Why Were Projects Funded to Teach the Equivalent of Human Language to Primates?
Why Were Projects Funded to Teach the Equivalent of Human Language to Primates?
Describe a variety of such projects, indicating how and why they differed, and discuss the conclusions that were/may be drawn from the results.
The capacity for language is thought by many people to be a trait unique to the human race. Through language we can express an infinite number of thoughts and ideas; describe impossible events or inform people of our deepest emotions and most profound imaginings. The gap between humans and animals can be said to be represented by the gap between mere communication and the intricacies of language. But, if animals could be taught language, what implications would this have on our opinion of our unique humanness? As man's closest evolutionary relative, chimpanzees share 98.4%1 of our DNA - indeed, they are more closely related to mankind than they are to gorillas2. Could they also share our ability to conceive and comprehend language? The ability of these primates to understand our language would have a profound effect on our understanding of the evolution of the human race and, particularly, the human mind. This could also result in beneficial changes to the way in which language is taught to people with severe learning difficulties. This essay will look at a number of projects that attempted to teach a language to primates, examining any differences in the methods and languages used and discussing the conclusions that may be drawn from studying the outcomes.
The question of primates being able to comprehend human language is one that has polarised opinion into two distinct camps. On the one side of the debate there are the believers, such as Duane and Sue Rumbaugh and Allen and Beatrice Gardener, who have devoted much of their professional lives to teaching an understandable language to primates. On the other side, there are the doubters such as the influential linguist Noam Chomsky, who believes that human beings alone possess the cognitive ability that makes language possible.
Chomsky and his followers believe that human beings have an innate ability to comprehend and construct the rules of grammar, and that this ability evolved in Homo sapiens after their evolutionary split with our simian ancestors. They believe that this is demonstrated by the ease in which children acquire language, compared to the difficulties apparently exhibited by apes. Some linguists claim that a chimpanzee signing a sentence to request an item of food is no more than the linguistic equivalent of a dog wagging its tail at dinner time3.
Believers in the ability of primates to acquire language subscribe to the view that our linguistic abilities have simply evolved from a common standpoint that we share with our evolutionary ancestors and that we merely possess a more advanced model than primates. These believers are critical of the way the requirements of language are constantly refined and believe that the point has already been reached where inter-species communication is possible.
Early attempts to teach an understandable language to primates centred on actual human speech. The first recorded attempt was with a chimpanzee named Viki. Viki was raised ...
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Believers in the ability of primates to acquire language subscribe to the view that our linguistic abilities have simply evolved from a common standpoint that we share with our evolutionary ancestors and that we merely possess a more advanced model than primates. These believers are critical of the way the requirements of language are constantly refined and believe that the point has already been reached where inter-species communication is possible.
Early attempts to teach an understandable language to primates centred on actual human speech. The first recorded attempt was with a chimpanzee named Viki. Viki was raised in a stimulating environment that her owners, Keith and Cathy Hayes, hoped would stimulate language acquisition. Success was limited, and Viki was only able to produce approximations of 4 words, and these with some manipulation of her mouth by her owners. This is not surprising, as we are now aware that chimpanzees lack the necessary vocal equipment to be able to produce human speech. In 1968, Winthrop and Luella Kellogg raised a chimpanzee called Gua in their own home, along with their own child. By the time Gua was 16 months old, she understood approximately 100 words 4, more than the Kellogg's child at the same age. But, as the child progressed, Gua did not. The Kellogg's' noted that she had a "receptive competence for language, if not an expressive one."5 Another study, by Robert Yerkes in 1928, with a chimpanzee named Prince Chim, revealed that the subject used body language and hand gestures to communicate his wants. Yerkes concluded; "The great apes have plenty to talk about, but no gift for the use of sounds. Perhaps they can be taught to use their fingers to acquire a simple, non-vocal sign language."6
Meanwhile, in 1966, Allen and Beatrice Gardener had 'Adopted' an infant female chimpanzee named Washoe. From infancy, Washoe was taught to speak American Sign Language, otherwise known as Ameslan, which is a gestural rather than a spoken language. Washoe quickly learned to use the signs the Gardeners taught her, and by the time she had learned 8-10 signs, was able to use them in combinations in sentences to which she had never been specifically exposed. The first word Washoe was taught was "more", which she learned in relation to play. She was spontaneously able to apply the word to other areas of her experience, such as food, demonstrating her understanding of the meaning of the word. Washoe has demonstrated use of a vocabulary of over 240 signs7. Criticism has been made about Washoe's ability to place words in the syntactically correct order, but she has often demonstrated that she has the ability to do this if she is requested to. For example, when Washoe saw one of her keepers smoking a cigarette, she excitedly signed "Give me smoke, smoke Washoe, hurry give smoke". When her keeper asked her to sign properly, she replied, "Please give me that hot smoke."8. Washoe has also combined signs to produce new words, such as the phrase "Hot smoke" as used above for cigarette, or "Candy fruit"9 which she used when she first tasted watermelon.
About the same time, another chimpanzee, Sarah, was being studied by David Premack. This study differed greatly from the Gardeners' as Sarah was taught to use plastic chips of varying shape and colour as her 'words'. Sarah mastered 130 terms with 75-85% accuracy in tests10. Terms included nouns, verbs, adjectives, prepositions and negative and interrogative sentences. One drawback to this experiment was the fact that Sarah was not given the opportunity to talk spontaneously, but only in reply to her trainers. There was also the possibility that she could have been responding to cues unwittingly provided by her trainers, a criticism made by disapproving linguists. It is worth pointing out however, that language is a "social act, always embedded in a situation"11 and that human beings constantly use these cues in conversation.
In 1973, Duane and Sue Rumbaugh began a series of studies, starting with three chimpanzees named Lana, Austin and Sherman. These chimps were taught to communicate using arbitrary symbols attached to a computer, acting as a keyboard. Each symbol, or lexigram, had a specific meaning, thereby eliminating many possible ambiguities resulting from the use of English or Ameslan, and also minimising the possibility that researchers were unconsciously giving their subjects 'cues'. This method also demonstrated an understanding of the symbolic nature of language. The Rumbaughs claimed significant success for this method, particularly with Sherman and Austin, but these claims were given little credence as the chimps were taught to use words without syntax. Although the chimps were reportedly able to use the words they had learned creatively and appropriately under a variety of test conditions, the lack of syntax meant that they failed to satisfy the criteria for using actual language.
Following this, the Rumbaughs began work with a Bonobo. Otherwise known as 'pygmy' chimpanzees, bonobos are renowned for their intelligence and human-like qualities. The first bonobo the Rumbaugh's worked with was a mature female named Matata. These attempts were not very successful, probably due to the subject's age. However, during these teaching sessions, Matata's adopted son, a young bonobo named Kanzi, was inadvertently exposed to the language. It was discovered that Kanzi understood these 'words' and soon spontaneously produced a limited number of lexigrams without training. Subsequently, Kanzi was taught in a different manner to previous subjects; he was brought up in a similar manner to a developing human infant and was simply raised in an environment where lexigrams were used as the primary method of communication.12 Instead of rewarding Kanzi each time he used a word correctly, he was allowed to pick up words in 'normal' conversation. This approach has seemed to work, and Kanzi currently has a vocabulary of 250 words13. Furthermore, as Kanzi has been exposed to human speech, he has learnt to understand a range of 2,000 to 3,000 spoken words14, even to the point of responding to suggestions or requests. Kanzi has also learnt to appreciate turn taking, word order and other syntactical cues. This has led the Rumbaughs to conclude that bonobos possess "Rudimentary syntactic ability"15 and have an understanding of complex sentences and spontaneously use symbolic language in their communication.
With the tightening of requirements for language definition, it seems that a state of paradox has been reached, whereby a person can converse with a chimpanzee or a bonobo, yet without the creature 'officially' being capable of language. It could be said that the problem is not with the ability of the apes to acquire a degree of language, but with the definition of language itself. Alternatively, maybe the problem is whether or not people are willing to relinquish the idea of being unique amongst all creatures with regard to their linguistic standing, which is often seen as embodying the essential difference between the human and animal kingdoms.
As we have seen, projects to determine whether primates could be taught the equivalent of human language have been funded because of the insights the outcome could have on our understanding of the evolution of the human race and the development of the human mind. A variety of methods have been used to achieve this aim, and the outcomes are hotly disputed by people on either side of the debate.
Although people are split into two camps over the possible interpretations of the results of these projects, and in the absence of absolute proof either way, it is my personal belief that the animals discussed are indeed capable of comprehension and construction of at least a rudimentary form of a human language, despite the huge evolutionary gap that separates our two worlds.
Bibliography
Books
Savage-Rumbaugh, S. and Lewin, R. "Kanzi The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind" 1994 Transworld Publishers, London.
Aitchison,J "The Articulate Mammal" (3rd Edition) 1995 Routledge, London
Linden, E. "Apes, Men and Language"1976 Penguin, New York
Other Sources
'Next of Kin' Review
2 Ibid.
3 Animal Cognition Home Page
4 www.fortunecity.com
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid
7 Animal Cognition Home Page
8 Ibid.
9 Review on 'Next of Kin'
0 www.fortunecity.com
1 Johnson, G "Chimp Talk Debate: Is It Really Language" New York Times, June 6
2 Johnson, G "Chimp Talk Debate: Is It Really Language" New York Times, June 6
3 Animal Cognition home page
4 Ibid.
5 Johnson, G "Chimp Talk Debate: Is It Really Language" New York Times, June 6
Paul Evangelista Eng 107
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