Language & Communication Week 1 Day 2 (Onsite) PDF

Language & Communication Week 1 Day 2 (Onsite) Class & Group Introduction Group Contract: submit next Thurs Group Number Group Leader Group Members Meeting Schedule schedule of the group's meetings; identify members’ common time Decision-Making process that the group will use t...

Language & Communication Week 1 Day 2 (Onsite) Class & Group Introduction Group Contract: submit next Thurs Group Number Group Leader Group Members Meeting Schedule schedule of the group's meetings; identify members’ common time Decision-Making process that the group will use to make decisions so that all Process members know how decisions will be made (e.g. consensus) Communication Plan how the group will communicate with each other. Conflict Resolution how the group will resolve conflicts Plan Other Information may include information about the group's goals, the roles and responsibilities of each member, or the procedures for handling sensitive information Today’s Plan Human Language vs. Animal Communication Properties of Language Discussion Points  Why animals??? We can gain deep insights into our own language system by studying animal communication. Can Animals Talk? Are you convinced that Koko can communicate?  Primate Communication Scientists have not only studied animal communication systems but also tried to teach them human language as well… ….with pretty terrible results. Some Celebrity Animals Washoe (a chimpanzee) learned over 100 signs and could combine two of them together as in “you drink” or “water bird”. Kanesa (an ape) signed the word bad when a researcher picked up a poison mushroom in his habitat. He told the researcher which plants were safe and which plants were not.  Methodological Problem with Animal Communication Research There often seems to be some completely unintentional cueing on the part of the researchers, which calls into question whether the animals were actually responding to the language or the implicit cues. There may well be a considerable amount of misinterpretation/over-generous interpretation of the signs made. Scientists as human beings often feel “attached”… Everyone thinks their child is gifted. Cautionary Tale: Clever Hans Clever Hans could answer complex questions by tapping out letters of the alphabet with a front hoof, with each letter represented by a different number of taps. When asked “What is two-fifths plus one- half?’, he stomped his hoof 9 times and then stomped another 10 times, to indicate that the answer was nine-tenths. Clever Hans was actually But he couldn’t perform if Clever Hans responding to subtle cannot see his trainer (Von Osten), or if signals given by his trainer, the trainer does not know the answer who himself did not apparently realize that he was the one generating the answers… Just Communication, or Language? It is pretty clear that animals can communicate with each other, or with other species (e.g. humans). You just need to look at DLSU Pusa to prove that. But why are these forms of communication not considered language? Let’s look at some key characteristics of language. Key Features of Language Why language is species-specific (1) ARBITRARINESS Is there any connection between the word “dog” and “cat" and the actual animals? Dog Cat Perro Gato Hund Katze Chien Chat Chó Con mèo Aso Pusa (1) ARBITRARINESS Human language makes an extensive use of arbitrary symbols as a system. We can learn tens of thousands of arbitrary learned symbols (e.g. sounds, words, languages) No other animal communication involves learning the symbols as a system, and certainly not in such vast numbers. (2) DISCRETENESS All languages are composed of constituent parts Phones: [hɑːrts] Morphemes: heart-s Words: hearts Phrases: Our hearts Sentences: Our hearts must be taken care of, not taken for granted. Animal communication does not rely on discrete units—they are just the same units, just different types (e.g. howls, screams) (3) COMPOSITIONALITY Larger units are composed of smaller units. Sentence = Noun Phrase + Verb Phrase Leni ate Korean BBQ Korean BBQ is yummy. The Korean BBQ I had today was amazing. Since animals tend to just use different variants of the same units, their communication cannot be considered compositional (4) CREATIVITY We can use the limited symbols we have (“finite”) to compose an unlimited number of utterances (“infinite”) Dr. Lim, who really loves BTS, suddenly surprised her INTRELS students by producing a sentence that had never before existed in the history of the universe!  Key Features of Language: We(4) CREATIVITY can tweak language to serve our goals Even though bees can communicate by dancing, they cannot do this level of creativity: they cannot make infinite utterances out of finite means (5) RULE-GOVERNEDNESS All languages follow a set of conventional rules (i.e. grammar), which govern how linguistic units are constructed and fit together I sang a song yesterday. * I want to sang a song tomorrow. Note: in linguistics, we use * to mark ungrammaticality. Animals do not have grammatical rules. They may do different things based on context, but these are determined by external factors, not by the communication system. (6) DISPLACEMENT We can communicate about events in the future or the past, about things and people not in the immediate environment, and concepts/ideas that have no physical form. This is why people can lie, deceive, worry too much everyday Animals cannot talk about these things—they just give instinctive responses based on what’s happening in context. This is why we make a distinction between language and communication. And this is why we say that language is specific to humans.  SYNTHESIS Human language and animal communication are significantly different. They are perhaps even incomparable. Human language is an open system with limitless potential for creativity and innovative thoughts as long as the linguistic rules are strictly followed. Animal communication is a closed system, confined to to a very limited range of external physical stimuli significant to their survival/success in their immediate environment. (e.g. finding mates/food, territory, social navigation, alarm calls, etc.) Any questions? Discussion Question Google Translate bases its translations on statistics. It uses a massive collection of texts (e.g. EU public documents), which determines linguistic rules based on statistical patterns. Explore Google Translate. Suppose that Google updates the data of Google Translate by storing trillions of examples from spoken speech, everyday chats, Whatsapp messages, etc. Do you think it will be able to match the linguistic skills of humans? Thank you very much! Stay safe and be well!