Apes and Language:
A Chicago Manual Style Research Paper
Salam.m
English 260
Prof. Adel.I
Nov. 27, 2013
1
Apes and Language: A Literature Review
Over the past thirty 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 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
The Essay on “Politics and the English language” by George Orwell
This is a statement from the “Politics and the English language” written by George Orwell. He says, ” A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation”. The whole essay is mocking other writers on their language usage. He claims that the language is not used to its full extent. People use words the size of continents and in the end those big words say the same thing as a ...
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?”1
In retrospect, the conclusions of Terrace and others seem to have been premature.
Although some early ape language studies had not been rigorously controlled to eliminate cuing,
1. Haley Terrace et al., “Can an Ape Create a Sentence?” Science 206 (1979): 894.
Essay provided by Montana State University
Updated by Germanna Tutoring Services to
reflect Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition 1 Chicago Manual Style Sample Paper
Created September 2012
2
R. A. Gardner and B. T. Gardner were conducting double-blind experiments that prevented any
possibility of cuing as early as the 1970s.2 Since 1979, researchers have diligently guarded
against cuing. For example, Rosh Lewin reported that instructions for Kanzi, a bonobo (pygmy
chimpanzee), were, “delivered by someone out of his sight,” with other team members wearing
earphones so that they, “could not hear the instructions and so could not cue Kanzi, even
unconsciously.”3 More recently, philosopher Stuart Shanker of York University has questioned
the emphasis placed on cuing, pointing out that since human communication relies on the ability
to understand cues and gestures in a social setting it is not surprising that apes might rely on
similar signals.4
There is considerable evidence that apes have signed to one another spontaneously,
without trainers present. Like many of the apes studied, gorillas Koko and Michael have been
observed signing to one another.5 At Central Washington University, Loulis, the baby
chimpanzee placed in the care of the signing chimpanzee, Washoe, mastered nearly fifty signs in
American Sign Language without help from humans. “Interestingly,” wrote researcher Robin
2. Robin Fouts, Next of Kin: What Chimpanzees Taught Me About Who We Are (New York: William Morrow, 1997), 102.
3. Rosh Lewin, “Look Who‟s Talking Now,” New Scientist 130 (1991): 51.
4. Glenn Johnson, “Chimp Talk Debate: Is It Really Language?” The New York Times,
The Essay on Do Animals Have Language?
It is in the opinion of the author that animals do not have the capability of language; this essay will focus and put forward the evidence as to why this opinion takes place. Language is a form of communication; it can be visual, audio or sensory. In humans the vocal language provides only 10 per cent of how we communicate, body language plays a much higher role, however, both verbal and non ...
June 6, 1995, http://www.santafe.edu/~johnson/articles.chimp.html, accessed February 2, 1998.
5. Frances Patterson and Elton Linden, The Education of Koko (New York: Holt, Rinehart, &Winston, 1981), 51.
Essay provided by Montana State University
Updated by Germanna Tutoring Services to
reflect Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition 2 Chicago Manual Style Sample Paper
Created September 2012
3
Fouts, “Loulis did not pick up any of the seven signs that we [humans] used around him. He learned only from Washoe and [another chimp] Ally.”6
The extent to which chimpanzees spontaneously use language may depend on their
training. Terrace trained Nim using the behaviorist technique of operant conditioning, so it is not surprising that many of Nim‟s signals were cued. Many other researchers have used a
conversationally approach that parallels the process by which human children acquire language. In an experimental study, Chris O‟Sullivan and Curtis Yeager contrasted the two techniques, using Terrace‟s Nim as their subject.7 They found that Nim‟s use of language was significantly more spontaneous under conversational conditions.
How Creatively Have Apes Used Language?
There is considerable evidence that apes have invented creative names. One of the
earliest and most controversial examples involved the Garner‟s chimpanzee, Washoe. Washoe,
who knew signs for “water” and “bird,” once signed “water bird” when in the presence of a
swan. Terrace and other suggested that there was, “no basis for concluding that Washoe was
characterizing the swan as a „bird that inhabits water.‟” Washoe may simply have been,
“identifying correctly a body of water and a bird, in that order.”8 The other examples are not so
easily explained away. The bonobo, Kanzi, has requested particular films by combining symbols
6. Fouts, Next of Kin, 244.
7. Chris O‟Sullivan and Curtis Yeager, “Communication Context and Linguistic
Competence: The Effect of Social Setting on a Chimpanzee‟s Conversational Skill,” in Teaching Sign Language to Chimpanzees, eds. Rick A. Gardner, Bell T. Gardner, and Timothy Van
Cantfont (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989), 270.
The Term Paper on Using Stem Cells To Create Human Organs And Tissue
Stem cell research is one of the most interesting areas of biology today. Stem cells have two important characteristics that distinguish them from other types of cells. First, they are unspecialized cells that renew themselves for long periods through cell division. The second is that under certain physiologic or experimental conditions, they can be induced to become cells with special functions, ...
8. Terrace et al., “Can an Ape Create a Sentence?” 895.
Essay provided by Montana State University
Updated by Germanna Tutoring Services to
reflect Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition 3 Chicago Manual Style Sample Paper
Created September 2012
4
in a creative way. For instance, to ask for Quest for Fire, a film about early primates discovering fire, Kanzi began to use symbols for “campfire” and “TV.”9 In addition, Koko the gorilla has a long list of creative names to her credit: “elephant baby” to describe a Pinocchio doll, “finger bracelet” to describe a ring, “bottle match” to describe a cigarette lighter, and so on.10 If
Terrace‟s analysis of the “water bird” example is applies to the examples just mentioned, it does not hold. Surely Koko did not first see an elephant and then a baby before signing “elephant baby” or a bottle and a match before signing “bottle match.”
Can Apes Create Sentences?
The early ape language studies offered little proof that apes could combine symbols into grammatically ordered sentences. Apes strung together various signs, but the sequences were often random and repetitious. Nim‟s series of 16 signs is a case in point: “give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you.”11
More recent studies with bonobos at the Yerkes Primate Research Center in Atlanta have
broken new ground. Kanzi, a bonobo trained by Savage-Rumbaugh, seems to understand simple
grammatical rules about lexigram order. For instance, Kanzi learned that in two-word utterances
an action precedes an object, and ordering also used by human children at the two-word stage. In
9. Elson Eckholm, “Kanzi the Chimp: A Life in Science,” The New York Times, June 25, 1985, C1.
10. Patterson and Linden, The Education of Koko, 65.
11. Terrace et al., “Can an Ape Create a Sentence?” 895.
Essay provided by Montana State University
Updated by Germanna Tutoring Services to
reflect Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition 4 Chicago Manual Style Sample Paper
Created September 2012
5
a major article reporting on their research, Greenfield and Savage-Rumbaugh wrote that Kanzi
The Research paper on Sets Us Apart From Animal Language Koko Human
Answers The Statement: The Only True Barrier Answers The Statement: The Only True Barrier That Sets Us Apart From Animals Is Language. For thousands of years humans have wrestled with the question of their "human' nature. MOst often they have defined themselves in relation to the animal kingdom, yearning either to take on some of the superior attributes of other animals or to rise above their own ...
rarely, “repeated himself or formed combinations that were semantically unrelated.”12
More importantly, Kanzi began to create certain patterns on his own that may not exist in
English but can be found among deaf children and in other human languages. For example,
Kanzi used his own rules when combining action symbols. Lexigrams that involved an invitation
to play, such as, “chase,” would appear first; lexigrams that indicated what was to be done during
play (“hide”) would appear second. Kanzi also created his own rules when combining gestures
and lexigrams. He would use the lexigram first and them gesture, a practice often followed by
young deaf children.13
In a recent study, Kanzi‟s abilities were shown to be similar to those of a 2 1/2-year-old human, Alia. Deborah Rumbaugh reported that, “Kanzi‟s comprehension of over 600 novel sentences of request was very comparable to Alia; both complied with the requests without assistance on approximately 70% of the sentences.”14
What Are the Implications of the Ape Language Studies?
12. Pat Greenfield and E. Savage-Rumbaugh, “Grammatical Combination in Pan
Paniscus: Processes of Learning and Intervention in the Evolution and Development of
Language,” in “Language” and Intelligence in Monkeys and Apes: Comparative Developmental
Perspectives, eds. Stan Parker and Kris Gibson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990),
556.
13. Greenfield and Savage-Rumbaugh, “Grammatical Combination in Pan Paniscus,”
560.
14. Deborah Rumbaugh, “Primate Language and Cognition: Common Ground,” Social Research 62 (1995): 722.
Essay provided by Montana State University
Updated by Germanna Tutoring Services to
reflect Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition 5 Chicago Manual Style Sample Paper
Created September 2012
6
Kanzi‟s linguistic abilities are so impressive that they may help us understand how
humans came to acquire language. Pointing out the 99 percent of our genetic material is held in common with the chimpanzees, Greenfield and Savage-Rumbaugh have suggested that
something of the, “evolutionary root of human language,” can be found in the, “linguistic
The Essay on Language and Memory
Language is the medium of communication. It can be verbal or written, making use of different conventional symbols and sounds. All social creatures on Earth have their own languages such as bees, ants, and apes. Human language is the most complicated of all because of speech. It is an evolving process of signs and symbols. It consists of different elements such as phonemes, syllables, words, ...
abilities of the great apes.”15 Noting that apes‟ brains are similar to those of our human ancestors, Ryan Leakey and Rosh Lewin argued that in ape brains, “the cognitive foundations on which
human language could be built are already present.”16 The suggestion that there is a continuity in the linguistic abilities of apes and humans has created much controversy. Linguist Noam
Chomsky has strongly asserted that language is a unique human characteristic.17 Terrace has
continued to be skeptical of the claims made for the apes, as have Petitto and Bever, co-authors of the 1979 article that caused such skepticism earlier.18
Recently, neurobiologists have made discoveries that may cause even the skeptics to take
notice. Ongoing studies at the Yerkes Primate Research Center have revealed remarkable
similarities in the brains of chimpanzees and humans. Through brain scans of live chimpanzees,
researchers have found that, as with humans, “the language-controlling PT [planum temporale] is
15. Greenfield and Savage-Rumbaugh, “Grammatical Combination in Pan Paniscus,”
540.
16. Ryan Leakey and Rosh Lewin, Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 244.
17. William Booth, “Monkeying with Language: Is Chimp Using Words or Merely Aping Handlers?” The Washington Post, October 29, 1990, A3.
18. Adam Gibbons, “Déjà vu All Over Again: Chimp Language Wars,” Science 251 (1991): 1561.
Essay provided by Montana State University
Updated by Germanna Tutoring Services to
reflect Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition 6 Chicago Manual Style Sample Paper
Created September 2012
7
larger on the left side of the chimps‟ brains than on the right. But it is not lateralized in monkeys, which are less closely related to humans than apes are.”19
Although the ape language studies continue to generate controversy, researchers have
shown over the past thirty years that the gap between the linguistic abilities of apes and humans is far less dramatic than was once believed.
The Essay on Humans & ability
Humans’ most important ability is our ability to communicate through spoken language. The ability of humans to speak makes us stand out in the animal kingdom, according to many philosophers and scientists. It is just natural for humans to desire to know how we developed the ability of using language in communicating. This paper focuses on how the human language evolved. Through the comparative ...
19. Steve Begley, “Aping Language,” Newsweek 131, January 19, 1998, 57.
Essay provided by Montana State University
Updated by Germanna Tutoring Services to
reflect Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition 7 Chicago Manual Style Sample Paper
Created September 2012
8
Bibliography
Begley, Steve. “Aping Language.” Newsweek 131 (January 19, 1998): 56-58.
Booth, William. “Monkeying with Language: Is Chimp Using Words or Merely Aping
Handlers?” The Washington Post, October 29, 1990, A3.
Eckholm, Elson. “Kanzi the Chimp: A Life in Science.” The New York Times, June 25, 1985, C1,
C3.
Fouts, Robin. Next of Kin: What Chimpanzees Taught Me About Who We Are. New York:
William Morrow, 1997.
Gibbons, Adam. “Déjà vu All Over Again: Chimp Language Wars.” Science 251 (1991): 1561-
1562.
Greenfield, Pat, and E. Savage-Rumbaugh. “Grammatical Combination in Pan Paniscus:
Processes of Learning and Intervention in the Evolution and Development of Language.” In “Language” and Intelligence in Monkeys and Apes: Comparative Developmental
Perspectives, eds. Stan Parker and Kris Gibson, 540-78. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990.
Johnson, Glenn. “Chimp Talk Debate: Is It Really Language?” The New York Times. June 6,
1995. http://www.santafe.edu?~johnson/articles.chimp.html (accessed February 2, 1998).
Leakey, Ryan, and Rosh Lewin. Origins Reconsidered: In Search of What Makes Us Human.
New York: Doubleday, 1992.
Lewin, Rosh. “Look Who‟s Talking Now.” New Scientist 130 (1991): 40-52.
O‟Sullivan, Chris, and Curtis Yeager. “Communicative Context and Linguistic Competence: The
Effect of Social Setting on a Chimpanzee‟s Conversational Skill.” In Teaching Sign
Language to Chimpanzees, eds. Rick A. Gardner, Bell T. Gardner, and Timothy Van
Cantford, 269-79. Albany: SUNY Press, 1989.
Patterson, Frances, and Elton Linden. The Education of Koko. New York: Holt, Rineheart, &
Winston, 1981.
Rumbaugh, Deborah. “Primate Language and Cognition: Common Ground.” Social Research 62
(1995): 711-30.
Terrace, Haley S., et al. “Can an Ape Create a Sentence?” Science 206 (1979): 891-902.
Essay provided by Montana State University
Updated by Germanna Tutoring Services to
reflect Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition 8 Chicago Manual Style Sample Paper
Created April,2014
