Apes and Language
Apes and Language:
A Review of the Literature
By Karen Shaw
For Professor Dyer 's Class
March 2, 2005
Over the past 30 years researchers have demonstrated that the great apes (chimpanzees gorillas and orangutans) resemble humans in language abilities more than had been thought possible. Just how far that resemblance extends however has been a matter of some controversy. Researchers agree that the apes have acquired fairly large vocabularies in American Sign Language and in artificial languages but they have drawn quite different conclusions in addressing the following questions:
1. How spontaneously have apes used language?
2. How creatively have apes used language?
3. Can apes create sentences?
4. What are the implications of the ape language studies?
This review of the literature on apes and language focuses on these four questions.
How Spontaneously Have Apes Used Language?
In an influential article Terrace, Petitto, Sanders, and Bever (1979) argued that the apes in language experiments were not using language spontaneously, but were merely imitating their trainers, responding to conscious or unconscious cues. Terrace and his colleagues at Columbia University had trained a chimpanzee, Nim, in American Sign Language, so their skepticism about the apes ' abilities received much attention. In fact funding for ape language research was sharply reduced following publication of their 1979 article "Can an Ape Create a Sentence?"
In retrospect the conclusions of Terrace et al. seem to have been premature. Although some early ape language studies had not been rigorously controlled to eliminate cuing even as early as the 1970s R. A. Gardner and B. T. Gardner were conducting double-blind experiments that prevented any possibility of cuing (Fouts, 1997, p. 99). Since 1979, researchers have diligently guarded against cuing. Perhaps the best evidence that apes are not merely responding to cues is that they have signed to one another spontaneously,
A Review of the Literature
By Karen Shaw
For Professor Dyer 's Class
March 2, 2005
Over the past 30 years researchers have demonstrated that the great apes (chimpanzees gorillas and orangutans) resemble humans in language abilities more than had been thought possible. Just how far that resemblance extends however has been a matter of some controversy. Researchers agree that the apes have acquired fairly large vocabularies in American Sign Language and in artificial languages but they have drawn quite different conclusions in addressing the following questions:
1. How spontaneously have apes used language?
2. How creatively have apes used language?
3. Can apes create sentences?
4. What are the implications of the ape language studies?
This review of the literature on apes and language focuses on these four questions.
How Spontaneously Have Apes Used Language?
In an influential article Terrace, Petitto, Sanders, and Bever (1979) argued that the apes in language experiments were not using language spontaneously, but were merely imitating their trainers, responding to conscious or unconscious cues. Terrace and his colleagues at Columbia University had trained a chimpanzee, Nim, in American Sign Language, so their skepticism about the apes ' abilities received much attention. In fact funding for ape language research was sharply reduced following publication of their 1979 article "Can an Ape Create a Sentence?"
In retrospect the conclusions of Terrace et al. seem to have been premature. Although some early ape language studies had not been rigorously controlled to eliminate cuing even as early as the 1970s R. A. Gardner and B. T. Gardner were conducting double-blind experiments that prevented any possibility of cuing (Fouts, 1997, p. 99). Since 1979, researchers have diligently guarded against cuing. Perhaps the best evidence that apes are not merely responding to cues is that they have signed to one another spontaneously,
References: Booth, W. (1990, October 29). Monkeying with language: Is chimp using words or merely aping handlers? The Washington Post, p. Eckholm, E. (1985, June 25). Kanzi the chimp: A life in science. Fouts, R. (1997). Next of kin: What chimpanzees have taught me about who we are Greenfield, P. M., & Savage-Rumbaugh, E. S. (1990). Grammatical combination in Pan paniscus: Processes of learning and inven-tion Leakey, R., & Lewin, R. (1992). Origins reconsidered: In search of what makes us human O 'Sullivan, C., & Yeager, C. P. (1989). Communicative context and linguistic competence: The effect of social setting on . Patterson, F., & Linden, E. (1981). The education of Koko. Rumbaugh, D. (1995). Primate language and cognition: Common ground