Sample exam answer |
Application Essay (2 points as quiz; 30% of the exam grade)
From a recent news report: "PANBANISHA, a Bonobo chimpanzee who has become something of a star among animal language researchers, was strolling through the Georgia woods with a group of her fellow primates -- scientists at the Language Research Center at Georgia State University in Atlanta. Suddenly, the chimp pulled one of them aside. Grabbing a special keyboard of the kind used to teach severely retarded children to communicate, she repeatedly pressed three symbols -- "Fight," "Mad," "Austin" -- in various combinations. Austin is the name of another chimpanzee at the center. Dr. Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, one of Panbanisha's trainers, asked, "Was there a fight at Austin's house?" "Waa, waa, waa" said the chimpanzee, in what Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh took as a sign of affirmation. She rushed to the building where Austin lives and learned that earlier in the day two of the chimps there, a mother and her son, had fought over which got to play with a computer and joystick used as part of the training program. The son had bitten his mother, causing a ruckus that, Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh surmised, had been overheard by Panbanisha, who lived in another building about 200 feet away. As Dr. Savage-Rumbaugh saw it, Panbanisha had a secret she urgently wanted to tell." Using course concepts argue that this information either does or does not support the idea that chimpanzees have language. Sample answer: Chimps do have language. First, Panbanisha used arbitrary signs, and Arbitrariness is one of the main characteristics of a true language. The three symbols on the keyboard do not resemble what they refer to (they are not iconic); in fact, at least one of them--"mad"--is an abstract term that doesn't "look like" anything. It could be argued that Panbanisha's signs were not arbitrary, in that "Waaa" is probably an instinctual cry of distress. Although this is true, it is still impressive that Panbanisha communicated her main message using the symbol board, which suggests that she at least is capable of some arbitrary communication. Furthermore, Panbanisha used these signs productively, to refer to a fight that had already happened, and that she had never had a chance to be trained about before. Her communication was a new sentence, one that had never been uttered in the world before; it was productive. Finally, Panbanisha's communication had "displacement." She was talking about something that was not present--something that had happened earlier in time, and at another place; in other words, something displaced from the immediate circumstances. Arbitrariness, productivity and displacement are three characteristics that differentiate true language from all other modes of communication. Panbanisha displayed all three, and therefore she was using language. |