Author : Mary Anne Winslow
Language can be considered the major characteristic which separates man
from other living creatures. For Descartes 'it is a very remarkable
thing that there are no men so dull and stupid, not even lunatics,
that they cannot arrange various words and form a sentence to make
their thoughts understood; but no other animal, however perfect or
well bred can do the like'.The presence of a language in a non-human
species would clearly be inconceivable a philosopher such as
Descartes. Whilst it cannot be argued that the human languages are
very complex systems with many rules and infinite possibilities of
utterances, there are some methods of communication of animals that
are comparable to human language, which thus casts some degree of
doubt on this supposed human-specificity of language. Semanticity is a
suggested test for the language ability of any species. It is the use
of symbols to 'mean' or refer to objects and actions. Some writers
have claimed that semanticity is exclusively human. Whilst it is
possible that animals may only be able to communicate about a total
situation, it is difficult to be certain; as is shown by the calls of
the velvet monkey. I am therefore going to consider several examples
of non-human animal communications, both vocalizations and other
methods, and test them for semanticity.Gibbons are several species of our closest surviving non-human kin.
Like humans, they communicate in various ways, including posturing and
gesturing, but the most language-like of their communication is their
system of calls. Investigations of the gibbons of northern Thailand have
shown that these gibbons have a stock of at least nine different
calls. One of these is emitted typically when the group is surprised
by a possible enemy and takes the form of a high pitched shout; it is
often repeated by those who hear it and all act accordingly in order
to avoid the danger of the enemy. An entirely different sort of call
occurs in connection with friendly approaches among young gibbons, and
reinforces the notion of play.A third call seems to serve to keep the
members of a group close enough together as they move through the
woods in search of food. The most important property of this system of
communication is its lack of flexibility. Whatever the exact number of
calls is, it is finite and small. Whilst any one of the calls can be
varied in loudness or in the number of repetitions, no matter what
situation a gibbon may encounter, its vocal reaction is constrained to
be one of this small finite number: a gibbon does not react to a new
situation by producing a new call or putting together two or more of
the calls already available.It has been suggested that language grew out of a primate call system,
like the ones used by apes today and the one I have described that is
used by gibbons. It is assumed that humans started out with a simple
set of cries in which each one meant something different, such as,
"Danger!" or "Follow me!". These cries gradually became more elaborate
and eventually evolved into language. A possible intermediate stage is
seen in the cries of the vervet monkey. This monkey has several alarm
calls which distinguish between different types of danger. According to some, it is a
very short step from an alarm call warning of a poisonous snake to
using the chutter as a 'word' signifying a poisonous snake. However,
another interpretation of these signals is possible; a distinguishing
between the intensity of different types of danger. However an
experiment in which a concealed loudspeaker plated recordings of the
alarm calls showed that when each sound was heard, a specific response
was seen.For example, when they heard the chutter, the vervets stood
on their hind legs and looked around for a snake. This implies that
the monkeys clearly have a special signal for each type of enemy; each
signal has semantic properties.It is perhaps unfair to concentrate on primates. Compared with these,
bees and dolphins have extremely sophisticated communication systems.
Whilst the majority of bee communication is achieved through dance
rather a system of sound signals, I feel that there is some evidence
in this example that casts some degree of doubt on the supposed
human-specificity of language. When a worker bee finds a source of
nectar, it returns to the hive and performs a dance. It has been shown
that certain features of the dance transmit information about the
location of the source of nectar: one feature specifies the direction
of the source from the hive in relation to the position of the sun,
another specifies its distance.It has been decided that these dances
are performed and understood on the basis of instinct: the semantic
conventions of the system are innate, and do not have to be learned or
taught. Using this system, a worker can report on a source of nectar
at a location to which none of the colony has ever previously been. To
a certain extent, therefore, the system is flexible. Whilst it appears
that bees cannot communicate about anything except nectar - or, if
they do, it is via other equally specialised small systems, the claim
that bee dancing possesses creativity does not appear to be
exaggerated since, at least in theory, an infinite amount of
unpredictable and appropriate information relating to the parameters
of direction and distance can be transmitted. However, the idea of
verticality, for instance, expressed by the English word 'up' cannot
be expressed, nor can complex thoughts and feelings present in human
philosophy, literature and science. The difference in the creativity
of the 'language' of the bee and human language is an important one,
yet despite his claim for the exclusiveness of language creativity to
humans, Chomsky explicitly recognizes the possibility that certain
ideas, concepts and feeling may well be inexpressible in human
language. This situation mirrors the fact that there are many things
which cannot be expressed in the 'language' of the bee.Like bees, dolphins do not have a 'creative' communication system in
the human sense - even though they make underwater 'clicks' which are
surprisingly sophisticated. These clicks are intermittent bursts of
sound, each of which lasts less than a thousandth of a second, in
frequencies beyond the range of human hearing. By listening for their
echoes, a dolphin can find a tiny eel in a bed of mud or a tiny fish
seventy meters away. The dolphin first sends out a very general click,
and then progressively modifies it as it gets echoes back, so allowing
it to get more and more accurate information. As far as we know, a
dolphin's communication is restricted to the size and location of
shapes, though a possibility is that a progressively modified click
might end up being the 'name' for the object finally pinpointed;
semantic properties for dolphin communication may evolve.Human language is a signaling system which uses sounds and this is a
characteristic shared by a large number of animal systems. Animals
that use vocal signals have a stock of basic sounds which vary
according to their species. A cow has fewer than ten, a chicken has
around twenty, dolphins and apes have between twenty and thirty and
the impressive vervet monkey has thirty-six. In animal communication,
there is frequently a connection, arguably semantic, between the
signal and the message sent. Whilst most animals can use each basic
sound only once or in very few simple combinations, human language
works differently. Each language has a stock of phonemes which are
similar in number to the basic sounds possessed by animals; usually
between thirty and forty. The difference is that normally these
phonemes are meaningless in isolation and only gain meaning when they
are combined with other phonemes.So, whilst Chomsky's concept of creativity, the ability to produce
novel utterances, seems not to be present in any natural communication
system possessed by animals, all systems of communication, human or
otherwise, appear to be innately guided. That is, a frog will
inevitably croak, cows will inevitably moo and humans will inevitably
talk. The important thing to realize is that, whilst there are many
species for which vocalizations seem to have no solid semantic
properties - a cat will purr to express happiness, there are some
animal systems of communication, such as that of vervet monkeys, which
arguably share with human the arbitrary nature of the connection
between the signified and the signifier, developed by Saussure, and
thus can be argued to have semantic properties.Mary Anne Winslow is a member of Essay Writing Service counselling department team and a dissertation writing consultant. Contact her to get free counselling on custom essay writing.
Keyword : language, usage
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