Animals and human language

• Intentional communication


  Communicative signals that are intentionally sent
• Informative signals


  Unintentional signals that are not intentionally sent
• Human language


  • Reflexivity - can use language to think and talk about language itself
  • Displacement - can talk about things and events not present in the immediate environment
  • Arbitrariness - no "natural" connection between linguistic form and meaning
  • Productivity - continually creating new expressions and novel utterances
• Animal communication


  • Fixed reference - each signal relates to a particular object or occasion
  • Lack of cultural transmission - signals are instinctive, not acquired in a culture
• Humans are born with a predisposition to acquire language, while animals are born with a set of specific instinctive signals
• Human infants in isolation produce no "instinctive" language
• It is extremely unlikely that other creatures would be able to understand human language
• Chimpanzee experiments


  • Gua could understand about 100 words but did not "say" any of them
  • Washoe was taught to use American Sign Language and could form some phrases
  • Sarah and Lana were trained to associate plastic shapes with objects or actions
• Human language


  • Duality - organized at two levels: distinct sounds and distinct meanings