In The Name Of God

An Introduction to Psycholinguistics
Chapter 5

Animals and language learning

Presenter: Alireza Amirzadeh Irani

What will we discuss in this chapter?

 Do animals like apes, dolphins, or other creatures have language and use their
language to communicate with one another as we do?

 If they don’t have their own language, can we teach them some sort of human
language?

 if they cannot learn human language, would this mean that they are lacking in
intelligence, or would it mean that they lack physical structures that only humans
are born with?
5.1 Teaching spoken English to apes

5.1.1 The first scientific attempt: with an orangutan

Dr. William Henry Furness attempted to teach an orangutan to speak. (1916 in USA)
After four-month, the animal died with a high fever while repeating the two words it
had learned to say, ‘papa’ and ‘cup’
5.1.2 Gua: the chimp raised with a human ‘sibling’

Winthrop and Luella Kellogg raised a female chimp named Gua along with their own
son, Donald. (1933/1968)

Initially on problem-solving tests and tests of mental ability the two scored the same,
but over time the boy surpassed the chimp.

Gua did not learn to say any words even though words were repeated numerous
times to her in context, During the same time the boy had become reasonably fluent in
the spoken language.

However, by 16 months of age Gua learned to respond appropriately to 95 spoken

words, phrases, and sentences.

The experiment was terminated, apparently when the researchers noted that Donald
was picking up too much chimpanzee-type behaviour.
5.1.3 Viki: another chimp raised in a human household

In 1951 Cathy and Keith Hayes raised a baby female chimpanzee named Viki from
infancy.

Viki was treated as a full member of the family; she ate her meals at the table, played
games at home, and went on outings.

Viki was given special speech training in pronunciation(Unlike Gua).

After three years Viki had only learned and hardly pronounced this words: ‘ma ma’_
‘pa pa’_ ‘up’_ and ‘cup’

Viki obeys the commands: “Go to your room”, “Go outside” and “Go upstairs” but Gua
could understand much longer list of items.
5.2 Teaching sign language to the
chimpanzee, gorilla and orangutan

5.2.1 Washoe: the first signing chimp

In 1966, psychologists, Allen and Beatrice Gardner, began to teach sign language to a
baby chimp, a female they called ‘Washoe’
They brought this idea that the reason of failures in chimp speaking attempts is the
fact that chimps do not possess the necessary vocal apparatus for human speech.
(Viki’s failure to learn to speak was a simple physiological failure and not a mental
one)
Gardners conceived of the idea of teaching them a simplified form of American Sign
Language (ASL).
After four years, Washoe learned a vocabulary of about 130 signs and, displayed two-
and three-word utterances such as, ‘Go sweet’ or ‘Open food drink’
After four years (1971, 1976) Washoe’s achievement never advanced beyond its very
elementary level.

5.2.2 Loulis, son of Washoe, and a community of

signing chimps
After a few years, research couple, who were working with a number of chimps have
taught some of the rudiments of human culture to chimps , such as using tools, to see
if they can start their own community.
The Fouts’ primary interest is in looking at how language may or may not develop in
the social context of such a community.
One of their achievements was Washoe’s ‘adopted’ son, Loulis, who, they say,
learned signs from Washoe.
Sadly Loulis died very young.
5.2.3 Nim Chimpsky and the Chimpskyan revolution

In the 1970s the psychologist Herbert S.Terrace worked with a chimp that he named
Nim Chimpsky.
Terrace used a modified form of American Sign Language for teaching language to
Nim.
At first ,he reported positive findings, but by the time the project ended, Terrace
changed his mind about Nim’s grammatical abilities.
Terrace came to the conclusion that chimpanzees were capable of learning only a few
of the most elementary aspects of language.
Some critics of Terrace’s conclusions, such as the Fouts, say that the negative results
of his experiments are not due to the limitations of the chimpanzees but rather are due
to inadequacies in Terrace’s experimental procedures.
even given the restricted language-learning situation in which Nim was placed, a
human child would have mastered most or all of what was presented during the
training sessions.
5.2.4 Teaching sign language to Koko, the gorilla

Francine Patterson (1978-1980) has trained a female gorilla (Koko), in American Sign
Language and speech since 1972.
Unlike Washoe, Koko received speech input from her trainers as well as sign.
Koko could make new words to describe new objects by combining previously known
ones, for example ‘eye-hat’ for mask, ‘white-tiger’ for a toy zebra, ‘finger-bracelet’ for
ring, and ‘bottle-match’ for a lighter.
After almost sixteen years Koko had learned 500 or more sign words.
But Koko’s syntax has not progressed beyond the same elemental level as that of the
chimpanzees.
This is to be expected, given the gorilla’s physiological limitations for speech
articulation.
Sometimes Koko signs to herself when she is alone. For example, she made the sign
for smoking when she came across an advertisement for cigarettes.

Koko also used signs to tell Patterson that someone was hiding behind a tree.

Such events contradict Terrace’s claim that apes will sign only when they want
something and that apes will not attempt to give names to objects on their own.

while the extent of Koko’s vocabulary is substantial, her syntax, like that of the
chimpanzees, is quite rudimentary.
5.2.5 Teaching sign language to Chantek, the
orangutan
In the late 1970s, Dr. H. Lyn Miles started to teach American Sign Language to a male
orangutan named Chantek.
she was more concerned with the cognitive and communicative processes that might
underlie language development.
No attempt, was made to raise Chantek like a human child and his natural arboreal
habitat was maintained to the extent possible at the research centre.
After seven years, Chantek learned to use a vocabulary of 140 signs that signify
objects, actions, proper names, attributes, locatives, and pronouns.
In the second month of training, Miles noted concerned Chantek’s use of the verb
‘give’. Chantek used (‘Object + give’) order, if the object was present, and (‘give +
Object’) order, If the object was not present.
By 8 years and 3 months of age Chantek was inventing different signs like ‘no +
teeth’ or ‘eye + drink’.
Chantek acquired vocabulary items but, like the other apes, little syntax.
5.3 Teaching artificial languages to
chimpanzees

5.3.1 Lana: the computer chimp

Duane M. Rumbaugh and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh(The Rumbaughs 1977-1978)
taught the chimp Lana a simple artificial language ‘called Yerkish’
Lana was named after the research programme, the ‘language Analogue project’
The language consisted of seven colours and nine geometrical shapes, which
represented objects and actions.
Lana had to press certain keys in the right sequence to make requests , for example
‘Please machine give milk’ or ‘Please Tim give ball’ or ‘that-which-is’ to name things
she did not know the name of.
Lana did not create sentences according to rule but learned them by rote.
Sue Savage-Rumbaugh believes that apes have limited ability for language
acquisition.
5.3.2 Sarah: the magnetic plastic token chimp

David Premack (1970-1976) gave the chimp ‘Sarah’ 130 plastic tokens with magnets ,
included tokens for the names of colours such as ‘red’ or ‘blue’, for fruits such as
‘banana’ and ‘peach’, for actions such as ‘wash’or ‘cut’ or ‘take’ , and some functions
such as ‘question’.
Premack’s research with Sarah makes it very clear that chimps are intelligent
creatures.
Sarah had little trouble dealing with the ability to talk about things that are not present(
Displacement).
she was able to learn the new word ‘brown Which tell us that she could learn new
vocabulary items by instruction through language.
In Premack’s research other apes were also able to distinguish between strings of
words differing only in word order ,This demonstrates that some syntax has been
acquired.
Premack has taken the view that little more syntax than this can be learned by apes.
5.3.3 Kanzi: a pygmy chimp produces synthesized
speech
Kanzi a pygmy chimpanzee (or bonobo) who was more similar to humans than other
apes in terms of evolution and communicative behaviours such as eye contact,
gestures, and vocalizations.
Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and others believed the bonobo to be a better candidate for
language research than the other apes, so Kanzi and his younger sister, Mulika, were
selected for study.
In their training the researchers would point to a keyboard and speak in English in
reference to objects, actions, locations that were of interest to the chimps.
Each lexigrams matching an object, action, or location. When touched, the lexigrams
on the computer keyboard would produce synthesized English speech sounds for a
particular word.
Kanzi, when around 5 years old, learned over a period of five months to use grammar
equivalent to that of a 2-year-old human child and had a vocabulary of about 250
words.
‘Kanzi showed an incipient ability to use difference in symbol order to signal difference
in meaning.
The word ‘incipient’ properly weakens the claim because symbol order may not have
been acquired.
Stricter testing and scientific controls are Required for this research,
until then, It cannot be concluded that Kanzi has demonstrated any greater acquisition
of language than the apes in other language studies.

5.4 Teaching language to dolphins

5.4.1 Elvar: the whistling dolphin
In one of the first studies about intelligence of dolphins, John Cunningham Lilly (1962-
1965) tried to teach a dolphin to force air through its blow-hole in such a way that it
would allow the dolphin to imitate human speech sounds.
Elvar, the young male dolphin produced approximations of the word ‘squirt’, which Lilly
had been trying to teach him to pronounce.
Lilly claimed that Elvar interchanged human sounds with dolphin sounds as if he were
attempting to translate, but there was no scientific proof.
Because of pronunciation difficulties Lilly was forced to discontinue the study.
Despite Lilly’s odd claims , research has yet to show that these animals use anything
as complex as what we could call language.
5.4.2 Akeakamai and Phoenix: learning artificial
languages through sight and sound
Louis Herman initiated a different and more scientific approach to the teaching of
language to dolphins.
In his method , rather than have dolphins mimic human sounds, he trained a
bottlenosed dolphin to mimic computer-generated sounds.
The dolphin could apply whistles to the naming of objects such as ‘ball’, ‘hoop’, and
‘frisbee’.
Herman then turned his attention to the primary process of language comprehension.
Herman conducted experiments using two different types of artificial languages, one
involving sounds, the other involving visual gestures.
In 1979, a teaching programme was begun with two dolphins, Phoenix and
Akeakamai.
Akea was taught the gesture-based language, while Phoenix was taught the
soundbased language. Each was taught a vocabulary of about 30 words.
The sound-based language had its sounds projected underwater into the dolphin tank.
The visual language of gestures, invented by Herman and his colleagues, involved the
use of the trainer’s arms and hands.

The two dolphins learned to carry out correctly a number of commands in the water.
The commands consisted of two-, three-, four-, and even five-word sequences, with
each command constructed on the basis of object and action words.
The basic sentence structure was of the Subject–Object–Verb variety.
Herman understood that the dolphins correctly responded to what are often called
‘semantically reversible sentences.
Our expectations for certain events or situations can influence the interpretation we
give to words.
A dolphin might be able to respond appropriately to a string of words, not on the basis
of their structural word order but on the dolphin’s life experience.

Herman presented the dolphins with commands involving semantically reversible

structures.
The dolphins generally responded appropriately to both commands,
so Herman was conclude that the dolphins had acquired a syntactic structure
and had acquired such syntactic relational notions as direct object and indirect object.

Herman argued,that dolphins can also respond to novel sentences on the basis of
understanding words and their relations in a command structure.

After acquiring the notions of direct and indirect object, Akea responded correctly on
her first exposure to the sentence ‘person left frisbee fetch’
Herman points out that it could not be simple stimulus– response shaped behaviour
because the dolphins respond appropriately to specific commands that they have
never received before.
In later research, Herman introduced the dolphins to various notions such as
Question.
when the question form was contrasted with the command form, the dolphin would
give the correct answer.
5.5 Teaching spoken English to an African
Grey parrot
Irene Pepperberg has worked with a male African Grey parrot she calls Alex.
Alex is now able to understand and answer questions on the colour, shape, and
material of more than 100 objects.
He can correctly name a host of items, also he can identify them on the basis of seven
colours (green, red, blue, yellow, grey, purple, and orange) ,and a number of shapes,
up to those with six corners.
He can even tell you what an object is made of, such as cork, wood, paper, or wool.
He can answer questions pertaining to the abstract categories of shape, colour,
material, and quantity.
In a test of Alex’s cognitive abilities, Alex performed correctly on more than 80 per cent
of the questions.
Alex’s few errors demonstrate that he behaves in much the same way as humans in
making phonological errors.
he has surpassed aspects of language knowledge that the apes and even the
dolphins have demonstrated.
He has not yet, reached the syntax level of the dolphins.

5.6 Teaching Rico the dog to understand

spoken English words
Rico is a 9 and a half -year-old border collie who has learned to understand more than
200 words for different objects.
He can learn a new word after being shown an unfamiliar object just once.
No syntax, but still, Rico’s large vocabulary is greater than a lot of the animals
who have been given language instruction.
It is not likely, that any syntax would ever be learned.
household pets have been living with humans for many thousands of years and
nothing has ever been reported of dogs or cats learning more than single words.
5.7 Conclusion
The research with animals clearly shows that animals have only a rudimentary
language ability.
why their language ability is so low when their overall intellectual ability is so much
higher?
Human children learn language (speech or sign) in all of its complexity. why couldn’t
the apes at least have learned to comprehend human speech, given that they have a
hearing acuity that is as good as or better than human hearing?
Some theorists like Piaget or Putnam, hold that animals lack certain aspects of
intelligence that are needed for the learning of such a complex ability as language.
Others like Chomsky, argue that the effect is due to animals being born without a
special language ability, an ability that is little related to intelligence.
If apes really had the ability to use a grammar, they surely would have developed it on
their own by now.
It seems evident that animals do not have much of a capacity for a grammar-based
language.