Whether Animals Have Language
The question of whether animals have language is a contentious issue; for example, it is debatable whether parrots utilize human language. It is also controversial whether animals communicate with one another. However, to define the human language is distinguished by six unique qualities, which include displacement, productivity, and duality, these are comprised of complex systems and rules. So, language isn't as simple as a parrot talking a few words. For an animal to successfully use language they are required to meet all six characteristics.
Some of the characteristics of human language must be investigated in order to grasp its characterization. As previously stated, the human language is composed of six distinct qualities, with displacement being one of these distinguishing features, displacement allows humans to make references to things that aren't present. This term refers to the ability to be able to refer to things in past and future tense. I'm flying to Paris next week, for example, is an example of this. Within this sentence the noun Paris is understood to humans as a location and does not need to be present to be grasped. The term 'next week' is, once again, a future reference that is only comprehended by humans. Furthermore, the humans' ability to understand abstract concepts like freedom, joy, and infinity, as well as the comprehension of fictitious figures like superman and unicorns is completely humanly unique. When compared to animal communication, this human-specific trait does not transfer. This may be seen in bee communication, whereby bees use a dance routine in order to communicate the location and quality of nectar. However, this only shows that they are limited to only communicating information that is present at the time and that they are not able to relay past or future information like humans. Therefore, this means of communication between bees does not meet the criteria of human language and cannot be defined as language.
Furthermore, productivity is recognized as a crucial aspect of human language. This is the capacity to continually generate new forms. It has the following definition: that property of the language system which enables native speakers to construct and understand an indefinitely large number of utterances, including utterances that they have never previously encountered. Language is primarily made up of sounds, morphemes, and words these are building blocks that combine to produce neologisms and endless new sentences. As an example, you can turn any noun into a verb for instance I friended you on Facebook. Adding to this, in the modern example of the 'vlogger,' where the verb vlog has an extra er' ending, this is the person performing the action which is then described by the verb. Combination rules allow humans to create new forms, such as new sentences, by combining components. Returning to animal communication systems, animals' restricted repertory prevents them from developing new forms because they don't have any combination rules, they are unable to break down or recombine any of their signals. Consequentially, animals do not meet the human requirements of productivity they are confined to their limited repertoire.
Similarly, to productivity, duality is another vital characteristic of the human language. In 1976, duality was described as the organization of language into two layers. One layer is a physical sound stream and the second layer is where the sound stream is understood and broken down into meaningful parts, much like productivity. These physical acoustics may be representative of a foreign language for example. It is simply perceived as meaningless to a foreign listener. Whereas, when a native speaker of the language, or even a speaker of that language, receives the sound stream, it is decoded and broken down into its constituent pieces which are understood. Between words, their boundaries are evident. In comparison to the human language, animal communication sounds play a larger role in animal communication animal sounds, when delivered, are in fact the signal. Animal noises, unlike spoken human language, cannot be broken down into meaningful pieces. When a dog barks, for example, it cannot be rearranged since it does not contain components such as verbs. As a result, animal messages do not exhibit the dualistic quality that humans do.
The question of whether animals can acquire human language, by being taught, has always been a field of interest to linguists. Irene Pepperberg, a scientist who studied and trained Alex (an African grey who was believed to comprehend the classification of objects), supports this. Alex was taught to be able to identify colors and materials. Approximately, fifty items were also recognized by the grey. In addition to this, Alex's vocabulary was one hundred words. However, Alex being taught language introduces the theory that human language used by animals mostly is based on stimulus and reaction, which was supported by Dr. Herbert Terrace who analyzed Alex's study he stated that 'There is an external stimulus that guides his response.' Terrance's statement implies that the African grey understands that if he identifies the material of an object, for example, a metal key, he is rewarded for his behavior. Alex is aware of the desired characteristics in the situation and performs the correct way in order to receive a reward. This may introduce the fact that Alex does not use language voluntarily or naturally. This raises the issue that parrots may be able to use human language but only to a certain degree. The above evidence of Alex, which is already heavily critiqued, would not qualify as using human language as it would not meet the characteristics of the key aspect of language, which is natural cultural transmission but instead, language is learned in a contrived environment. Moreover, Alex's speech would not be considered representative of natural spoken human language as his dialect was often described to be erratic and random.
When it comes to animals learning the human language, primates are often the pinnacle of the research. The fact that ninety-six percent of human DNA is identical to distant primate relatives, and almost ninety-nine percent of human DNA is comparable to primates like chimpanzees, according to the American Museum of Natural History, has piqued researchers' investigation into primates' ability of language acquisition. A famous study that heightened the knowledge of this field of research was that of Koko the gorilla (Western lowland gorilla). The animal was said to have learned over one thousand words (with her trainer Francine Patterson) which she could sign via sign language and could also comprehend two thousand words of spoken English, as suggested by The Gorilla Foundation. In order to understand the level of Koko's sign language abilities, here is an example of a signed sentence by the gorilla ‘You me there cookie’. In translation it is evident the gorilla is asking for a cookie from her trainer however, this is only understood through context-related signs. In addition, the fragmented manner of Koko's signing in comparison to human sign language is palpable of lower ability. If the above example sentence was articulated, it would not make grammatical sense. This therefore may link to the human language characteristic of productivity as Koko's formulated sentence lacks the grammatical ability and therefore would not be identified as meeting this human language feature. Although Koko's understanding of language and the ability to articulate sign language is impressive it would not be recognized as human language as it lacks several characteristics. Much like the previously discussed example of Alex (The African Grey), it is recognized that Koko's use of sign language is a source of reward and response-based training which again critiques Koko's language ability as her signs are produced because of the awareness of retrieval of a reward if the desired behavior is performed. This reward-based training is not representative of natural human language. It is contrived. Despite the gorillas' extensive use of sign language, Koko never actually talked. Since speech is required to analyze language usage, it is virtually impossible to classify Koko's signing as human language because no words were ever spoken. As a result, concluding the fact that Koko does not use human language.
As well as an attempt to teach animals to communicate using the human language, it has also been a point of interest if it is possible to teach animals to understand the human language with animals such as dogs, dolphins, and seals being at the forefront of this research. Both dolphins and dogs are known to act upon the instruction of a human via hand signals or spoken signals. In fact, due to their similarity dolphins are often dubbed ‘sea dogs’. Most domesticated dogs are trained to respond to signals and instructions such as sit, paw, rollover, and several more actions. The reaction from these dogs is a result of classical conditioning which is not recognized as natural and would not be comparable to human behavior or understanding of language. In 2016 a study into dogs' comprehension of language was undertaken which found that dogs' brains like humans compute information and meaning of words separately, according to National Geographic. This human-like characteristic shows similarity to that of the language characteristic duality. Duality allows the dog to break down human speech into its components and recognize the articulated language. This again can be criticized by the fact that dogs may be able to recognize human language although they are not able to speak it. Therefore, they do not have, nor do they employ human language. Dolphins are also trained to recognize signs such as 'fetch,' which indicate that they must retrieve something and return it to the person giving the hand signals. Dolphins have the ability to be able to understand the pointing gesture performed by humans shockingly this is believed to be untrained. This evidence may show that dogs and dolphins alike are able to recognize either spoken language and hand gestures on the other hand this evidence does not confirm that these animals have language.
To summarise, through this essay it has been clear that animals lack the ability to use language. To begin, animals must satisfy the six criteria of language to be considered language users. Furthermore, evidence such as dogs' capacity to break down the language in the same way that people do to conduct activities demonstrates that animals do have the ability to comprehend language. However, just because they do understand language does not mean they qualify as having language. Although most of the evidence above points to the fact that lacking the six characteristics of language causes language inability, there are also biological factors that have a contribution to the restriction of language. This is because animals' brains also play a part in the contribution to language inability as well as many other factors.
