Editing Animal language (section)

==Comparison of "animal language" and "animal communication"==
{{Tone|section|date=April 2013}}
It is worth distinguishing "animal language" from "animal communication", although there is some comparative interchange in certain cases (e.g.&nbsp;Cheney & Seyfarth's [[vervet monkey]] call studies).<ref name="Seyfarth 1990">{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1016/S0003-3472(05)80704-3 | last1 = Seyfarth | first1 = R. M. | last2 = Cheney | first2 = D.L. | year = 1990 | title = The assessment by vervet monkeys of their own and other species' alarm calls | journal = Animal Behaviour | volume = 40 | issue = 4| pages = 754–764 | s2cid = 33689834 }}</ref> Animal language typically does not include bee dancing, bird song, whale song, dolphin signature whistles, prairie dog alarm calls, or the communicative systems found in most social mammals.{{citation needed|date=December 2013}} The features of language as listed above are a dated formulation by [[Charles F. Hockett|Hockett]] in 1960. Through this formulation Hockett made one of the earliest attempts to break down features of human language for the purpose of applying Darwinian gradualism. Although an influence on early animal language efforts (see below), it is no longer considered the key architecture at the core of animal language research.{{citation needed|date=December 2013}}

[[File:CleverHans.jpg|thumb|Clever Hans, an [[Orlov Trotter]] horse that was claimed to have been able to perform [[Elementary arithmetic|arithmetic]] and other intellectual tasks]]
Animal language results are controversial for several reasons (for a related controversy, see also [[Clever Hans]]). 
Early [[Common chimpanzee|chimpanzee]] work was executed using chimpanzee infants raised as if they were human; a test of the nature vs. nurture hypothesis.{{citation needed|date=December 2013}} Chimpanzees have a laryngeal structure very different from that of humans, and it has been suggested that chimpanzees are not capable of voluntary control of their breathing, although better studies are needed to accurately confirm this. This combination is thought to make it very difficult for the chimpanzees to reproduce the vocal intonations required for human language. Researchers eventually moved towards a gestural (sign language) modality, as well as keyboard devices with buttons with symbols (known as "lexigrams") that the animals could press to produce [[Constructed language|artificial language]]. Other chimpanzees learned by observing human subjects performing the task.{{citation needed|date=December 2013}} This latter group of researchers studying chimpanzee communication through symbol recognition (keyboard) as well as through the use of sign language (gestural), are on the forefront of communicative breakthroughs in the study of animal language, and they are familiar with their subjects on a first name basis: Sarah, Lana, Kanzi, Koko, Sherman, Austin and Chantek.{{citation needed|date=December 2013}}

Perhaps the best known critic of animal language is Herbert Terrace. Terrace's 1979 criticism using his own research with the chimpanzee [[Nim Chimpsky]]<ref name="Terrace 1979">{{Cite book | last1 = Terrace | first1 = Herbert S. | title = Nim | year = 1979 | publisher = Knopf : distributed by Random House | location = New York | isbn = 978-0-394-40250-5 | oclc = 5102119 | url = https://archive.org/details/nim00terr }}</ref><ref name="Terrace Petitto 1979">{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1126/science.504995 | last1 = Terrace | first1 = H.S. | last2 = Petitto | first2 = L.A. | last3 = Sanders | first3 = R.J. | last4 = Bever | first4 = T.G. | s2cid = 7517074 | year = 1979 | title = Can an ape create a sentence? | journal = Science | volume = 206 | issue = 4421| pages = 891–902 | pmid = 504995 | bibcode = 1979Sci...206..891T }}</ref> was scathing and spelled the end of animal language research in that era, most of which emphasized the production of language by animals. In short, he accused researchers of over-interpreting their results, especially as it is rarely [[Occam's razor|parsimonious]] to ascribe true intentional "language production" when other simpler explanations for the behaviors (gestural hand signs) could be put forth. Additionally, his animals failed to show generalization of the concept of reference between the modalities of comprehension and production; this generalization is one of many fundamental ones that are trivial for human language use. The simpler explanation according to Terrace was that the animals had learned a sophisticated series of context-based behavioral strategies to obtain either primary (food) or social [[reinforcement]], behaviors that could be over-interpreted as language use.

In 1984 [[Louis Herman]] published an account of artificial language found in the bottlenose dolphin in the journal ''[[Cognition (journal)|Cognition]]''.<ref name="Herman 1984">{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1016/0010-0277(84)90003-9 | last1 = Herman | first1 = L. M. | last2 = Richards | first2 = D. G. | last3 = Wolz | first3 = J. P. | year = 1984 | title = Comprehension of sentences by bottlenosed dolphins | journal = Cognition | volume = 16 | issue = 2| pages = 129–219 | pmid = 6540652 | s2cid = 43237011 }}</ref> A major difference between Herman's work and previous research was his emphasis on a method of studying language comprehension only (rather than language comprehension and production by the animal(s)), which enabled rigorous controls and statistical tests, largely because he was limiting his research to evaluating the animals' physical behaviors (in response to sentences) with blinded observers, rather than attempting to interpret possible language utterances or productions. The dolphins' names here were [[Akeakamai]] and Phoenix.<ref name="Herman 1984" /> [[Irene Pepperberg]] used the vocal modality for language production and comprehension in a [[grey parrot]] named [[Alex (parrot)|Alex]] in the verbal mode,<ref name="Pepperberg 1999">{{Cite book  | last1 = Pepperberg | first1 = Irene M. | title = The Alex studies : cognitive and communicative abilities of grey parrot | year = 1999 | publisher = Harvard University Press | location = Cambridge, Mass. | isbn = 978-0-674-00051-3 | oclc = 807730081 }}</ref><ref name="Pepperberg 2010">{{Cite journal  | last1 = Pepperberg | first1 = IM. | title = Vocal learning in Grey parrots: A brief review of perception, production, and cross-species comparisons. | journal = Brain Lang | volume = 115 | issue = 1 | pages = 81–91 |date=Oct 2010 | doi = 10.1016/j.bandl.2009.11.002 | pmid = 20199805 | s2cid = 1744169 | url = https://animalstudiesrepository.org/acwp_asie/151 }}</ref><ref name="Pepperberg 2012">{{Cite journal  | last1 = Pepperberg | first1 = IM. | last2 = Carey | first2 = S. | title = Grey parrot number acquisition: the inference of cardinal value from ordinal position on the numeral list. | journal = Cognition | volume = 125 | issue = 2 | pages = 219–32 |date=Nov 2012 | doi = 10.1016/j.cognition.2012.07.003 | pmid = 22878117 |pmc = 3434310}}</ref><ref name="Pepperberg 2013">{{Cite journal  | last1 = Pepperberg | first1 = IM. | title = Abstract concepts: data from a Grey parrot. | journal = Behav Processes | volume = 93 | pages = 82–90 |date=Feb 2013 | doi = 10.1016/j.beproc.2012.09.016 | pmid = 23089384 | s2cid = 33278680 }}</ref> and [[Sue Savage-Rumbaugh]] continues to study bonobos<ref name="Savage-Rumbaugh 1990">{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1002/dev.420230706 | pmid = 2286294 | last1 = Savage-Rumbaugh | first1 = E. S. | year = 1990 | title = Language Acquisition in a Nonhuman Species: Implications for the innateness debate |journal = [[Developmental Psychobiology (journal)|Developmental Psychobiology]] | volume = 23 | issue = 7| pages = 599–620 }}</ref><ref name="Savage-Rumbaugh 2000">{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1177/1354067X0062003 | last1 = Savage-Rumbaugh | first1 = E. S. | last2 = Fields | first2 = W. M. | year = 2000 | title = Linguistic, cultural and cognitive capacities of bonobos (Pan paniscus) | journal = Culture and Psychology | volume = 6 | issue = 2| pages = 131–154 | s2cid = 145714904 }}</ref> such as [[Kanzi]] and Panbanisha. R. Schusterman duplicated many of the dolphin results in his California sea lions ("Rocky"), and came from a more behaviorist tradition than Herman's cognitive approach. Schusterman's emphasis is on the importance on a learning structure known as [[equivalence class]]es.<ref name="Schusterman 1998">{{Cite journal  | last1 = Schusterman | first1 = RJ. | last2 = Kastak | first2 = D. | title = Functional equivalence in a California sea lion: relevance to animal social and communicative interactions. | journal = Anim Behav | volume = 55 | issue = 5 | pages = 1087–95 |date=May 1998 | doi = 10.1006/anbe.1997.0654 | pmid = 9632496 | s2cid = 25316126 }}</ref><ref name="Kastak 2001">{{Cite journal  | last1 = Kastak | first1 = CR. | last2 = Schusterman | first2 = RJ. | last3 = Kastak | first3 = D. | title = Equivalence classification by California sea lions using class-specific reinforcers. | journal = J Exp Anal Behav | volume = 76 | issue = 2 | pages = 131–58 |date=Sep 2001 | doi = 10.1901/jeab.2001.76-131 | pmid = 11599636 | pmc = 1284831 }}</ref>

However, overall, there has not been any meaningful dialog between the linguistics and animal language spheres, despite capturing the public's imagination in the popular press. Furthermore, the growing field of language evolution is another source of future interchange between these disciplines. Most primate researchers tend to show a bias toward a shared pre-linguistic ability between humans and chimpanzees, dating back to a common ancestor, while dolphin and parrot researchers stress the general cognitive principles underlying these abilities. More recent related controversies regarding animal abilities include the closely linked areas of [[theory of mind]], Imitation (e.g.&nbsp;Nehaniv & Dautenhahn, 2002),<ref>{{cite book | last1 = Nehaniv | first1 = Chrystopher |last2=Dautenhahn |first2=Kerstin|author2-link=Kerstin Dautenhahn  | title = Imitation in animals and artifacts | publisher = MIT Press | location = Cambridge, Mass | year = 2002 | isbn = 9780262271219 | oclc = 51938434 }}</ref> Animal Culture (e.g.&nbsp;Rendell & Whitehead, 2001),<ref name="Rendell 2001">{{Cite journal |last1=Rendell |first1=L. |last2=Whitehead |first2=H. |year=2001 |title=Culture in whales and dolphins |journal=Behavioral and Brain Sciences |volume=24 |issue=2 |pages=309–382 |doi=10.1017/S0140525X0100396X |pmid=11530544 |s2cid=24052064}}</ref> and Language Evolution (e.g.&nbsp;Christiansen & Kirby, 2003).<ref name="Christiansen 2003">{{Cite book  | last1 = Christiansen | first1 = Morten H. | last2 = Kirby | first2 = Simon | title = Language evolution | year = 2003 | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Oxford; New York | isbn = 978-0-19-924484-3 | oclc = 51235137 }}</ref>

There has been a recent emergence in animal language research which has contested the idea that animal communication is less sophisticated than human communication. [[Denise Herzing]] has done research on dolphins in the Bahamas whereby she created a two-way conversation via a submerged keyboard.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Herzing|first1=Denise L.|last2=Delfour|first2=Fabienne|last3=Pack|first3=Adam A.|date=2012|title=Responses of human-habituated wild Atlantic Spotted Dolphins to play behaviours using a two-way human/dolphin interface|url=http://www.wilddolphinproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Herzing_etal-copy-2.pdf|journal=International Journal of Comparative Psychology|volume=25|issue=2 |pages=137–165|doi=10.46867/IJCP.2012.25.02.02 }}</ref> The keyboard allows divers to communicate with wild dolphins. By using sounds and symbols on each key the dolphins could either press the key with their nose or mimic the whistling sound emitted in order to ask humans for a specific prop. This ongoing experiment has shown that in non-linguistic creatures sophisticated and rapid thinking does occur despite our previous conceptions of animal communication. Further research done with Kanzi using lexigrams has strengthened the idea that animal communication is much more complex than once thought.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Savage-Rumbaugh | first1 = S. | last2 = Rumbaugh | first2 = D. | last3 = Fields | first3 = W. | title = Empirical kanzi: The ape language controversy revisited. (2009) | url = http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/43154892/empirical-kanzi-ape-language-controversy-revisited | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130518234735/http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/43154892/empirical-kanzi-ape-language-controversy-revisited | url-status = dead | archive-date = 2013-05-18 | journal = Skeptic | volume = 15 | issue = 1| pages = 25–33 }}</ref>