Essay About Central Washington University And American Sign Language

Apes and Language
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Apes and Language 1
Apes and Language:
A Review of the Literature
Atis Jana
Psychology 1, Section 1
Professor Lawson
April 25
Apes and Language 2
Apes and Language:
A Review of the Literature
Over the past 30 years, researchers have demonstrated that the great apes (chimpanzees,
gorillas, and orangutans) resemble humans in language abilities more than had been thought
possible. Just how far that resemblance extends, however, has been a matter of some
controversy. Researchers agree that the apes have acquired fairly large vocabularies in American
Sign Language and in artificial languages, but they have drawn quite different conclusions
in addressing the following questions:
1. How spontaneously have apes used language?
2. How creatively have apes used language?
3. Can apes create sentences?
4. What are the implications of the ape language studies?
This review of the literature on apes and language focuses on these four questions.
How Spontaneously Have
Apes Used Language?
In an influential article, Terrace, Petitto, Sanders, and Bever (1979) argued that the apes
in language experiments were not using language spontaneously but were merely imitating their
trainers, responding to conscious or unconscious cues. Terrace and his colleagues at Columbia
University had trained a chimpanzee, Nim, in American Sign Language, so their skepticism
about the apes’ abilities received much attention. In fact, funding for ape language research was
sharply reduced following publication of their 1979 article “Can an Ape Create a Sentence?”
In retrospect, the conclusions of Terrace et al. seem to have been premature. Although
some early ape language studies had not been rigorously controlled to eliminate cuing, even as
early as the 1970s R. A. Gardner and B. T. Gardner were conducting double-blind experiments
Apes and Language 3
that prevented any possibility of cuing (Fouts, 1997, p. 99). Since 1979, researchers have
diligently guarded against cuing.
Perhaps the best evidence that apes are not merely responding to cues is that they have
signed to one another spontaneously, without trainers present. Like many of the apes studied,
gorillas Koko and Michael have been observed signing to one another (Patterson & Linden,
1981). At Central Washington University the baby chimpanzee Loulis, placed in the care of the
signing chimpanzee Washoe, mastered nearly fifty signs in American Sign Language without
help from humans. “Interestingly,” wrote researcher Fouts (1997), “Loulis did not pick up any of
the seven signs that we [humans] used around him. He learned only from Washoe and [another
chimp] Ally” (p. 244).
The extent to which chimpanzees spontaneously use language may depend on their
training. Terrace trained Nim using the behaviorist technique of operant conditioning, so it is not
surprising that many of Nim’s signs were