Animal and Human communication

• Limited functions of animal communication


  • Survival
  • Reproduction
  • Territory
  • Food
• Observation of animal communication suggests they only send limited information
• Survival: Animal communication


  1. Alarm calls to alert other members of its group to the presence of a predator

  2. Range of calls depending on if the danger is in the air (eagle) or land (jackal) and how far away they are

  3. Use body language to indicate the direction of the threat
• Reproduction: Animal communication


  1. Female animals give off scent signals and show body language to indicate fertility

  2. Males display fitness with body language and courtship rituals
• Territory: Animal communication


  1. The range of an animal or group of animals is often marked out to stop other groups of the same species taking the same food from their territory

  2. Other groups can avoid the area, reducing potential conflict
• Food: Animal communication


  1. Pack hunting animals use sound to co-ordinate hunts

  2. Bees use a particular waggle dance to indicate the location of a food source
• Productivity


  The ability to create an unlimited number of different messages
• Productivity


  • Allows language to be used creatively
  • Not found in animal communication
• Bees


  • Can vary the messages conveyed by their dancing
  • But there are limits to what they can say
  • They do not appear to have movements that mean up or down
• Displacement


  The ability to communicate about things that are not present or events that will happen in the future
• Displacement


  • Allows language to be used for planning ahead and discussing future events
  • Rarely seen in animal communication
• Bees


  • Demonstrate displacement by communicating about a food source that is some distance from the hive where they are dancing
• Planning behaviours in animals, such as squirrels storing nuts for winter, are likely to be instinctive or innate, rather than communicated ideas
• All communication has some design features, but only human language is believed to have all of them
• Productivity and displacement are two design features of language
• Evaluation

  It is hard to know for sure which properties or design features are only used by humans because more is being learned about animal communication all the time.

  Although research, such as that with Koko, suggests some animals can use properties of communication generally only used by humans, this is not naturally occurring behaviour. These animals may be simply imitating humans.

  There are also ethical issues around keeping wild animals in captivity and training them to behave in ways that are not natural.