Dear Students!
On the 4th of February we will have our first public lecture on the topic of "Plasticity and enculturation in animal cognition and language learning".
This is our reading list for the seminar:
1) Origins of language in a comparative perspective (Griebel & Oller, In LaFreniere & Weisfeld, 2014)
(obligatory!)
2) On Quantitative Comparative Research in Communication and Language Evolution
(D. Kimbrough Oller & Ulrike Griebel 2014, Biolog. Theory) (not obligatory)
Please post your comments by 9am on the 4th of February!!
Have fun!
cheers
Julia
I have so many comments on the topic of comparing human and animal communication, but let me start by saying I have met Washoe and her chimpanzee friends 'in person,' and grew up hearing stories about them, as they lived in my hometown. Washoe and I were just a few years apart in age, and it is still hard to believe she has passed on. Her adopted son, Loulis, and another member of their cohort named Tatu are still alive and well, and have moved to a chimp refuge in Canada.
ReplyDeleteI asked my friend Rachel Fouts, whose parents conducted years of research with Washoe and friends, what she would like to share about the chimps. Rachel recalled that the chimps would slow down their signing for people like her who were less familiar with sign language, signing more quickly with sign language fluent folks. This may help explain why I saw few signs when I visited the chimps, though I recall seeing Washoe look at people's shoes and sign 'shoes,' and hearing that the sign for 'black' was Moja's (or Tatu's?) word for 'cool.' Volunteer staff who worked with the chimps regularly would often exchange sign language with the chimps, and knew all about the chimps' favorite foods, preferences and habits from their constant observations and interaction.
In the article we read, it is pointed out that non-human animals demonstrate remarkable ability when instructed in language by humans; however, they seem to lack motivation to develop these skills in their natural habitats. It seems possible, as written, that generational differences would be observed if humans were to continue the research such as that conducted with Washoe and friends. However, recent trends lean toward allowing non-human animals to develop their own cultures and behaviors rather than ours. In the case of Washoe and her adopted son, Loulis learned less sign language than Washoe did. Washoe had been treated as a human child when young, whereas Loulis was raised by Washoe and her friends without human interference in his language learning. Among human children, language learning may be most adept when the children are young; social interaction seems to play a great role in reinforcing language-learning behaviors.
I have more to say and may post more before tomorrow morning ~ it is great to get to reflect on the chimpanzees who lived in my town, and other animals instructed as they were.
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DeleteI have two questions about comparing human and animal language. First, if what you believe is correct, i.e., human language is so much better than animal's, there must be some special select pressure on human but not on animal. Under this condition, could you tell us what is that? Secondly, from mathematical viewpoint, how the langue happens is a kind of inverse problem. It means that, usually, people obtain an equation, then they find the solution, but for the inverse problem, I give you a solution and ask you what kind of equation can obtain it. Clearly, one of the major characteristics of an inverse problem is that there is no unique solution. For the question " how does the langue happen", there are many hypotheses here (My backgroud is not langue, but I guess there must be so many.). Worse, each hypotheses can not be proved or disproved. Under this condition, how can the scientists to define which hypothesis is better or more reasonable?
DeleteOverall, the article gave a really good explanation of linguistics and the traits of language that are discussed in the literature, through a discussion of the differences between human language and non-human animal language/communication with some added discussion at the end on this topic. Here are two brief thoughts/questions I had about the paper.
ReplyDeletePage 4: Functional flexibility. Imagine a language where the word “snake” has a completely different word depending on the context. E.g. “Snake” when one uses it in the context of “There’s a snake.” declaratively. “Ekans” when one uses it in the context of exclaiming or warning “Run! Snake!” (Or, “Run! Ekans!” in this language). “Nakes” when one uses it in the context of questioning “Is that a snake?” (Or, “Is that a Nakes?” in this language). Assume this held for all other nouns. The component of functional flexibility would make it so this language isn’t a mature language, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Further, declining nouns changes the actual word depending on the context, but that doesn’t make a language not a mature language. It seems as though functional flexibility might not be as important of a trait for differentiating a mature language from an immature one.
Page 13: When it is claimed that animals such as Koko and Washoe have learned how to use simple time expressions, it is then claimed, but not argued at all, that it might have been the case that the animal meant something more like “want.” I am curious as to what further argumentation there is that would warrant this interpretation, as it seems less parsimonious, given that the ape doesn’t seem to be using the word “time” in ways and in contexts that would easily lend themselves to being understood if they meant “want.” (e.g. Asking “time eat?” doesn’t seem to suggest necessarily, or even probably, an interpretation of “want eat?” without much more argumentation.)
Also, the differentiation between "wild animals" and "animals taught language by humans" seems to be kinda arbitrary. The fact that animals are only picking up a low level of vocabulary relative to humans seems to be uninteresting. These animals do not have generations upon generations of language enrichment that modern-day humans do. It would be interesting to see what would happen if a male and female ape were taught language, then sent out to reproduce to see if they would pass the language onto their offspring and then to see what more complicated forms of language evolved over generations. Since non-human primates do have the ability to learn a language, even if primitively, it seems plausible to think, given the co-evolution of language, culture, and brain, that, over generations, these reproducing apes could create a culture that reciprocally evolved their language.
DeleteThis article was extremely clear and informative.
ReplyDeleteI’d just like a little more information in regards to the concluding remarks.
It is said that cultural pressure may have led to the reinforcement of the cognitive capabilities necessary for language development. Culture is a broad term, so I’d like to know what specific aspects are being alluded to here. What advancements were particularly conducive to language development? Is this just tool-making and use, or are there other aspects of culture unique to our species that put selective pressure on the development of these cognitive capacities?
I have a question about Evo-Devo. I’m not too sure If I’m understanding it correctly, so I’d like some clarification. First, let me set it up a bit.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea that the difference between humans and other animals (so far as language use is concerned) appears to have more to do with enculturation and transgenerational transmission of cultural know-how than with cognitive or physiological architecture. In the article, it is suggested that the pressures involved in tool making might have helped foster a culture that supported language development in humans while it remains possible but undeveloped in animals that don’t use tools. The evidence put forth in the article seems to support this claim with one exception – that of recursion which is evident in neither wild nor domesticated animals. I think I would like to hear more about this.
It seems to me that, if recursion is unique to humans, then, unlike other properties of language, there may be some unique biological/physiological correlate for this (I’m still trying to get used to this terminology so bare with me. But I basically mean we have some special anatomical substratum that correlates to recursion, whether it be in the brain or the genes or whatever). We then need a story for how this evolved. What selection pressure existed which favoured humans who could not only discuss the here and now, but also “combine long sentences where phrases and/or clauses are combined recursively (the cat that ate the rat that ate the cheese...).” If there is a biological correlate to such behavior, then it would have been selected because of, not just environmental factors, but cultural ones as well (If I am understanding evo-devo at all correctly). The most obvious cultural practice that this suggests (to me anyway) is something like story-telling – where story-telling is the practice of linking a series of temporally spread out events into a single historical sequence. So, I guess I am wondering about the links between story-telling, the use of recursive speech and tool-making. How are these things connected? Is this the sort of question that an Evo-Devo approach is useful for answering?
I have two primary questions about this week's target article:
ReplyDeleteFirst, can we discuss a definition of semantics in more detail? It is defined here as "roughly use of referential 'words' or other lexical items", however, I'm still puzzled with the referential/non-referential distinction that seems to frame large portions of the article. For instance, a primary issue at stake concerns communication and functional flexibility (the latter, following Austin, is defined as "the use of signals to serve multiple functions or illocutions" (4)). According to the authors, human language is unique in allowing us to use the same word across a variety of functionally distinct situations. In the case of snakes, as cited in the article, the authors suggest that "The word "snake" does not change its meaning/reference across these performances - it always involves a type of reptile - but in language we are completely flexible regarding the function performed by the reference" (4). Functional flexibility notwithstanding, why should we conclude that the word "snake" carries an identical referential meaning across functional contexts? Calling someone a snake, for instance, intuitively seems to have a different meaning than pointing to a picture of a snake and saying "snake". In other words, while the word is the same, one person is referencing negative character traits (perhaps the person in question is a liar or cheat) and the other is pointing to a particular kind of reptile in contrast to, for instance, a salamander.
Second, in the "Limitations in animal Semanticity learning" subsection (9-11), the authors turn to focus on differences between non-human and human modes of communication. One of the first pieces of evidence cited in this regard is that animals appear to require many repetitions of explicit instruction to learn labels, in contrast to the rapid uptake of labels without such implicit instruction for young human children. However, in the following paragraph, the authors note "As it turns out, even children do not usually seem to learn by fast-mapping, but often need many repetitions before learning new words" (10). While the individual claims were written in response to slightly different questions - the former about the basic infrastructure of mental capabilities needed for language and the latter about a claim that Rico, a border collie, could learn labels with "fast mapping" - and thus should not be conflated, I would like to discuss the question of speed and flexibility in learning labels between humans and non-humans. Is it really the case that the switch to rapid uptake of label generation is a radical break from other animals or no?
My first comment is about the section of Recombination on page 15: “Human children begin recombining syllables soon after the onset of words, usually early in the second year (Vihman, 1996).” If the “syllables” defined here are only those used to “transmit certain meanings,” I would agree with this sentence. However, if we have a more liberal definition about syllables, I would say this ability emerges probably before the onset of words. One of our studies showed that infants may have produced reduplicated syllables (e.g., /mama/ and /dada/) earlier than variegated syllables (e.g., /mada/ or /dama/). It suggests that the infants started from combining the same syllables, and then recombining different syllables they have produced before. Although I (or even the mom) could not be sure whether these syllables are actually words, all the 12 mothers in the longitudinal study reported this pattern. Another thought is that if we have an even more liberal definition about recombination, can we say recombining protophones (e.g., squeal then growl or vocant then squeal) is a part of the recombinability?
ReplyDeleteAs for the section of cultural transmission, I agree that cultural transmission of language, like teaching, seems to exist only in humans, but I wonder if there is culture transmission of other aspects in the non-human world. For example, how the male penguins know they are going to hatch eggs after the female penguins lay eggs? Is it considered as culture or just an instinct?
The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, “If a lion could speak, we couldn’t understand him.” This, of course, is not a factual claim about whether or not lions can speak. Rather he’s saying that even if they could use something like a human language with all of the specified criteria (symbolism/semanticity, displacement, flexibility, recombination, grammar, recursion and cultural transmission), the lion’s reference points to his/her environment would be so radically different from our own that it might be quite impossible to establish a shared nexus of meaningful terms. Whether or not Wittgenstein is totally right about this, it does seem to point to a methodological problem that many animal language studies suffer from. Namely, that when we study whether or not animals can use language, we often focus on either (1) whether we can make sense of the reference of their calls (or other mode of communication) in their natural environment, or (2) whether they can be taught how to use our system of communication. The problem here is that it may be difficult to avoid a sort of linguistic chauvinism about the way that the human anatomical, social and cultural context mediates the particular way in which our language makes reference to the world. And it looks like (especially in the cases of apes, dolphins, sea lions, dogs, and one peculiar parrot) we’re assuming that being able to understand that mode of reference determines whether or not language is possible for those species.
ReplyDeleteI’m not quite sure how to get around this, but I think that it will probably have to involve something like putting animals in circumstance in that might motivate the development of a new set of language tools. Furthermore, it should be something that they are left to develop in collaboration with members of the same species so that ability to communicate with humans is not the motivating criterion of language. Perhaps watching how this communication changes as a result of environmental pressures will give us a better idea of how animals engage in social practices and what the species-specific structure of their communication is.
Considering human as a kind of animals, even though human is a much superior creature, the way to find an origin of language by taking advantage of animal study sounds reasonable in this paper. But I’m little bit wondering that the evidences shown by trained animals can be assumed that they are parts of real language? They are trained for a long time, and do what they have learned to get a reinforcement (like food), without any volunteer speech activity to transfer meaning.
ReplyDeleteIn page 20, it says that scientists have difficulty interpreting animals’ calling. Given example here that “the calls are discrete acoustically, but are instead graded with no sharp distinction among them” reminds me of categorical perception phenomenon that physically continuous signals can be sometimes recognized discrete signal in perceptual system. So I guess Categorical perception experiment may be helpful, somewhat to understand their perception and reaction in response to calling.
Another simple question, chimps can’t speak language even though they have human-like oral structure and some genes. Then how and why parrots have an ability to speak language?
This article was written clearly and leaving me with fewer questions than the last. However, to respond to Kevin's first question or rather an extension of his assertion, is the referential nature of snake in his example truly different? It seems to me that it would be more contextual. Words such as "snake" can be used differently contextually, does this not just simply imply that the referent itself is more so referring to shared qualities/characteristics? If you call a person a snake you are implying they share characteristics with snakes promoting a shared meaning, slithering, sneaky, etc.? How is this different? When you use the word snake or I believe Dr. Oller used pig in class last week, these items both represent illocutionary forces and meaning. The context may change but semantically these items share the same referent. I would like that to elaborated on as well.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am gathering from this literature is that though we share illocution, referential meaning and understanding is what truly separates us? Is that too broad of an assertion?