Both animals and humans are known to communicate with tactile communication. Spiders use touch to communicate to a possible mate. In one species the male approaches the female and gently strokes her, and in another species the male will shake the females web before approaching her to mate.
Although animals are not physically capable of speaking most animal communication is still auditory. Bright (1984) argued that auditory communication is the most effective method of communication because unlike visual signals it can be used at night, can travel round corners, and can travel across a large area of territory.
Two species with highly specialised methods of auditory communication are frogs and birds. Narins and Capranica (1980) found frogs have highly specialised auditory systems that are tuned to retrieve sounds made by other members of their species at mating time. In one species of Puerto Rican tree frog, the male has a mating call that sounds like ‘ko-kee’. The ‘ko’ acts as a territorial warning to male frogs, and the ‘kee’ acts as a mating call to female frogs. Males are only tuned to respond to the frequency of ‘ko’, and the females can only tune into ‘kee’. Birds sing for courtship and territorial markings. They can also communicate specific messages to other members of its species, such as a warning of a nearby cat. They have different sounds to convey different messages, and also have regional dialects. This is one of many pieces of evidence that suggests bird song is partly learned and partly genetic. Slater (1981) found chaffinches that had been hand reared made a different sound to those brought up naturally. As with human infants, birds also learn communication by imitation of those around them.
Dolphins also appear to be able to communicate with each other with noises. Evans and Bastian carried out an experiment in 1969. They conditioned two dolphins called Buzz and Doris to press paddles in response to a light. Then were then separated but were still able to hear each other. When Doris saw the light she communicated to Buzz who pressed the paddle to receive their reward. Dolphins also communicate distress in the form of whistling. Bright (1984) recorded noises made by a dolphin that had been captured, and when this was played to its school they all fled with fear. However, when this was played to an unfamiliar school they acted with curiosity. This suggests the communication system used by dolphins is not universal, and different languages may have developed between schools.
Animals within a species appear to be able to communicate meaning to one another, but whether they actually use ‘words’ is debateable. We have already established that they do not have words as in a spoken language, but it is a possibility that they may have specific conceptual signals within their communication systems. Seyfarth and Cheyney (1980) did an experiment with African vervet monkeys to investigate this idea. From observation they found that different predators made the monkeys produce different sounds. They will chirp if they see a leopard or lion, and chutter if they see a snake. When a tape of these responses was played to another vervet they seemed to respond to the specific danger, for example standing on their hind legs if they suspected a snake was present.
However, this experiment leads us to question intentionality. It is possible that the sounds played by these monkeys just indicated its level of fear. The vervets may have been unintentionally communicating their fear to others. This could also be applicable to many of the animal communication systems investigated. If an animal makes an automatic predisposed noise in response to something can this really be classed as communication? However, much of human communication could be classed as unintentional, such as screaming in response to a frightening stimulus, or unconscious body language, but we would still think of this as communication.
It would appear that animals have some highly complex methods of communication that are not established in human communication systems, but human language also contains things that have not yet been discovered in animal communication. The human language is highly structured, and contains sound systems unique to specific languages. It is creative in the sense that we can construct an unlimited number of sentences from a limited selection of words, and generally everyone can derive meaning from familiar words. Our words are also built up of phonemes and morphemes. Phonemes are the basic sounds that make up a word, and morphemes are the smallest units of language that can convey a meaning.
Due to these complexities human language is often thought of something that is highly specialised and unique to human beings. However, attempts have been made to teach human language to primates. Obviously they are physically unable to speak because they do not have a voice box, so language is taught in the form of American Sign Language and Yerkish. In the wild chimpanzees communicate with a mixture of systems, but primarily auditory and visual communication. They make facial expressions such as grinning, and make a wide variety of noises that convey a meaning to others in the species. Marler and Hobbet (1975) also discovered they are able to recognise each other just by their voices. Chimpanzees are very similar to humans in many ways, which is hardly surprising since it is thought we have evolved from primates. Whether or not they can use human language to communicate is a topic that has sparked a great deal of discussion.
One of the most famous experiments in this field is that of Gardner and Gardner, conducted in 1969. They took a baby chimp named Washoe into their home, and communicated with her using American Sign Language. She was treated as a human child, with scheduled meal, bed and bath times. She was taught words and was rewarded if she copied them. After ten months she had produced her first two-word sentence, and after fifty-one months she had acquired 151 signs. It is not known if these signs were used purely as imitation, or if she was actually trying to communicate with her ‘parents’. She managed to produce a few novel sentences, such as ‘water bird’ to mean duck. It was argued that she would not be able to combine the correct words in the correct order and context unless she actually understood some rules about language. Terrace et al. (1979) later argued that she may have made this sentence due to her juxta-positioning the signs for water and bird, with no actual semantic link between them. However, at the age of four she could make 32 two and three word combinations, which is more than people previously believed possible. Although this is quite remarkable, it is incomparable with then number of words and sentences acquired by a human child of the same age.
Another incredible experiment on chimpanzees was carried out on a male bonobo called Kanzi (Golden, 1991) He was taught Yerkish using a computer keyboard. The keyboard contained abstract symbols instead of letters and he was taught to communicate by pressing the corresponding keys. He learnt 50 symbols in just 18 months, and was also able to combine symbols in the correct word order. An example of this was ‘hide peanut’ instead of ‘peanut hide’. By the end of the experiment he could respond to spoken commands, and also attempted to teach the other primates in his enclosure. Kanzi had obviously learnt some basic grammatical rules relating to word order, and had learnt many more words that was previously expected of him. Although the symbols he learnt were limited, he clearly understood the meaning of them. Considering he was only being taught for 18 months, I think these findings are remarkable because it can take a human child a few years to learn correct word sequencing. Also primates have not evolved to use human language, so it is not an innate ability.
Human and animal communication systems clearly have their differences, but also their similarities. Both humans and animals communicate with visual, auditory, tactile and olfactory communication, but in very different ways. The main difference is that humans have their own language. However, animal communication systems are highly specialised to their functions, and they appear to be able to communicate just as effectively without spoken language. I strongly believe that animals such as dolphins, vervets and birds may in fact have their own language, and that this field requires further research to investigate this.
References
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