PSYCHOLINGUISTICSAnimals and Language Learning
This paper is submintted to fulfill Psycholinguistics Group
Assignment
Compiled byAnnisa Septianing TyasDidin JamaludinSayyidah
BalqiesSitta Meinawati 7 B
English DepartmentTeachers Training and Education FacultySultan
Ageng Tirtayasa UniversitySerang-Banten2013PREFACE
Psycholinguistics is a branch of linguistic field which study
about the language and the thought of the users of the language. In
order to learn deeper about it, we should know in details about
what is learned and how to learn about it. One of the things which
is concerned in learning this subject is about animals and language
learning.This paper is contained about the animals and language
learning which tells about Animals and Language Learning. This
paper is compiled and submitted to fulfil the group assignment of
Psycholinguistics subject. Hopely, this paper is qualified enough
with the criteria being given by the lecturer and this paper is
very useful for our group for ourself study and could be useful for
others.Our appreciation is given to our lecturer, Mrs. Rosmania
Rima for taught us about the basic of Psycholinguistics and for all
of our friends which are involved in helping to motivate us to work
hard and keep our spirit high so this paper can be done as it
is.
WritersSerang08 October 2013
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE 1TABLE OF CONTENTS 2CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 31.1.
Background 31.2. Identification of Problems 31.3. Limitation of
Problems 41.4. Objectives 4CHAPTER II FRAME OF THEORIES 52.1.
Teaching Speech to Apes 52.2. Teaching Sign Language to Chimpanzee,
Gorilla, and Orangutan 52.3. Teaching Artificial Languages to
Chimpanzees 52.4. Teaching Language to Dolpin 62.5. Teaching Spoken
English to an African Grey Parrot 72.6. Animal Communication in the
Wild 7CHAPTER III DISCUSSION 93.1. Discussion 93.2. Case Study
17CHAPTER IV CONCLUSION 20REFERENCES 21
CHAPTER IINTRODUCTION
1.1. BackgroundIn animals, we know the parrot can imitate the
sound and word of human language, but does the parrot understand
the meaning what he speaks? Ape, Chimpanzee, Orangutan and Monkey,
all of the primate animals are the most related in humans, so can
they learn language? The animal language is more simple than human
language, but human only can mimic the sound from animal, cannot
understand the exactly communication which the animals produce.
Human cannot learn the language of animals, but can animals learn
human languages? Many researchers say that we can teach animals the
social interaction and sensitive phases for language learning. That
is, maybe the animals can be taught languages with some special
ways and that is the point of our paper.This paper is about
describing how the animals can produce the sound or learn language
as human language. Then, the writers want to share how experts
taught Ape, Chimpanzee, Orangutan and Parrot to learn human
language, the success and its failure.
1.2. Identification of ProblemsThe problems which can we
identify in this paper are:1. Is it possible to teach speech to
Apes?2. Could the researcher teach sign language to Gorilla,
Orangutan and Chimpanzee?3. How the researcher teach artificial
languages to chimpanzee?4. How to teach Dolphin a language?5. Could
the African Grey Parrot learn spoken english?6. How is the animal
communication in the wild?
1.3. Limitations of ProblemsThe limitation of problems which
discussed here is about the animals and language learning.1.4.
ObjectivesThe objectives of this paper are1. To know the
possibility to teach speech to Apes.2. To know whether Gorilla,
Orangutan and Chimpanzee can learn language.3. To know the
probability to teach artificial languages to chimpanzee.4. To know
about how to teach language to a Dolphin.5. To know about the
teaching spoken language to an African Grey Parrot.6. To know about
animal communication in the wild.
CHAPTER IIFRAME OF THEORIES
2.1 Definition of Animal LanguageAcoording to Pearce (1987)
animal communication is the transmission of a signal from one
animal to another such that the sender benefits, on average, from
the response of the recipient. This definition permits the
inclusion of many types of behavior and allows "communication" to
be applied to a very large range of animals, including some very
simple animals.2.2 Kinds of Animal CommunicationThere are some
kinds of animal communication: Chemical signals (used by some very
simple creatures, including protozoa) Smell (related to chemical
signals, eg. pheromones attract, skunk secretions repel) Touch
Movement Posture (eg. dogs, geese) Facial gestures (eg. dogs
snarling) Visual signals (eg. feathers) Sound (eg. very many
vertebrate and invertebrate calls)2.3. The Purpose of Animal
CommunicationThe purpose of animal communication are: attract
(especially mates) repel (especially competitors or enemies) signal
aggression or submission advertise species warn of predators
communicate about the environment or the availability of food
2.4 Features of LanguageHocketts (1968) thirteen design features
of language are considered particularly important in evaluating the
question "can animals be taught language?" If any animal naturally
possesses all the design feature of human language, then clearly
that animal can talk.1. Vocal-auditory channel: sounds emitted from
the mouth and perceived by the auditory system. This applies to
many animal communication systems, but there are many exceptions.
Also, it does not apply to human sign language, which meets all the
other 12 requirements. It also does not apply to written language.
2. Broadcast transmission and directional reception: this requires
that the recipient can tell the direction that the signal comes
from and thus the originator of the signal. 3. Rapid fading
(transitory nature): Signal lasts a short time. This is true of all
systems involving sound. It doesn't take into account audio
recording technology and is also not true for written language. It
tends not to apply to animal signals involving chemicals and smells
which often fade slowly. 4. Interchangeability: All utterances that
are understood can be produced. This is different to some
communication systems where, for example, males produce one set of
behaviours and females another and they are unable to interchange
these messages so that males use the female signal and vice versa.
5. Total feedback: The sender of a message also perceives the
message. That is, you hear what you say. This is not always true
for some kinds of animal displays. 6. Specialisation: The signal
produced is specialised for communication and is not the side
effect of some other behaviour (eg. the panting of a dog
incidentally produces the panting sound). 7. Semanticity: There is
a fixed relationship between a signal and a meaning. 8.
Arbitrariness: There is an arbitrary relationship between a signal
and its meaning. That is, the signal, is related to the meaning by
convention or by instinct but has no inherent relationship with the
meaning. This can be seen in different words in different languages
referring to the same meaning, or to different calls of different
sub-species of a single bird species having the same meaning. 9.
Discreteness: Language can be said to be built up from discrete
units (eg. phonemes in human language). Exchanging such discrete
units causes a change in the meaning of a signal. This is an abrupt
change, rather than a continuous change of meaning (eg. "cat"
doesn't gradually change in meaning to "bat", but changes abruptly
in meaning at some point. Speech loudness and pitch can, on the
other hand be changed continuously without abrupt changes of
meaning. 10. Displacement: Communicating about things or events
that are distant in time or space. Bee dancing is an example of
this. 11. Productivity: Language is an open system. We can
potentially produce an infinite (2) number of different messages by
combining the elements differently. This is not a feature of, for
example, the calls of gibbons who have a finite number of calls and
thus a closed system of communication. 12. Traditional
transmission: Each generation needs to learn the system of
communication from the preceding generation. Many species produce
the same uniform calls regardless of where they live in the range
(even a range spanning several continents). Such systems can be
assumed to be defined by instinct and thus by genetics. Some
animals, on the other hand fail to develop the calls of their
species when raised in isolation. 13. Duality of patterning: Large
numbers of meaningful signals (eg. morphemes or words) produced
from a small number of meaningless units (eg. phonemes). Human
language is very unusual in this respect. Apes, for example, do not
share this feature in their natural communication systems.
CHAPTER IIIDISCUSSION
3.1. DiscussionIt seems well established based on our discussion
in second chapter that no animal communication system fulfils all
of the criteria outlined by Hockett (1968). This is certainly true
for the apes. It is also true for most other species such as
parrots and dolphins that have a complex communication system which
involves a complex combination of various sounds.Why try to teach a
human-like language to another species?Just because a species
doesn't have such a communication system in the wild doesn't
necessarily prove that they are incapable of using one.What kind of
language should we teach these animals?We must avoid using features
of human language that are physiologically difficult or impossible
for the animal to manage. For example, spoken human language is
extremely difficult or impossible for most animals because of the
structure of their vocal organs. Apes, for example, can't produce a
large proportion of the vowels and would have difficulty with some
of the consonants. This may be due not only to the shapes of the
vocal organs but also to the limitations of the motor centres in
the brain that control these organs. We might attempt, on the other
hand, to teach apes language that involves them using their hands
(eg. sign language or the manipulation of symbols).Some birds, such
as certain parrots and the Indian Hill Mynah, are able to mimic
human speech with great clarity. We could, therefore, attempt to
teach such animal spoken human language.Dolphins cannot be taught
either type of language but may be able to understand sounds or
gestures and to respond by pressing specially designed levers.
3.2 Case StudyTeaching Speech to Apesa. OrangutanThe
earliest-known scientific attempt at teaching language to an ape
was that of Funess (1916) in USA, who attempted to teach an
orangutan to speak. The project ended in tragedy, the animal died
with a high fever while repeating the two words (papa and cup) it
had leaned to say.b. Gua: The Chimp Raised with a Human
SiblingWinthrop and LuellaKellogg raised a female chimp named Gua
along with their own son, Donald. Their idea was that by giving the
chimpanzee the same input and sosial interaction as human child,
the chimpanzee would learn language in the same way as human child
learn its first language. After 16 months of age, and over the
period ofnine months during which she was with the family, Gua
learned to respond appropriately to 95 words, phrases, and
sentences.c. Viki : Another Chimp Raised in Human HouseholdKeith
and Cathrenine raised a baby female chimp which called Viki. They
teach Viki 4 words (mama, papa, up, and cup). After 6 years, Viki
can utter those words but she just imitate the couch and oly want
to say if she got reward (food or drinks).
Teaching Sign Language to the Chimpanzee, Gorilla and
Orangutana. Washoe : The First Signing ChimpCaught in the wild and
received by the Gardners when she was between 8 and 14 months.
Chimps are completely dependent until two years of age, and
semi-dependent until the age of four. Full adult growth is reached
between 12 and 16 years. The Gardeners tried to make Washoe's
environment as similar as possible to a [deaf] human infant. Many
helpers were used. There was always somebody in attendance during
Washoe's waking hours. Every helper communicated with Washoe by
using ASL (American Sign Language), rather than with the spoken
voice (the use of which was minimised). Helper's acted as friends
and companions to Washoe, making use of various games and
activities to make the learning experience enjoyable.Methods:a)
ImitationAs with chimpanzees in general, Washoe naturally imitated.
Washoe signed the sign for 'toothbrush' spontaneously upon entering
the Gardener's bathroom and noticing toothbrushes. There seems to
have been no obvious motive, except to communicate.b)
Babbling'Babbling' here does not mean vocal babbling, rather the
untaught signs used by Washoe to communicate a desire. Washoe used
a begging gesture, which was not too different from the ASL signs
for 'give me' and 'come'.c) Instrumental conditioningHumans could
not learn a language, purely by instrumental conditioning, although
it seems likely that the 'trick vocabulary' of early childhood
could be acquired in this way. Instrumental conditioning was one
strategy used with Washoe. Tickling was used as a reward. The sign
for 'more' was learnt by instrumental conditioning. This sign was
later applied to a variety of relevant situations.ResultsA Sign was
added to a checklist when reported by three independent observers.
The sign had to occur in an appropriate context and without
prompting. The checklist was used to record the frequency of a
sign. A sign had to be used at least once a day for 15 consecutive
days, before it was deemed to have been acquired. Alternatively a
sign had to be used at least 15 days out of 30 consecutive days. By
the end of the 22nd month of the project, thirty-four signs had
been learnt by Washoe. And ther, after three years old Washoe can
express 132 sign words.b. SarahIn the year after Project Washoe
began, David Premack started an experiment with a different kind of
language. The above-mentioned plastic tokens are those which
Premack used to train a chimpanzee named Sarah. These tokens
represented words, and varied in shape, size, texture, and colour.
Sentences were formed by placing the tokens in a vertical line (an
orientation which Sarah favoured). This language differs from sign
language in that "the permanence of the sentence not only makes it
possible to study language without a memory problem, but to study
memory in the context of language by regulating the duration for
which the sentence remains on the board" (D. Premack 1979: 233).
Sarah was taught nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, and
quantifiers; she was also taught same-difference, negation, and
compound sentences. The earliest words named various interesting
fruits, so that Sarah could both solve her problem and eat it (A.
Premack 1976: 79). Sarah exhibited displacement, the ability to
think of something (in the following case, chocolate) when it is
not immediately present. Presented with the sentence "Brown color
of chocolate" without any chocolate present, and later presented
with "Take brown," Sarah took a brown object (A. Premack 1976: 89).
When a trainer put a question on Sarah's board and walked away,
Sarah showed little interest in answering it--"in somewhat the way
a conversation falters when one person ceases to pay attention to
the other" (D. Premack 1971: 821). To show that Sarah was not
merely responding to cues from her human trainers, she was adapted
to a new trainer that did not know her language. When this trainer
presented her with questions, she gave the correct answers less
frequently than usual, but still well above chance. Ann Premack
remarked that "it would be interesting to see how well a child at
this language stage of about 150 words would do in a simple
language test with a virtual stranger" (A. Premack 1976: 103). To
test Sarah's view of words, Premack presented her with an apple and
a set of features (for example, round vs. square and red vs.
green). Then she was presented with her word for apple, and the
same set of features. She choose the correct features for both the
real apple and her word for apple, a light-blue plastic triangle
(A. Premack 1976: 104). This demonstrates Hockett's property of
arbitrariness; the symbol for apple is arbitrary (that is, there is
no similarity between an apple and a light-blue plastic
triangle).The following are examples of plactic tokens that used to
teach Sarah:
c. NimHerbert S. Terrace was skeptical of the reported success
of the chimpanzees Washoe, Sarah, and Lana. He believed that there
were simpler explanations for many of the reported interpretations
of these apes' language use. Although Terrace admitted that the
apes had achieved something significant, he compared their
behaviour to that of pigeons who are taught to peck different
colours in a certain order (Terrace 1979: 20). He also believed
that the apes used signs only to receive rewards from their human
trainers. When Terrace set up his own experiment with the
chimpanzee Nim, "Nim's main reward for learning to sign was our
approval and being able to sign about something that was important
to him" (Terrace 1979: 145). Nim was raised like a human child and
taught sign language in similar ways to those of Washoe. He was
observed practicing his signs in the absence of their referents
(Terrace 1979: 143). Nim often signed DIRTY (used when he had to go
to the toilet) or SLEEP when he was bored and wanted a change. He
used the signs BITE and ANGRY to express his feelings, and he
tended not to attack if he perceived that his warning was heeded;
this is an important substitution of an arbitrary word for a
physical action, displaying Hockett's property of specialization
(the speaker does not act out messages). Although Nim learned many
words, Terrace concluded that Nim could not combine words to create
new meanings on his own. He believed, from viewing videotapes, that
the combinations of words that Nim used were prompted by prior
utterances from his trainers. The other thing Terrace discovered
from the videotapes was that Nim interrupted his trainers more than
human children interrupt their parents. Terrace has a good point:
if we are going to say that apes can create a sentence, we must
eliminate the other possible explanations for the utterances
(Terrace 1979: 219). Terrace is not as much of a skeptic as some
others make him out to be, though; he believed that the conditions
under which Project Nim were operated were not ideal, and future
projects might have more success if they were able to instill a
greater motivation to sign in their subjects (Terrace 1979:
223).
d. Other Apes Language Experiments: Sherman & Austin,
Chantek, Kanzi, KokoMany other ape language experiments were done
other than the four described above; I will briefly list several of
these. Sherman and Austin were two chimpanzees who were able to
communicate specific information to each other through the use of
symbols, information that they could not communicate without the
symbols (Savage-Rumbaugh, Rumbaugh & Boysen: 1978). Chantek, an
orangutan, learned about 150 different signs, and used them
spontaneously and without undue repetition. Chantek internalized a
minimal value system, using signs for GOOD and BAD in appropriate
contexts (Miles 1993: 47, 52). A bonobo named Kanzi learned at a
faster rate than the chimpanzees; he learned his first words by
merely watching lessons directed at his mother. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
describes Kanzi as "the ape at the brink of the human mind" in her
book of that title. Savage-Rumbaugh asserts that Kanzi uses
sentences; that is, he follows structured rules in his multi-word
utterances (showing the property of duality). He even makes up his
own rules, such as first using a lexigram to specify an action and
then using a gesture to specify an agent (Savage-Rumbaugh &
Lewin: 1994: 161). Francine Patterson has been raising Koko, a
gorilla, since 1972 and teaching her sign language. Koko has
learned a greater vocabulary than Nim, uses more words per
utterance on average, and "a great deal of creativity, spontaneity,
and structure characterize her utterances" (Patterson & Linden
1981:116). Koko also rhymes and jokes; on one occasion she used a
metaphor of an elephant to refer to herself when she pretended a
long tube was her "trunk" (Patterson & Linden 1981: 143). These
characteristics of Koko's utterances show the property of
productivity, in which a speaker says something never heard or said
before and is understood by the audience.
Teaching Artificial language to Chimpanzees Lana: The Computer
Chimp The Rumbaughs (Rumbaugh, 1997; Savage-Rumbaugh &
Rumbaugh, 1978) (another husband and wife team!) taught the chimp
Lana a simple artificial language called Yerkish (after and
Yerkishs Primate Center). Lana was named after the research
programmed, which was called the LANguage Analogue project. Lana
was just over 2 years old when the project began. The language
consisted of seven colours and nine geometrical shapes which
represented mainly object and actions. These items were displayed
on a large keyboard and the keyboard was connected to a computer in
another room. Lana had a press certain keys in the right sequence
to make requests and consequently receive desire items, e.g. Please
machine give milk or Please Tim give ball. Lana learned hundreds of
sentences in this fashion. She had names for people, food, objects,
and even a special phrase that which is to name things she did not
know the name of. Once she even asked the trainer to leave the room
after he had purposely mixed up one of her sentences to test her
reaction! Unfortunately, Lanas sentences were not created according
to rule but were learned by rote, in a way similar to memorizing
important whole sentences in a foreign language such as Where is
the toilet? this learning does not provide one with the ability to
create novel sentences. Most of the sentences Lana produced had to
be learned over many trials. Additionally, as wallman (1992) notes,
there is a problem with this and many of the ape language studies
because there is no evidence to suggest that Lana had any notion of
the meaning of please or even a childs rudimentary understanding of
the sociolinguistic rules governing its usage. Researcher usually
gives a gloss of meaning of each symbol however this may not equal
the meaning that we have of please. Lana simply used the please key
as part of making a request. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh herself believes
that apes have but a limited ability for language acquisition. She
has expressed the opinion that perhaps the media raised hopes too
high for animal language research. (Although it might be said that
animal researchers themselves have hardly been modest or cautionary
in the initial claims they have made!) She says it is not likely
that chimps might be able to talk about their dreams or tell us
about how it feels to be a chimps. However, still the optimist, she
goes on to say that while it is not yet possible that they might be
able to communicate new ideas remains. Her hope lies in improving
teaching techniques. However, the fact that human children learn
language without being taught, simply though being exposed to
meaningful speech in conjunction with objects, situations, and
events in the environment, suggests to us that the search for
better teaching techniques is not likely to yield much better
result.
Sarah: The magnetic plastic token chimp An ingenious piece of
research was one conceived by David Premack of the University of
Pennsylvania involving a chimp by the name of Sarah. Rather than
using sign language or electronic keyboards, Premack (1970, 1971,
and 1976) gave Sarah 130 plastic token with magnets so that they
could be manipulated easily by her and other. These included tokens
for the names of colours such as red and blue, for different fruits
such as banana and peach and for action such as wash, cut and take,
and some functions such as QUESTION. Atypical question which might
be posed to Sarah was QUESTION banana red (is the banana red?), to
which she would correctly answer no by means of a token. The tokens
would adhere to a metallic board. Premacks research with Sarah
makes it very clear that chimps are intelligent creatures. For
example, Sarah had little trouble dealing with a feature once
thought to be characteristic only of human language: displacement,
i.e. the ability to talk about things that are not present. She was
easily able to use her plastic tokens to request items that were
not present, such as asking for fruit, e.g. Give Banana. When told
brown colour of chocolate (Brown is the colour of chocolate), she
was able to learn the new word brown, thereby demonstrating that
she could learn new vocabulary item by instruction though language!
(She had already acquired the meaning of the abstract word colour,
which is, in itself, a notable achievement.) Other apes in Premacks
research were also able to distinguish between strings of words
differing only in word order, such as green on red and green on
red. This clearly demonstrates that some syntax has been acquired,
although this syntax is obviously of an elementary nature, since it
involves only the order of nouns (in a locative relationship).
Premack himself has taken the view that little more syntax than
this can be learned by apes. Kanzi: A Pygmy Chimp Produces
Synthesized Speech Before we finally give up the ghost, we should
take into account the distinction between production and
comprehension. So far our emphasis has been on the language that
chimpanzees can produce themselves. But we might also consider what
they can understand. Perhaps the neuromotor co-ordination required
to produce signs or press lexigram symbols obscures the chimpanzees
true level of linguistic competence. It is certainly well known
that young children experience a lag between comprehension and
production. Two-year-olds generally understand far more words than
they can actually utter themselves (Griffiths, 1986). It is
conceivable, then, that chimpanzees are in the same boat.
Accordingly, Savage-Rumbaugh et al. (1993) tested Kanzis ability to
follow complex instructions, issued in spoken English.Recall that
Kanzislanguage learning was always, in a sense, bilingual,
involving exposure to both lexigrams and spoken English.Typical
instructions are shown below:Instructions followed by KanziGo to
the microwave and get the shoeGive the monster mask to KellyTurn
the flashlight onGive the big tomato to LizTake the ice back to the
refrigeratorSavage-Rumbaughet al.(1993)report an overall success
rate of 71per centin Kanzis ability to carry out instructions of
this kind. But the criteria for judging success are extremely
liberal. More to the point, there is no evidence that Kanzi can
understand every word addressed to him. And the basis on which he
acts can very often be as cribbed to pragmatic factors, rather than
his interpretation of grammatical rules to get at meaning. For
example, if you hand me a flashlight I will probably turn it on,
because thats what one does with flashlights. If I hear Give the
big tomato to Liz, I would only need to know the words tomato and
Liz to guess that these two objects should be married up. A sit
happens; Kanzi took two tomatoes of different sizes, and gave them
both to Liz. This response was scored as Partially Correct, even
though the intention ofthe sentence wasto distinguish between large
and small exemplars of a category (tomato). Using a stricter
definition of correct, where Kanzi performs the requested action
immediately, and where we include only blind trials in which the
instructor is out of sight, Kanzis success rate dropsto 59 per
cent. And, as noted, this success may be achieved, in large
measure, without knowledge of grammar. Instructions can often be
carried out correctly from an understanding of one or two
individual word meanings. Overall, then, the work on Kanzis
comprehension does not lend any extra confidence to the idea that
apes can acquire grammar.
Teaching language to Dolphins Elvar: The whistling dolphins
There is much anecdotal lore about the intelligence of dolphins and
whales. Until the 1960s, though, no scientific attempt had been
made to determine their communicative abilities. In one of the
first studies, Lilly, (1962, 1965) tried to teach a dolphin to
force air though its blow-hole in such a way that it would allow
the dolphins to imitate human speech sounds. A young male dolphin
named Elvar produce approximations of the word squirt, which Lilly
had been trying to teach him to pronounce. Lilly also claimed that
Elvar interchanged human sound with dolphin sounds as if he were
attempting to translate, but Lilly provided no scientific
substantiation in this regard. In fact, pronunciation difficulties
were so great that Lilly was obliged to discontinue the study. He
then moved on to investigate the means by which dolphins
communicate with one another. Notwithstanding Lillys extravagant
claims to the contrary (including claims that dolphins have an
intelligence and a religion (!) that is superior to those of human,
research has yet to show that these animals use anything as complex
as what could call language.
Akeakamai and phoenix: Learning Artificial language though sight
and sound A radically different and more scientific approach to the
teaching of language to dolphins was later initiated by Louis
Herman at the Dolphins mimic human sounds, Herman and his
associates (Herman &Wolz, 1984) trained a bottle nosed dolphin
to mimic computer generated sounds. The dolphin not only
demonstrated that it could learn new whistles but also that it
could apply these whistles to the naming of objects such as ball,
hoop, and frisbee. This is similar to the apes abilities to name
objects; Herman then turned his attention to the primary process of
language comprehension. In his investigation of the dolphins
language comprehension, Herman and his associates (Herman,
Richards, &Wold, 1987) conducted experiments using two
different types of artificial language, one involving sounds, the
other involving visual gestures, i.e. sign. He wanted to see if, or
how well, dolphins could learn to comprehend language. This was
done not only to see if the animals could learn a human created
language system, but also to discover more about the cognitive
abilities of dolphins. In 1979, a teaching programme was begun with
two dolphins, Phoenix and Akeakamai (the letters name meaning lover
of wisdom in the Hawaiian language). Each dolphin learned one of
the two artificial language. Akea was taught the gesture based
language, while Phoenix was taught the sound-based language. Each
was taught a vocabulary of about 30 words, mainly names of object,
agents, actions, and modifiers. The sound based language had its
sounds projected underwater into the dolphin tank. These sounds
were controlled by Herman and his assistants from their underwater
laboratory, which had a window view into the tank. The visual
language of gestures, invented by Herman and his colleagues,
involved the use of the trainers arms and hands. The trainer stood
by the side of the tank out of the water where he or she could be
seen by the dolphins. The trainer would place and move his or her
aims in different position as in a sort of semaphore signal system.
To avoid the unconscious giving of helpful cues to the dolphins
could not see their eyes. The two dolphins learned to carry out
correctly a number of commands in the water. The command consisted
of two, three, four, and even five word sequences, with each
command constructed on the basic of object and action words. Thus,
window tails touch is to be interpreted as Touch a window with your
tail. The basic sentence structured was of the Subject-Object-Verb
variety. Of special interest are Hermans results which show that
generally the dolphins correctly responded to what are often called
semantically reversible sentences, i.e. sentences for which the
subjects and object cannot be interpreted by meaning alone but
where the use of syntactic knowledge is required.
Teaching Spoken English to an African Grey Parrot
We all know that Parrot and some other birds can immitate human
language, but can they learn language? According to Irene
Pepperbergs research, most of us thought not. Her fascinating
research has proven us wrong. She has worked with a male African
Grey Parrot, which she call Alex. She use the speech mode because
of the parrot excellent vocal and hearing abilities. Alex is now
able to understand and answer question on the color, shape, and
material of more than 100 objects.Alex is not only can identifying
items but he can also request, refuse them, and answer questions
pertaining to the abstract categories of shape, colour, material,
and quantity. Thus, in a test of Alex cognitive abilities involving
a variety of questions, Alex can performed it well more than 80% of
the questions. Alex few errors are even more interesting than his
correct performance.Alexs accomplishments are admirable and in some
ways, especially with his recognition of abstract categories, he
has surpassed aspects of languageknowledge that the apes and even
the dolphins have demonstrated. He has not yet, though, reach the
level of yntax that the dolphins have mastered. However, given that
this research with Alex is ongoing and given that parrots are noted
for their longevity, there is still achance that Alex might acquire
more syntax.
Animal Communication in the Wild
Animal communication through a wide variety of means. Not like
human speech which is only one small part of the communication of
chirps, hisses, growls, snorts, whristles, gestures, barks, and
buzzes which we can find in the rest of animal kingdom (Steinberg:
2001). Many animal use sign and many other use other sense of
modalities. Ubstances involving smell may be used as signals, as in
the case of ants, which leave chemical trails for nestmates to
follow in finding food, and many other examples.Vervet MonkeysWild
vervet monkeys, as Seyfart and Cheney report, make specific sounds
that are more complicated than hitherto believed. For example,
these monkeys alarm calls seem to be predator specific. Thus, while
one type of grunt indicates (1a) Beware, here comes an eagle!,
another type of grunt indicates (2a) Beware, here come leopard!,
while still another means (3a) Beware, here comes the snake!However
these grunts could just as well be interpreted as meaning (1b)
Danger from above! the eagle situation in (1a), (2b) Danger from
the bushes!, the leopard situation in (2a), or (3b) Danger on the
ground!, the snake situation is in (3a). The grunts may not refer
to the objects of the eagle, leopard, and snake but to the location
s of the objects above. in the bushes, and on the
ground.Turn-taking in Sound MakingAnimals have been found to use
some human longuistic phenomena in natural cmmunication (Snowden,
1993; cited in Steinberg, 2001). For example monkeys take turns in
their communication (one monkey waits to the other to finish before
making sounds). Communication of birds is often similarly
governed.
CHAPTER IVCONCLUSION
Understand communication and able to communicate are two
different things. Tained animals, like in circus are understand the
language because they give respond to human speaking. Fo example:
sit down and etc. It also happen with Viki, Gua and other
experiments discussed above. But it doesnt mean that those animals
are able to communicate or understand the language but it only
result from responses that conditioned or conditional responses.
According to generative transformation theory from Chomsky
communication ability is an ability to produce new words which
never heard or said from other people. Therefore, it clear that
animals cannot communicate. It also proved from no animal
communication system fulfils all of the criteria which outlined by
Hockett (1968).When we look at animal communication, however, it is
clear that whether it is prompted by hunger, anger, danger,
attraction, submission, or the need to congregate or disperse, one
signal has a fixed meaning combination of signs to form more
complex structures rarely occur. Natural animal communication seems
to be quite specific and stereotyped. Animal calls or signs or
scents have a fixed meaning, and, whatever means an animal migh use
for communicating, it has never been demonstrated that it involves
creative recombination or the use of complex structures that are
typical of human language.
REFERENCES
1. Chaer, Abdul. 2003. Psikolinguistik: Kajian Teoretik.
Jakarta: Asdi Mahasatya.2. Steinberg, et all. 2001.
Psycholinguistics: Language, Mind, and World. Second Edition.
Malaysia: Longman.3. Suparman, Ujang. 2010. Psycholinguistic: The
Theory of Language Acquisition. Bandung: Afino Raya.