Home » Education & Career » World Languages » The Last Pretence

The Last Pretence

©

When I was a kid, I learned that humans are superior to animals because we're the only ones who use tools. By the time I got to high school, animals had made progress. Turns out many, some as mundane as the common crow, use tools. So the party line was rewritten; animals don't make tools. A few years later, scientists were unburdened of this fallacy as well. Now "lower" life forms have driven humanity into our last rampart, and it's crumbling fast.

Language is eminently human. Noam Chomsky, father of the prevailing linguistic paradigm, believes that we are "hardwired" for language. In effect, our brains automatically seek, decode, and manipulate abstract information from birth. (Some say it starts considerably before that.) Language, Chomsky says, reflects the machinery that made it, which is universally and uniquely human. His theory explains a lot, such as why all languages are fundamentally similar, and why humans have language, but no animals do.

Or do they? Today, studies strongly suggest that some animals can learn language. Chimpanzees and orangutans manipulate about 240 words of American Sign Language with shocking fluency; Koko the gorilla even chats on AOL. Meanwhile, a parrot working under Irene Pepperberg answers complex questions in oral English.

But the Chomskyites insist that these are just clever tricks. The animals in question lack profound understanding of what they're saying, and react more to nonverbal than verbal cues. In sum, they conclude, we're seeing nothing more than operant conditioning.

Skeptics won an important victory when Herb Terrace admitted that his work with chimpanzee Nim Chimpsky (pun intended) was fatally flawed, and that he no longer believes chimps are capable of language. Nim was shown to be performing solely to get rewards, without any understanding of what he was saying. Critics similarly charge that Washoe, the first signing chimp, contorts her hands until she randomly hits a sign, which human observers record as communication.

However, as a Nova transcript points out, apes often sign to themselves when they're alone and therefore have no expectation of reward. They also demonstrate a grasp of satire (Koko teasingly calls human friends "Bird," apparently because we walk erect) and association (some signing chimpanzees call Alka-Seltzer "listen drink.") Finally, some apes communicate via special computer keyboards which rules out misinterpretation of random hand gestures.

Faced with these facts, Chomskyites have employed the time-honoured tactic of redefining criteria to avoid surrender. They dismiss apes' apparent comprehension of words as reaction to vocal intonation. But intonation is an important part of language. Try announcing to your family, in a monotone voice, that the house is on fire. No one will move. That's because the words mean nothing without pertinent intonation. Human babies learn to process not just words, but accompanying gestures, expressions, intonation, and environmental cues. Appropriate response is the usual measure of effective communication. If you scream, "The house is on fire!" listeners should run outside. Since the apes seem to be doing this, the Chomskyites have yet to prove they're not learning language.

The copyright of the article The Last Pretence in World Languages is owned by . Permission to republish The Last Pretence in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.