart to human activity. For some linguists, the question of ourshared cognitive, and especially linguistic, ability has become more important; it is thoughtthat a better understanding of non-human primates may shed light on the evolution ofhuman social and cognitive abilities.

Primates form a large class of mammals, which range from the tiny tarsier to the imposingmountain gorilla. Among the non-human primates, some are nocturnal, some diurnal in theiractivity cycle. Some are solitary, some form part of complex social groups. Many are tree-dwelling,and many are ground-dwelling. Some are quadrupeds, and some show periods of bipedallocomotion. Figure 16.11 shows one widely accepted classification of the primates.

The prosimians are an evolutionarily early group found on the island of Madagascar, insub-Saharan Africa, and in Southeast Asia. New World Monkeys range from Mexico throughSouth America. Among them are the only primates with prehensile (grasping) tails. OldWorld Monkeys include the many tree- and ground-dwelling species of Africa and theFar East. The larger non-human primates—baboons, chimpanzees, and gorillas—are not

Language Matters Talking Parrots

In recent years, the linguistic abilities of Grey African Parrots have received considerable attention,both in the media and in scientific circles. Although the vocabulary of the birds is not especially large(it is in the range of one hundred words) and there is no evidence of an actual grammar, two factsare of great interest.

The first has to do with the way in which parrots acquire their vocabulary. In the studies involvingAlex, the best known of the talking parrots, two techniques have proven successful: simple exposure tothe words in appropriate sentences (“Would you like some corn? Corn tastes yummy.”) and a proce-dure in which the trainer ‘teaches’ the word to another human and rewards him or her for a correctanswer as the parrot looks on.

Second, Alex and other parrots in the same laboratory have manifested an ability to use theirvocabulary to answer quite intricate questions about colour, size, and number. For instance, whenshown a small green key and a large red key, Alex can respond correctly to questions such as, “Whattoy?” (key), “How many?” (two), “What’s different?” (colour), “What colour [is] smaller?” (green),and so forth.

To find out more, see Irene Pepperberg, The Alex Studies (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 1999); www.alexfoundation.org/irene.htm; and http://vvi.onstreammedia.com/.


native to North and South America. Baboons—large, mainly ground-dwelling primates—arefound from central to northern Africa. They show a high degree of social organization,intelligence, and aggressiveness. The hominoids include the agile gibbons, solitary orang-utans (both found only in Southeast Asia), the large but peaceful gorillas, the chimpanzees,and humans.

In section 16.5.1, we first turn our attention to non-human primate communication inthe wild. It is there that we can gain an initial understanding of how forms of non-humanprimate communication resemble or differ from our own in terms of function and structure.

16.5.1 Some functions of non-human primate communicationThe validity of studies of communication among captive primates has been criticized becausethe animals’ social existence is highly limited and compromised in zoos. Studies of non-human primate communication have largely left the zoo and laboratory and moved into theanimals’ natural habitat. While careful observation of non-human primate communication isstill the basis of this work, the use of playback experiments, in which tape recordings ofnatural calls are played back over hidden loudspeakers, has led to a greater understandingof the communicative systems of these animals.

Although the social life of even the most gregarious non-human primate is relativelysimple when compared to that of humans, primates, like humans, communicate for manydifferent reasons. Typical non-human primate communication serves to mark and announceterritory, to warn other group members of danger, to seek or maintain contact with a mate orother members of the species, and to interact with members of the troop or species in vari-ous ways we can call ‘socializing’. Socializing vocalizations are particularly important in

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Figure 16.11The primates




mother-child bonding and in primate groups with a complex and hierarchical social struc-ture. In these groups, it is important to know which members have a higher or lower rank sothat group members can behave accordingly in their presence. Vocalization is a key factor inmaintaining this behaviour.

As we briefly survey some aspects of the structure of non-human primate communicativesystems, we will also refer to the ways in which structure and function are linked.

16.5.2 Prosimian communicationProsimian communication shows a small repertoire of sounds that are patterned into discretegroups. The lemur (Lemur catta) of Madagascar is a typical prosimian with respect to itsvocal communication system. It has been described as making essentially two types of vocal-ization, noises and calls, each of which shows some grading. The vocalizations appear to besymptomatic. They are classified in table 16.1; quasi-phonetic descriptions like spat shouldbe interpreted as onomatopoeic.

Table 16.1 Lemur vocalization

Noises Calls

Sound Context Sound ContextSingle click In response to Light spat (yip) When driving off

strange objects threatening inferiorsClicks, grunts During locomotion, or Spat When crowded or

for friendly greeting handled roughlyPurr While grooming Bark When startled

Source: Adapted from A. Jolly, Lemur Behavior (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966).

Each graded set of sounds is used in a circumscribed range of situations. The calls, in particular,are limited to threat or fear encounters. They seem to form a graded series, ranging from thelight spat to the bark in intensity. A small repertoire of distinct vocalizations is the normamong prosimians. The slow loris (Nycticebus coucang), an Asian prosimian, is reported to haveno more than five calls.

16.5.3 MonkeysThe study of communication among the many varieties of New and Old World Monkeys istoo vast for this chapter. An oversimplified picture reflects what most researchers agree isprimarily a symptomatic system, but one that shows a larger number of signs, with moregradation among them, than does the communication of prosimians.

One study of the Bonnet macaque (Macaca radiata), a South Asian monkey, presents asystem of twenty-five different basic patterns that are used in various social interactions,including contact, agonistic encounters, foraging, greeting, sexual contact, and alarm giving.These vocalizations are determined by correlating observation with spectrographic analysis;descriptive labels are also given to the vocalizations, such as whoo, rattle, growl, whistle, and


bark. These basic patterns are described as grading into each other. It is also claimed that theyoccur in combinations. There is no evidence, however, that these recombinations mean any-thing novel when they occur.

The communication systems of many monkeys appear to be genetically determined.This has been established by raising newborns in isolation. However, this statement cannotbe made for all monkeys. For some monkeys, input from the adult system appears to berequired.

The study of one small monkey has suggested that not all monkey vocalizations aresymptomatic, and that experience and learning can play a role in the acquisition of the com-municative system. The East African vervet monkey (Cercopithecus aethiops) is said to havethree distinctive and arbitrary calls that announce the presence of eagles, snakes, or largeterrestial mammals posing a threat. These calls are associated with different responses by themonkeys. When they hear the eagle call, the monkeys look up or run into the bushes. Thesnake call causes them to look down at the ground near them. The mammal alarm sees themrun up into the trees, or climb higher in a tree if they are already in one.

These findings, which appear to have been well established by playback experimentssince they were first reported in 1967, suggest that not all non-human primates relystrictly on symptomatic signals to communicate or to trigger behaviour in others. It isclaimed rather that the vervets assess the potential danger situation and then choose aspecific call with a clearly defined referent to announce the danger. Furthermore, each callis a vocalization signifier that is arbitrarily linked with its referent. Other monkeysrespond appropriately to the calls without necessarily observing the danger themselves.All this taken together suggests a cognitive ability for classification of objects in the worldand an ability to link this classification system to arbitrary sounds for purposes of inten-tional communication.

The vervet may not be an isolated case. Goeldi’s Monkey (Callimico goeldii ), found in SouthAmerica, is said to have five different alarm calls, three of which are used when terrestrialpredators approach, and two of which have been heard in the presence of large birds. Suchobservations support the claim that certain monkeys have the cognitive capacity to associateperceptual categories with vocalizations.

The acquisition of these signals among vervets is interesting. Infant vervets appear to dis-tinguish innately among broad classes of mammals, snakes, and birds, but they also give the‘eagle call’ when other birds appear and the ‘leopard call’ when other terrestrial mammalsappear. Adults distinguish between leopards and less dangerous mammals, and eagles and lessdangerous birds (as well as between snakes and sticks), and it is claimed that this ability must beperfected through experience. This once again suggests that a mixture of innate componentsand learning is typical of the way some communication systems are naturally acquired.

16.5.4 Gibbons, orangutans, and chimpanzeesSince the higher primates are close genetic relatives of humans, it is natural to expect theirvocal communication to resemble that of humans. Perhaps surprisingly, communicationamong the higher primates does not show much indication of discrete vocal signs that couldbe interpreted as resembling human words. For the most part, the communication systems ofthese animals are made up of groups of graded vocal signs, some of which appear to displaya certain level of sign-symbol correspondence.

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Gibbons and orangutansGibbons display an interesting form of vocal interaction known as duetting. This is theinterchange of calls in a patterned manner between two members of a species, and is foundamong certain birds, bats, and even antelopes. Duetting is, however, atypical of primatecommunication—among the hominoids, only gibbons perform it. Recent playback experi-ments show that duetting among gibbons serves to maintain spacing among territoriesmuch as does birdsong (see section 16.4.1). Playback of duetting within a gibbon’s territorywill cause it to approach the apparent source of the vocalizations, possibly with the intent ofdriving the intruders out. Playback of singing and duetting from outside a group’s territoryonly infrequently evokes a response. Recognition of individuals does not appear to play arole in these vocalizations.

Unlike gibbons, which live in family groups, orangutans largely keep to themselves (exceptfor mother-child pairs). Some sixteen distinct vocalizations have been identified, many ofthem straightforwardly symptomatic. Among the solitary forest males, loud calls up to threeminutes long serve a territorial and spacing function. These calls also identify the individualswho produce them. High-ranking males approach calls, presumably to confront the intruder,while low-ranking males stay away from areas where they hear the calls of high-ranking males.These calls are, in other words, indexes that stand in for the individual animals themselves,and orangutans must identify and assess each of these calls before acting on them.

ChimpanzeesChimpanzees vocalize with a number of graded calls. As many as thirty-four distinct calls havebeen reported for one species (Pan troglodytes). Some of these appear to show rather specificreferents. Chimps typically produce a vocalization called ‘rough grunting’ in the presence of afavourite food source. A more powerful vocalization known as a ‘pant-hoot’ (a sound thatcarries well in dense forest) often indicates location. Pant-hooting is also used in greeting orwhen chimps are excited about something. A third vocalization, ‘pant-grunting’, appears to beused by lower-ranking animals in the presence of higher-ranking ones, apparently acknowl-edging a subordinate status in a social hierarchy. Recent work suggests that the pant-hoots of aband of Ugandan chimpanzees in the wild may be composed of several acoustic discretesubtypes—a graded continuum (see section 16.2.3). This study also suggested that there issome association of vocalization and particular behavioural and social contexts (travel,feeding, resting, etc.).

‘Language’ in the wild?Especially among highly socialized species, non-human primate vocalizations all show agreat deal of variation. There is every indication that their vocalizations form part of a con-stellation of redundant communicative acts including gesture, posture, gaze (eye ‘pointing’),and the expression of affect, all of which must be interpreted by other troop members. Theobvious complexity of communication systems among these animals suggests that the levelof mental activity devoted to communicative behaviour is sophisticated and well developed.

But despite the high degree of intelligence and social organization these animals demon-strate, there is not a great deal of evidence for arbitrary relationships between sound and


meaning among apes. Even more significantly, there is no evidence of recombining varioussections of a message to form new messages. Nothing that parallels the phonemic ormorphological recombination of human language has been discovered in the naturalcommunication systems of non-human primates.

It is possible that the lack of parallels with human linguistic communication in speciesclosely related to our own may be because of the nature of their social organization. Thesmall groups or family units typical of chimpanzees and gorillas living in a food-rich envi-ronment may not have required the development of any other mode of communication.What has evolved is suited to their needs. This does not mean, however, that our near-relatives do not possess any of the cognitive abilities necessary for using a system ofcommunication akin to human language. There is some evidence, for example, of lefthemisphere development of the type associated with human linguistic ability. A number ofrecent experiments with non-human primates have attempted to determine the extent—ifany—of their linguistic abilities.

16.6 Testing non-human primatesfor linguistic abilityMuch attention has been paid in recent years to non-human primates who communicatewith humans through the use of sign language.

Controlled testing of the possible shared linguistic abilities of non-human primates andhumans goes back to 1948, when two psychologists attempted to train Viki, a young chim-panzee, to say meaningful words in English. With great effort, Viki learned to approximatethe pronunciations of a few words like cup and papa over a period of fourteen months.Unfortunately, the experiment was doomed to failure from the start, since the vocalfold structure and supralaryngeal anatomy of the chimpanzee are unsuited for producinghuman sounds.

Chimpanzee vocal folds are fatty and less muscular than those of humans, and the neu-rological pathways between the brain and vocal folds are less developed than in humans. Thechimpanzee’s epiglottis extends well up into the throat cavity, which lessens the rangeof sounds it can produce. Finally, the whole larynx-tongue linkage rests higher in thechimpanzee throat than in humans, which results in limitations on its humanlike soundproduction as well. In short, chimpanzee anatomy is unsuited for human speech, andconcentrating effort on teaching one to articulate words was distracting from the moreprovocative question: to what extent is the chimp mentally capable of linguistic behaviour?

16.6.1 Some experimentsAn experiment conducted from 1965 to 1972 by Allen and Beatrice Gardner with a youngfemale chimpanzee named Washoe created a new perspective on non-human primate lin-guistic abilities. The Gardners attempted to raise Washoe much as a human child would beraised, and to teach her American Sign Language (ASL), on the assumption that it was agenuinely linguistic form of communication (of which there is no doubt). Given the knownmanual dexterity of chimpanzees, it was felt that sign language might provide a window onchimpanzee linguistic abilities.

534 Chapter Sixteen





WashoeThe Gardners’ reports claim that Washoe communicated intentionally with arbitrary signs ina creative manner, and thus showed the rudiments of human linguistic ability. Washoelearned to produce approximately 130 signs over a period of three years, and she recognizedmany more. Most significantly, it is claimed that Washoe spontaneously combined thesesigns to form novel utterances. She is reported to have signed WATER BIRD (in this chapter,signs are indicated by capital letters) on seeing ducks. Washoe also is said to have sponta-neously produced BABY IN MY CUP when her toy doll was placed in her drinking cup andshe was asked WHAT THAT?

Washoe, who passed away in 2007 at age forty-two, was the first but not the only chim-panzee to be taught sign language. The results have suggested to some linguists that chim-panzees show greater ability to associate arbitrary tokens with referents than was believedearlier, and that they demonstrate rudimentary syntactic behaviour. Other chimps, gorillas,and an orangutan that have been taught elements of ASL since the pioneering Washoe experi-ment are reported to have performed even better.

NimStill other experiments in teaching chimpanzees sign language have produced contradictoryresults. The achievements of a chimpanzee named Nim have been interpreted by his teach-ers as consisting of frequent repetitions of a small number of all-purpose signs (NIM, ME,YOU, EAT, DRINK, MORE, and GIVE) that were largely appropriate to any context. Thesesigns are said to have made up almost 50 percent of Nim’s production. Furthermore, there areno reports of his engaging in creative combining of signs.

16.6.2 Non-signing experimentsMuch of the criticism levelled at Washoe’s performance centred on the relative informality ofher training and claims at the time that ASL is a loose communicative system that does notrequire a strict adherence to syntactic rules (though we now know ASL to be a rule- governednatural language). Two very different experiments with chimpanzees attempted to forestallsuch criticism.

LanaA chimpanzee called Lana was trained to fulfill her needs for food, fresh air, grooming, andentertainment (in the form of slide shows) by requesting these from a computer-controlledapparatus. Communication with the computer was carried out by means of a simple rule-governed language of nine arbitrary symbols. The symbols were on buttons that lit up andactivated the computer when pressed. Any deviation from the syntactic rule systeminvented for the experiment failed to get the desired responses from the computer. Humanexperimenters communicated directly with the chimpanzee through use of the samesymbols. Lana learned to label and request food and other amenities through the computer.The experiment with Lana was criticized because she was said to have learned simple reflexassociations among symbol, sequence, and reward. There was no evidence that she had


acquired the roles underlying the sequences, and so could not be said to have displayedlinguistic abilities.

SarahAnother well-known experiment involved training a young female chimp named Sarah tomanipulate arbitrary plastic symbols in a predetermined manner in order to obtain rewards.Sarah had to learn to use word order correctly, since only the order shown in figure 16.12would obtain a banana.

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Figure 16.12Arbitrary symbols used

in experiments with thechimpanzee Sarah

Source: D. Premack and A. J. Premack in E. Linden’s Apes, Men, and Language (Baltimore, MD: Pelican Books, 1974), p. 179. Reprinted by permission of Russell & Volkening as agentsfor the author. Copyright © 1974 by Eugene Linden, illustrations by Madelaine Gill Linden.

She also seemed to show sensitivity to more abstract words like if/then in sentences likethose shown in figure 16.13. But was Sarah learning aspects of human language or was she,too, trained? Humans who are taught similar skills perform them as well as Sarah but find itdifficult to translate them into human language. They approach the exercise of moving plas-tic symbols around to obtain a reward as a puzzle that is not necessarily associated withlanguage. It has been suggested that Sarah was performing the same kind of puzzle-solvingand not demonstrating humanlike linguistic capacities.

Figure 16.13A ‘sentence’ under-

stood by Sarah

Source: D. Premack and A.J. Premack in E. Linden’s Apes, Men, andLanguage (Baltimore, MD: Pelican Books, 1974), p. 179. Reprinted by

permission of Russell & Volkening as agents for the author. Copyright ©974 by Eugene Linden, illustrations by Madelaine Gill Linden.

Interest in human-animal communications is not new. Language-using dogs, cats, pigs,and even turtles have been reported for thousands of years. The basis of much of the currentcriticism of these ancient reports and contemporary experiments rests on the performance ofa horse in Germany at the turn of this century.




16.6.3 The Clever Hans controversy

When I play with my cat, who is to say that my cat is not playing with me?

MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE, ESSAYS

In 1904, a Berlin school teacher named Wilhelm von Osten claimed to possess a horse thatshowed evidence of a humanlike capacity to think. His horse, Clever Hans (der kluge Hans),could supposedly calculate and convey messages by tapping out numbers or numberedletters of the alphabet with a front hoof or by nodding its head.

Experimentation by a skeptical scientist, Oskar Pfungst, eventually showed thatClever Hans was not so much a creative thinker as a careful observer: the horse perceivedcues that indicated that he had performed correctly. For example, von Osten involuntarilymoved his head very slightly when a correct answer had been reached. This movement(less than five millimetres) was outside the normal perceptual range of human observers,but the horse had learned to associate it with the correct answer. When observers did notknow the answer to a question, or when Clever Hans was blindfolded, he failed to performhis miracles.

Clever Hans’s performance resulted from dressage, a type of interaction betweentrainer and animal that depends on the animal’s interpreting subtle cues given by thetrainer. The Clever Hans phenomenon is an excellent example of dressage, which need notinvolve conscious communication on the part of humans. The highly developed perceptualability displayed by Clever Hans is common to many animals. Many scientists believe thatchimpanzees and gorillas that use sign language and perform other language-like tasks aredemonstrating nothing more than the Clever Hans phenomenon.

The idea is as follows. Human trainers want very much for their animal charges tosucceed. This desire is translated into involuntary actions, which can be seized on by theanimal because of its keen perceptual abilities; it is these cues that determine the animal’sperformance. A typical example of this is pointed out in Washoe’s signing of BABY IN MYCUP, which has been recorded on film (First Signs of Washoe). A careful examination ofthis interchange shows that the human repeatedly holds out the object to be signed andthen points rapidly at the cup. Probably none of this cueing was intentional on thehuman’s part.

Some so-called linguistic activity may be the result of factors other than the Clever Hanseffect. Some reports of creative signing, such as Washoe’s WATER BIRD, are dismissed asreflex signing that shows no intention of forming combinations on the part of the chimp.Reports of the gorilla Koko’s displays of wit (she occasionally produces the opposite sign of

Language Matters The Pro-Primate Perspective

The most widely known of the signing primates is the gorilla Koko, whose accomplishments havebeen documented by Penny Patterson of the Gorilla Foundation (www.koko.org/index.php). Otheruseful sources of information include the Chimpanzee and Human Communication Institute atCentral Washington University (www.cwu.edu/~cwuchci/) and the Language Research Center atGeorgia State University (www2.gsu.edu/~wwwlrc/).


the one requested, such as UP for DOWN) are also considered to be exaggerated or simplywishful thinking by researchers.

Some reports of linguistic behaviour are attributed to non-systematic or inaccurateobserving. (For example, if Washoe answered WHAT THAT with any noun sign, the answerwas considered correct.) Other reports are attributed to overoptimistic interpretation ofsigns. (The gorilla Koko is reported to intentionally produce ‘rhyming’ signs—those that arevery similar to the ones asked for or expected.) In short, those who do not view chimpanzeesigning and symbol manipulation as linguistically relevant claim that this behaviour ismore simply explained as arising from straightforward response-reward association and/orfrom dressage, and not a reflection of linguistic competence. As one researcher noted, train-ing two pigeons to bat a ping-pong ball across a net does not mean that the birds know therules of ping-pong.

16.6.4 The great ape debate

We believe that . . . there is no basis to conclude that signing apes acquired linguistic skills.

MARK S. SEIDENBERG AND LAURA PETITTO

When these projects [Washoe, Lana, Sarah, and Nim] are taken together, it can be seen thatchimpanzees are within the range of language behavior of humans and therefore have thecapacity for language.

ROGER FOUTS

Researchers involved with the chimpanzees and gorillas who are being taught to signattest to the emotional bonds they form with them, and also emphasize that in usinghuman language, such bonds are a prerequisite to normal communication. They stronglyinsist that apes communicate spontaneously and creatively with humans. Roger Fouts,who has spent many years in close contact with Washoe and other chimpanzees, puts thecase this way.

I reject the notion that there is some ultimate cut-and-dried criterion that distinguishes languagefrom all other social and cognitive behaviors, or that distinguishes human communication andthought from that of all other species.

It is important to emphasize that most researchers sympathetic to the idea that apesshow human linguistic abilities employ a broader definition of language than many of theircritics. For these researchers, language use includes socialization and the use of communica-tive constellations.

For many linguists critical of these projects, a definition of language that rests on its social orfunctional aspects is unacceptable. In much current linguistic thinking, language is viewed asindependent of the purposes it serves. This view, sometimes called the linguistic autonomy hypoth-esis, equates language with grammar—the “mental system that allows human beings to formand interpret the sounds, words, and sentences of their language,” to quote from chapter 1 ofthis textbook. It follows from this definition that linguistic ability in non-human primates canonly be claimed to exist if the animals produce, at the very least, spontaneous and intentionalsymbolic signs that are manipulated in a rule-governed manner.

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Symbol useAll researchers who support the claim that non-human primates can employ intentionalsymbolic communication deny that cueing is a major factor in the apes’ abilities, althoughmost admit that it might be present on occasion. In order to refute charges of the CleverHans effect, researchers employ a strict form of experimentation.

Primate sign language researchers try to avoid cueing by using the double-blind test.In this test, first a researcher shows the ape objects or pictures of objects that are invisible toa second human researcher. The ape’s signing is then recorded by the second researcher andthe record is interpreted by a third researcher who has not seen the signing. In this way,unintentional cueing is said to be avoided.

Critics of this research claim that even double-blind tests can be affected by human-animal interaction. First, the apes must be taught to perform the task. During this processthey may be conditioned to provide certain responses. Secondly, it is difficult to avoid anyhuman-animal interaction during these tests, and this could lead to subliminal cueing. As wehave also seen, many claims for symbolic behaviour on any ape’s part have been dismissed asstimulus-response conditioning—the mere “apeing” of behaviour in order to obtain areward. We still have no way of knowing whether Washoe’s use of a sign sequence like TIME-EAT indicates that she has a concept of time.

Ongoing work with two chimpanzees named Sherman and Austin has led to their exchang-ing signed information about classes of objects such as ‘tool’ and ‘food’. These experiments areclaimed to have circumvented any reliance on the Clever Hans effect and shown that signingapes can communicate about whole referential classes of items rather than be bound to simplestimulus-response association with individual items such as ‘banana’ and ‘ice cream’.

Careful control of experiments has convinced some linguists that limited symbol use hasbeen exhibited by some apes, perhaps even up to the level of a two-year-old human child.But some linguists who allow that a level of symbolic signing has been achieved have alsodenied this is a critical feature for defining language. Rather, rule-governed, creative symbolcombinations and syntactic behaviour are said to be the critical features.

Creative signing?A feature of language that sets it apart from most animal communication is its creativity—thefact that humans can use language to create novel messages. Sign researchers claim that suchcreativity is present in the many instances of novel combinations signed by the animals.

An early and famous instance of alleged creative signing was Washoe’s WATER BIRD(referred to in section 16.6.1), which she signed on seeing a duck in the water for the firsttime. Such alleged compound signing behaviour has been noted in various signing apes.Some of the gorilla Koko’s novel combinations are provided in table 16.2.

Critics say either that such combinations are accidental or that the ape produces the twosigns independently of each other and thus does not display true compounding. There is nodoubt that Washoe signed both WATER in the presence of water, and BIRD in the presenceof the bird, but there is no consistent indication from her other output that she has a rule ofcompound formation.

It has been claimed that in more recent and carefully controlled experiments with apygmy chimpanzee (Pan pansicus) named Kanzi, statistically significant differences in the


spontaneous ordering of symbols has been observed. The conclusion that has been drawnfrom this is that Kanzi has exhibited a form of grammatical rule. For example, Kanzifrequently used combinations of signs that link two actions, such as CHASE HIDE, TICKLESLAP, and GRAB SLAP. In fifty-four out of eighty-four cases, the first sign corresponded to theinvitation to play and the second to the type of play requested.

Is there syntax?Claims for syntactic behaviour among signing apes have also been made. Even though it hasbeen claimed that the general (though flexible) syntax of ASL is copied by the apes, reportson the signing chimp Nim (section 16.6.1) showed that the animal had no consistent wordorder patterning. In fact, Nim’s syntactic output was structurally incoherent. His longestsentence is reported as GIVE ORANGE ME GIVE EAT ORANGE ME EAT ORANGE GIVE MEEAT ORANGE GIVE ME YOU.

Koko the gorilla is said to have developed her own word order in noun phrases—theadjective consistently follows the noun it modifies. It is difficult to prove claims for syntacticbehaviour in animal signing, because (all) signing forms constellations with facial expressionand gestures and so may be said to reduce the need for rigorous syntax. Koko, for example,can sign a meaning like ‘I love Coca-Cola’ by hugging herself (the sign for love) while signingCoca-Cola at the same time with her hands.

In spite of what is now widely considered to be the disappointment of the earlier studies(possibly because they expected too much), some controlled experimentation continues.Recently, the pygmy chimpanzee Kanzi is reported to have produced significant (though notwholly consistent) differences in the placement of animate agents in sign combinations.When another chimpanzee named Matata was grabbed, Kanzi produced GRAB MATATA, butwhen Matata performed an action such as biting, Kanzi produced MATATA BITE.

Lingering doubtsAs we have seen, supporters of language use among apes have not yet proved to the satisfac-tion of all their critics that genuine symbolic behaviour is occurring, much less anythingresembling rule-governed creativity in compounding or syntactic patterning.

Researchers who see the results of ape studies as positive evidence for linguistic ability inthese animals claim that their opponents keep raising the stakes every time a chimp or a

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Table 16.2 Some sign combinations produced by Koko

Compound Referent

Milk Candy rich tapioca puddingFruit Lollipop frozen bananaPick Face tweezersBlanket White Cold rabbit-fur capeNose Fake maskPotato Apple Fruit pineapple




gorilla accomplishes something that could be interpreted as linguistic behaviour. Possibleevidence of symbol use or creative signing to indicate linguistic ability is dismissed by theseopponents as unsurprising or irrelevant.5 Supporters of ape studies note that their critics aremotivated by a long tradition of viewing animals as ‘organic machines’ that are locked intospecific behavioural and communicative repertoires by their genetic inheritance, and thatcan therefore only respond automatically to a given situation with a narrow range of signs.Their own view, they claim, is at once more ancient and more modern in granting animals acertain as yet unknown degree of intentionality and cognitive ability in their behaviour.

In general, recent experiments have established more convincingly than earlier ape stud-ies that symbol use and referential behaviour form part of the cognitive makeup of somenon-human primates. Taken together with naturalistic studies, they help circumvent theclaim that all evidence of symbol use among non-human primates is caused by the CleverHans phenomenon.

Nonetheless, questions about creative sign combination and syntactic use still remain.Kanzi’s alleged rules have been equated with those of a two-year-old child. But the majordifference between a chimpanzee and a child at that point in their lives is that the elementarygrammar of a two year old is the first hint of a full system that is rapidly developing and that willbe in place in a matter of a few more years. While Kanzi’s communicative behaviour constitutesinteresting evidence for a chimpanzee’s awareness of the world, it does not unequivocally implya system of grammar. It has been noted, for example, that Kanzi’s ‘rules’ are often bound up witha natural order of action or relationships (as when the sign GRAB precedes the sign SLAP).

To critics of these experiments, the apparent lack of rule-governed behaviour amongsigning apes (especially in the realm of syntax) remains the linguistic hurdle that the animalshave not overcome. It is certain that apes do not show syntactic behaviour to any degree thathumans do (for example, embedding is completely lacking) and many linguists claim thatwithout such behaviour, the apes cannot be said to be using language. Syntax, in the strictlinguistic sense, provides a system of rules capable of producing a sentence of potentiallyinfinite length (even though in practice this is never required). There is no evidence that pri-mates have shown this ability.

Critics of the ape studies have at this time carried the day. Many funding sources forcomparative ape-human research have dried up, and most of the subjects have lost theirprivileged relationships with humans and been returned to zoos. But the severe reaction tothe apparent failure of ape-human linguistic communication research has had positiveeffects on the field as well. Recent trends—the number of experiments on animal cognitionin the wild, and the more carefully controlled experiments with apes like Kanzi—are leadingus slowly closer to new evidence that bears on this age-old issue.

16.6.5 ImplicationsThe real significance of these experiments in ape-human linguistic communication goes farbeyond popular enthusiasm about what an ape might say to us if it could talk. It has oftenbeen pointed out that an animal’s view of the world must be quite unlike our own. It isperhaps not surprising that apes appear to communicate largely about their fundamentalemotions and such basic needs as food and play.

It is certain that animals have communication systems that are as rich, sophisticated, andsubtle as anything found in human language. But are they equivalent to human language? We


have seen that animal communication and human language share a number of characteristics,but the greatest difference we have encountered is a fundamental one: human language is anopen-ended system of symbolic signs that can be manipulated in various ways to express noveloutput. Animal communication appears to be built out of rather closed systems that depend verylittle on symbolic signs but rather emphasize the interpretation of symptomatic signs. However,this fact does not make animal communication ‘simple’. Symptomatic signs are complex andsubtle, and interpreting them requires a great deal of attention and ability on the part ofthe receiver to decode and interpret the sign within the communicative context. The wider therange of symptomatic nuance conveyed by the sender, the more interpretive power is requiredby the receiver. Animal communication—especially as we reach the realm of more ‘expressive’creatures such as mammals—puts a great load on the cognitive power of the receiver of messages.

Humans, meanwhile, have evolved linguistically to place the burden of their spokencommunication on abstract symbolic signs that require significant cognitive resources toorganize into grammatical utterances. Symptomatic signs are marginalized within humangrammar, or, more accurately, form the skeleton of the symbolic communication message;the symbolized messages overlay a subtle pattern of symptomatic information such as inton-ation, stress, accent, and voice quality.

As we have seen, many linguists claim that there is no connection between the commu-nicative behaviour of non-human primates and the complex structures of human language.The opposing view claims that even the capacity for true grammatical activity can be foundin non-human primates. This implies that what we call language reflects a cognitivedifference in degree and not in kind between humans and these animals. The optimistic viewis that such research may ultimately shed light on the evolutionary origins of our species andits language use by demonstrating the degree of shared cognitive abilities between ourselvesand our nearest genetic relatives.

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Language Matters A Changing Tide?

Although linguists have long been highly skeptical about the relevance of animal communicationresearch to the study of human language, there has recently been a shift of opinion of sorts and thepossibility of a meaningful connection is now being seriously debated. Particularly influential inthis regard was a paper co-authored by the linguist Noam Chomsky and two psychologists with aninterest in the evolution of communication (Marc Hauser and Tecumseh Fitch). The paper arguesthat most of the perceptual and conceptual mechanisms involved in human language are found insome form in animal systems of communication. If this is right, then the gap between language andanimal communication may in fact be less abrupt than previously thought, perhaps coming down torecursivity (see the beginning of chapter 5). There is no consensus on this subject, however, and agreat deal of additional debate and research will no doubt be needed before the matter can beresolved.

For more reading:

Hauser, Marc. 1996. The Evolution of Communciation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Hauser, Marc, Noam Chomsky, and W. Tecumseh Fitch. 2002. “The Faculty of Language: What Is It, Who

Has It, and How Did It Evolve?” Science 298:1569–79.

A debate with critics of the new view appears in numbers 95 and 97 of the journal Cognition (2005).




16.7 Comparing communication systems: design featuresThroughout this chapter, we have emphasized the distinction between communication andlanguage. In this final section, we will compare human linguistic communication with whatwe have learned about systems of animal communication.

16.7.1 The featuresDifferences and similarities between human language and natural animal communicationsystems can be highlighted by comparing essential characteristics of the systems. These char-acteristics are called design features, and are set up (perhaps unfairly) with reference tohuman language. Since this book emphasizes the essentially mental nature of linguistic ability,the design features that follow do not include the traditional reference to vocal-auditory trans-mission. What is emphasized is the nature of the semantic and organizational structuring ofeach system. These design features represent an adaptation of those of Charles Hockett andW.H. Thorpe, as noted at the end of this text.

1. Interchangeability All members of the species can both send and receive messages.

This is obviously true of human language. It is not the case with bee dancing (performed only by foragers) or birdsong (performed only by males). Non-human primate vocalizations appear to be largely interchangeable.

2. Feedback Users of the system are aware of what they are transmitting.

Humans monitor their linguistic output and correct it. It is debatable whether bees do so when they dance, or whether birds monitor their calls. It is not known if birdsmonitor their song; it is likely that they do.

3. Specialization The communication system serves no other function but to communicate.

Human language represents reality—both external (real world) and internal (states,beliefs)—symbolically in the mind. Manifested as speech, language serves uniquely as acommunicative system. Bee dancing and birdsong also appear to be specialized commu-nicative activity. Alarm calls of any species may be symptomatic but at the same time arespecialized for different types of predators. Symptomatic tokens, on the other hand, areunspecialized. Crying is a symptomatic sign that may be interpreted by someone else andthus function communicatively, but its primary purpose is physiological (the clearing offoreign matter from the eye, the release of emotional tension). If animal communicationis primarily symptomatic—a claim that is hotly disputed by specialists in animalcommunication—then it would not qualify as a specialized communicative system.

4. Semanticity The system conveys meaning through a set of fixed relationships amongsignifiers, referents, and meanings.

Human language conveys meaning through arbitrary symbols. Bee dancing conveysmeaning, but within a very limited range, as do bird calls and song. The range of meaning is broader and more subtle in non-human primate vocalizations. Although we cannot claim to know the minds of such near relatives as chimpanzees and gorillas,it appears that the range of meanings suggested by their behaviour in the wild does notapproach the vastness of human semanticity (see feature 8).


5. Arbitrariness There is no natural or inherent connection between a token and its referent.

This is true of human language, with the possible exception of a few onomatopoeicterms. Bee dancing shows arbitrariness in that there may be no connection between the form of the dance and the distance from the hive. Expressions of food source qual-ity and direction are not arbitrary, however. Many bird calls are highly suited for theirpurpose, such as danger calls which are difficult to locate, and in this sense are not arbitrary. Most non-human primate vocalization appears to be equally adaptive, though arbitrariness has been claimed for vervet monkey alarm calls.

6. Discreteness The communication system consists of isolatable, repeatable units.

Human language shows distinctive features, phonemes, syllables, morphemes, words, andstill larger combinations. There are two (three, in some dialects) discrete types of bee dances,but these dances are not combined in various ways to produce novel messages. There issome evidence for subunits in birdsong. They are also present in primate call systems.

7. Displacement Users of the system are able to refer to events remote in space and time.

Bee dancing shows displacement. No evidence for displacement is found in bird calls orsongs. Baboons occasionally produce threat and fight vocalizations long after an aggressiveencounter, but there is no evidence that this is reflecting displacement; it probably reflects aslow winding down of the animal’s emotional state. Among apes, it is not yet clear whethersome degree of displacement is a feature of either their communication in the wild or thesystems they have learned from humans. Non-human primates do not appear to communi-cate about imaginary pasts or futures, which humans are able to do with language.

8. Productivity New messages on any topic can be produced at any time.

This is obviously true of human language. Bees show limited productivity. Bird callsshow none. Birdsong shows evidence of recombination (the songs of laughing gulls arewell documented in this respect), but it is doubtful whether these recombinations transmit novel messages. This is also true of recombination in the calls of certain monkeys, such as macaques.

9. Duality of patterning Meaningless units (phonemes) are combined to form arbitrarysigns. These signs in turn can be recombined to form new, meaningful larger units.

In human language, phonemes can be combined in various ways to create differentsymbolic tokens: spot, tops, opts, and pots. These tokens in turn can be combined inmeaningful ways: Spot the tops of the pots. There is no evidence of this type of patterningin any known animal communication system.

10. Tradition At least certain aspects of the system must be transmitted from an experi-enced user to a learner.

This is obviously a factor in the acquisition of human language. It is possibly present ina very limited way in bee communication, and it is definitely present in the acquisitionof birdsong for some species. As noted in section 16.5.4, there is some recent evidencefor a degree of tradition among chimpanzees.

11. Prevarication The system enables the users to talk nonsense or to lie.

Undoubtedly, this property is found in human language. There are specialized mimicsamong birds, fishes, and even insects. A few examples of animal deception have beennoted among the arctic fox and among vervets, but it is not clear whether this is normal species-specific behaviour or the acts of a few isolated individuals. The question of intentionality is crucial here. Current work with birds suggests that some species

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learn as many songs as possible and use this repertoire to maintain territorial advantage by ‘impersonating’ other species. This may well be purely genetically determined behaviour, but, in any event, it is highly complex.

12. Learnability A user of the system can learn other variants.

Humans can learn different languages. Bees are limited to their own genetically specified dialect. Bird calls are apparently limited in this same way. As noted previously, some birds learn the songs of other species, but this may well be simplymimicry. Non-human primates seem restricted to their own systems in the wild.

13. Reflexiveness The ability to use the communication system to discuss the system itself.

No evidence exists that any other species writes grammars or linguistics textbooks.Tables 16.3 and 16.4 summarize this survey of design features.

Table 16.3 Summary of design features for bees and birds

Design feature Bees Birds

1. Interchangeability no; foragers only no; only males sing2. Feedback ? ?3. Specialization yes yes4. Semanticity yes, very limited yes, limited5. Arbitrariness yes, for expressing distance yes, though highly adaptive6. Discreteness in a limited way yes, in song7. Displacement yes no8. Productivity yes, very limited possibly9. Duality of patterning no no

10. Tradition possibly, but highly limited yes, limited11. Prevarication no possibly12. Learnability no possibly13. Reflexiveness no no

Table 16.4 Summary of design features for non-human primates and humans

Design feature Non-human primates Humans

1. Interchangeability yes yes2. Feedback probably yes3. Specialization in part yes4. Semanticity yes yes5. Arbitrariness limited confirmation; selectively adaptive yes6. Discreteness in call systems yes7. Displacement no yes8. Productivity possibly yes9. Duality of patterning no yes

10. Tradition possibly yes11. Prevarication possibly yes12. Learnability no yes13. Reflexiveness no current evidence yes


Summing upThis brief overview of animal communication systems emphasizes that human language isone communication system among the many that life forms on this planet employ.

Communication can be described with reference to the sign, which is composed of twocomponents, a signifier and that which is signified. Tokens may be iconic, symbolic, orindexical (the latter including the symptomatic token), and structured as graded ordiscrete types. Most animal communication has traditionally been viewed as symptomatic,though studies of communication among birds and bees suggests symbolic signs are used. Asignificant innate component may interact with some exposure to the communication sys-tem, especially among birds. Non-human primate communication consists of graded series ofvocalizations and appears to show little arbitrariness, though some has been reported for thealarm calls of several monkeys.

Experiments with non-human primates have created controversy over whether chim-panzees and gorillas have shown symbolic behaviour and a capacity for linguistic behaviour.Many researchers have dismissed the work as an example of dressage or the Clever Hansphenomenon.

Human language and systems of animal communication share certain design features.Humans, however, lack many communicative skills that animals possess. We are hopelesslyinadequate at following scent trails; we cannot change colour for communicative purposeswith the facility of an octopus; and we are not as gifted as horses and many other mammalsat assessing and interpreting subtle body gestures. Humans do possess an ability to symbolizewhich far exceeds that of chimpanzees and gorillas (our nearest genetic relatives), evenallowing for the most generous interpretation possible of recent experiments. Humanlanguage is also more flexible and productive in manipulating these symbols than anyknown animal communication system. Language is as natural a part of human life patternsas the communication systems of our fellow creatures are for their modes of existence.

Notes1 Communication since the industrial revolution increasingly involves non-living things.

Machines pass information to humans (for example, car speedometers, Geiger counters,toasters), and among themselves (for example, computers, communication satellites).Still, non-living communicators have been designed by humans and use principles ofcommunication based on living models.

2 Among humans, this fact about symptomatic signs can be turned on its head and symptomssuch as tears or laughter can be feigned. The result is deception, trickery, or lying.

3 The bees are not perfect genetic machines, however. The fact that there are dancers thatcommunicate more (or less) effectively than others shows the existence of varying abilityamong individuals.

4 You might wonder how song serves to establish and maintain territory. A recognized songis an indication to a bird that a certain amount of territory is occupied and that to stray

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onto that territory could provoke an attack. A recent hypothesis suggests that song alsointimidates other males by disturbing their foraging patterns, since, again, hearing a songmight lead a bird to think it was in another’s territory and might have to flee or fight. Fieldstudies support this hypothesis; they show that there is less singing among birds that co-exist in a forage-rich environment, where there is less competition for food resources(E.S. Morton, “Grading, Discreteness, Redundancy, and Motivation-Structure Rules,” inAcoustic Communication in Birds, Vol. 1, edited by Kroodsma et al. [New York: AcademicPress, 1982] pp. 183–212).

5 For example, the relevance of all non-syntactic communicative behaviour by non-humanprimates has been dismissed with these words: “virtually all of the nonsyntactic compo-nent of language predated the emergence of our species,” in Derek Bickerton’s review ofSue Savage-Rumbaugh (1986), Ape Language: From Conditioned Response to Symbol inInternational Journal of Primatology 8(3)(1987):293–98.

Recommended readingBright, Michael. 1984. Animal Language. London: British Broadcasting Corporation.Budiansky, Stephen. 1998. If a Lion Could Talk. New York: The Free Press.Cheney, Dorothy L., and Robert M. Seyfarth. 1991. How Monkeys See the World. Chicago:

University of Chicago Press.de Luce, Judith, and Hugh T. Wilder, eds. 1983. Language in Primates: Perspectives and

Implications. New York: Springer-Verlag.Hauser, M. 1996. The Evolution of Communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Hockett, Charles. 1960. “The Origin of Speech.” Scientific American 203(3):88–96.Lieberman, Philip. 1998. Eve Spoke. New York: W.W. Norton.Parker, Sue Taylor, and Kathleen Rita Gibson. 1990. “Language” and Intelligence in Monkeys and

Apes: Comparative Developmental Perspectives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Pinker, Steven. 1994. The Language Instinct. New York: Harper Perennial.Sebeok, Thomas A., and Jean Umiker-Sebeok. 1980. Speaking of Apes. New York: Plenum Press.Sebeok, Thomas A., and Robert Rosenthal, eds. 1981. The Clever Hans Phenomenon: Communication

with Horses, Whales, Apes, and People. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 364. NewYork: The New York Academy of Sciences.

Snowden, C.T., C.H. Brown, and M.R. Petersen, eds. 1982. Primate Communication. London:Cambridge University Press.

Exercises1. The following signs are all symptomatic.

a) Dogs wag their tails when happy, cats flick their tails when irritated.b) An octopus, when showing aggressive behaviour, becomes bright red.c) The Canada goose shows aggressive intentions by opening its mouth, coiling its neck, and

directing its head toward an opponent. When it is unlikely to attack, its mouth is closed,its head is horizontally extended, and its head is directed away from an opponent.

d) Tree leaves change colour in the fall.e) The presence of stratocumulus clouds accompanies good weather.



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i) Why is this designation appropriate in each case?ii) State which of these signs are, in addition to being symptomatic, primarily iconic,

which are primarily symbolic, and which are primarily indexical.

2. Find two examples each of iconic, symbolic, and indexical signs you encounter in thecourse of a day. Is it possible to classify unambiguously each sign as to type? If not, statewhy in each case.

3. What do the following chimpanzee facial expressions convey? Using a mirror, try to imitate the facial expressions; does this make it easier for you to label them? What characteristics of the signs lead you to your conclusion in each case?

Source: Adapted from S. Chevalier-Skolnikoff, “Facial Expression and Emotion in Nonhuman Primates,” in E. Ekman (ed.), Darwin and Facial Expression (New York:

Academic Press, 1973), pp. 11–90.

4. Observe an animal in a zoo or at home for at least one-half hour. Try to discover at leastthree unambiguous signs the animal employs to communicate. Describe each one interms of both signifier and signified. (A good way to do this is to note carefully the context in which the sign is given, to whom it is addressed, and what the receiver’sresponse is to the communication.)

5. Add two columns to the list of design features presented in tables 16.3 and 16.4. For onecolumn, take the perspective of a researcher who believes that apes show true linguisticability in their signing, and fill in the column from this point of view. Fill in the othercolumn from the perspective of a researcher who does not believe such ability has beenshown. Be sure to comment on each design feature.

6. Now that you have been exposed to both sides of the ape language issue, summarizeyour own conclusions about it. Do you believe that human language is different indegree or in kind from the communicative behaviour of the great apes? Why?



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