Kanzi’s Primal Language: The Cultural Initiation of Primates into Language

239 Pages·2005·23.186 MB·

by  Pär Segerdahl, William Fields, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh (auth.)

Kanzi's Primal Language
Also by Par Segerdahl
LANGUAGE USE: Philosophical Investigation into the Basic
Notions of Pragmatics
Also by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
APE LANGUAGE
KANZI: An Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind
APES, LANGUAGE AND THE HUMAN MIND
(with Stuart Shanker and Talbot Taylor)
Kanzi's Primal Language
The Cultural Initiation of Primates
into Language
Par Segerdahl
William Fields
and
Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
* © Par Segerdahl, William Fields and Sue Savage-Rumbaugh 2005
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2005 978-1-4039-9604-6
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First published 2005 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-54503-2 ISBN 978-0-230-51338-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230513389
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Segerdahl, Par.
Kanzi's primal language :the cultural initiation of primates into
language I Par Segerdahl, William Fields, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh.
p. em.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Bonobo - Psychology. 2. Language acquisition. 3. Learning in
animals. 4. Kanzi (Bonobo) I. Fields, William, 1949- II. Savage
Rumbaugh, E. Sue, 1946- Ill. Title.
QL737.P96S44 2005
599.885'159-dc22
2005043424
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 OS
Transferred to digital printing in 2006
Dedicated to the memory of Kinji Imanishi and fun'ichiro
Itani, founders of Japanese primatology and the notion of
animal cultures
Contents
Acknowledgements ix
1 Kanzi Acquires Language in a Forest in Georgia 1
Culture in animals 1
Understanding the discoveries in terms of culture 4
Is the language Kanzi acquired the language we tested? 13
What did Kanzi acquire in acquiring language? 16
Language as intrinsic aspect of culture 20
2 Design Features of Language 27
Spontaneity 30
Boundlessness 33
Immanence 39
Cultural creativity and generality 43
Placement 55
Gestures and tools 58
Culture-sustained vocal speech and other media 62
Cultural unity 72
Non-arbitrariness 78
Reflexivity 80
Flexible interface of primate interactions 83
Moral and personal dimension 87
3 Ambiguous Human Culture 95
Philosophy and scientific specialization 95
Is Kanzi a real animal? 100
Is ape language research anthropocentric? 109
Is scepticism reluctance to acknowledge our primal culture? 117
Scepticism about human life 135
Coming to know Kanzi 138
Was Socrates the first cultural primatologist? 140
Did Nim speak? 147
4 What Does It Mean to Study Language? 159
A question of scientific relevance 159
Is a technical notion of language one notion or two? 159
The introvert character of Chomsky's notion of language 161
vii
viii Contents
The avoidance of experiential friction in
Chomsky's thinking 164
Real systems versus mere evidence 16 7
Performance or traditional grammar? 172
Chomsky's observations 17 6
Poverty of stimulus or abundance? 177
The scientific relevance of ordinary experience 180
The status of our notion of primal language 181
Do children steal language from adults? 183
Culture makes us pregnant with language 193
The creative and the critical aspect of the methodology 196
Summary: The Catalogue of Design Features 201
Appendix 1: The Apes 211
Appendix 2: The Keyboard 215
Notes 219
Bibliography 225
Index 233
Acknowledgements
We are deeply grateful for generous intellectual and financial support
from several persons and foundations. The NICHD has for over two
decades funded the work at the Language Research Center (LRC) in
Atlanta, and they contributed to the funding resources for the pre
paration of this book (grant P01HD006016). Without their long-term
support, the rare events we elucidate in this book would never have
occurred. Since 2001 the research is funded also by the Templeton Foun
dation (Campaign for Forgiveness Research, CFR 508); together with
the Wennergren Foundation they financed Par Segerdahl's visits to the
LRC. Segerdahl's research in Sweden was generously supported by E. 0.
Burman's Foundation and the Centre for Bioethics at Karolinska lnsti
tutet and Uppsala University. We have benefited greatly from comments
by intelligent readers. We wish to thank the members of the Swedish ELSA
network on the philosophy of biology-Mats G. Hansson, Gert Belges
son, Lars Hertzberg, Linda Keeling, Caroline Liberg, Erik Lundgren, Bengt
Meyerson, Sven Ohman, Sharon Rider and Soren Stenlund - who dis
cussed the manuscript at a meeting in January 2004 and spurred us to
sharpen our ideas about the relationship between biology and culture.
We also wish to thank Bjorn Merker, who made a thorough reading of
the text and helped us express several points much more precisely. The
manuscript was discussed on two occasions at Soren Stenlund's seminar
in philosophy at Uppsala University, and we want to thank all the par
ticipants for helpful comments on our idea of a connection between ape
language research and philosophy. Barbara King read the manuscript for
Palgrave, and her fair-minded constructive criticism helped us develop
more nuanced descriptions of our work and its relation to various forms
of scepticism concerning the possibility that apes can acquire language.
Laura Hiller and Alan Jackson read the manuscript from editorial points
of view and guided us towards a clearer linguistic expression of our
thoughts. We would like to thank the following friends and colleagues
for generous support and helpful discussions: Kirk Brocker, Chad Burgess,
Holly Carmiol, Stanley Cavell, Jim Conant, Cathryn Dubow, Kathinka
Ewers, Josepine Fernow, Rob Hiller, Sarah Hunsberger, Kathryn Kozaitis,
Clara Lusamba, Charles Menzel, Janni Pedersen, Liz Pugh, Sonia Ragir,
Joseph L. Rau, Matt Reaves, Dan Rice, Bruce Richman, Duane M. Rum
baugh, Gunilla Segerdahl, Emily Shore, Rob Shumaker, Judy Sizemore,
ix
x Acknowledgements
Jared Taglialatela, Yoshida Takashi, Elizabeth Turner, David Washburn
and Charlene Weaters. Finally, we wish to thank Genya Niio and the
Japanese television company NHK who have supported and documented
our work for more than a decade, and Ted Townsend who is now helping
us provide the bonobos with a new home at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa
(GATI, see www.iowagreatapes.org).
PAR SEGERDAHL
WILLIAM FIELDS
SuE SAVAGE-RUMBAUGH