Cognitive Processes 415TABLE 14.1 The Thirteen Design Features of Language
Number Design Feature
- Vocal auditory channel.
- Broadcast transmission and directional reception.
- Rapid fading (transitoriness).
- Interchangeability (a speaker can reproduce any linguistic
message he or she can understand). - Total feedback (the speaker of a language hears everything of
linguistic relevance in what he or she says). - Specialization (sound waves of speech serve only as signals).
- Semanticity.
- Arbitrariness.
- Discreteness.
- Displacement.
- Productivity.
- Traditional transmission.
- Duality of patterning.
Source:Hockett, 1960.
Hockett (1960) suggests that characteristics 1 through 5
(vocal auditory channel, broadcast transmission and direc-
tional reception, rapid fading [transitoriness], interchange-
ability, and total feedback) are common to a variety of animal
species, including some birds and many mammals. Charac-
teristics 6 through 8 (specializing, semanticity, arbitrariness)
are to be found in primates. Displacement,the ability to con-
sider things that are remote in either space or time, can be
found only in humans. Other particularly human characteris-
tics are productivity(the ability to say novel things), duality
of patterning(which refers to making words from phonemes),
andarbitrariness(the fact that words do not resemble the
objects they signify in any physical sense).
Although animals are capable of communication, that they
are capable of acquiring language is another matter, and one
fraught with continuing controversy. On the one hand, there
can be little doubt that many of the investigators of ape lan-
guage, such as the Rumbaughs (e.g., Rumbaugh, 1977) and
the Gardners (e.g., 1969), are quite convinced that chim-
panzees possess the capacity to acquire language or some as-
pects of language. On the other hand, other investigators of
ape language such as Terrace (1979) are equally convinced
that no such thing has been demonstrated. To complete the pic-
ture, importantly, many linguists and other language experts
are strongly of the opinion that no animal has come even close
to demonstrating the sort of language ability displayed by hu-
mans (see, e.g., Healy, 1980; Pinker, 1994). They point out,
among other things, that although children acquire complex
language skills practically effortlessly, heroics and extensive
training efforts are required to get chimpanzees to master rela-
tively simple skills that may, at best, approximate language.
Some early unsuccessful attempts to teach language to
animals involved raising chimpanzees or other primates at
home and tutoring them in spoken English (C. Hayes, 1951;
K. J. Hayes & Hayes, 1952). It came to be realized that the
chimpanzees’ vocal apparatus is not designed for speaking.
Beatrice and Allen Gardner (1969) overcame the difficulty by
teaching sign language to an infant, female chimpanzee named
Washoe. After 51 months of training, Washoe had acquired
122 signals. It was asserted by the Gardners that Washoe
could combine signals into phrases of some two to four items.
An often-cited example is that Washoe gave two signs on see-
ing a swan: the sign forwaterfollowed by the sign forbird.
Another approach was to get Sarah, a now famous chim-
panzee, to place symbols for objects on a board (Premack &
Premack, 1983). Sarah was then thought to write sentences
on the board. For example, Sara was given an apple if she
placed on the board the symbols for giveandapple.
Still another approach provided chimpanzees with keys on
a computer exhibiting lexigrams. The lexigrams were differ-
ent geometric patterns, each of which represented something
such as a request (please) or an item (banana). Lana, one of
the chimpanzees employed in this research, could request
items by pressing the lexigrams in a particular order: please
machine give banana.
Terrace (1979) trained a young chimpanzee named Nim
Chimpsky (a play on the name of the famous linguist Noam
Chomsky). Nim was taught sign language. As a result of his
research, Terrace concluded that there was no evidence
suggesting that Nim had learned language. Nim, it was con-
cluded, was either imitating his trainer or was merely
exhibiting a rather straightforward form of serial learning.
Terrace’s criticisms brought into question any attempt to
teach language to an animal that evolved stringing together
items, such as gestures or lexigrams, because these could eas-
ily be interpreted as forms of serial learning based on learn-
ing simple associations.
Following Terrace’s telling criticisms, a new tactic was
adopted by the Rumbaughs (e.g., Savage-Rumbaugh et al.,
1993). Instead of attempting only to get animals to reproduce
items such as signals or gestures, they also required the ani-
mals to comprehend items. For example, Kanzi, a pigmy
chimpanzee (or bonobo), might be told “Kanzi go out to the
hall and get the ball.” By teaching Kanzi many words, pre-
senting him with many sentences, and issuing commands to
him using different word orders (e.g., Savage-Rumbaugh
et al., 1993), the researchers concluded that Kanzi had ac-
quired language in a meaningful sense. Indeed, in terms of
sentence compression Kanzi was said to rival a child, Alia, up
until the time she became 2 years old, after which age Alia in-
creasingly surpassed Kanzi. The approach involving the abil-
ity to comprehend language has also been employed with the
dolphin (e.g., Herman, 1986).