Kanzi's Primal Language

Kanzi's Primal Language PDF Author: P. Segerdahl
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230513387
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
Sue Savage-Rumbaugh's work on the language capabilities of the bonobo Kanzi has intrigued the world because of its far-reaching implications for understanding the evolution of the human language. This book takes the reader behind the scenes of the filmed language tests. It argues that while the tests prove that Kanzi has language, the even more remarkable manner in which he originally acquired it - spontaneously, in a culture shared with humans - calls for a re-thinking of language, emphasizing its primal cultural dimensions.

Kanzi's Primal Language

Kanzi's Primal Language PDF Author: P. Segerdahl
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230513387
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 239

Get Book Here

Book Description
Sue Savage-Rumbaugh's work on the language capabilities of the bonobo Kanzi has intrigued the world because of its far-reaching implications for understanding the evolution of the human language. This book takes the reader behind the scenes of the filmed language tests. It argues that while the tests prove that Kanzi has language, the even more remarkable manner in which he originally acquired it - spontaneously, in a culture shared with humans - calls for a re-thinking of language, emphasizing its primal cultural dimensions.

Language, Ethics and Animal Life

Language, Ethics and Animal Life PDF Author: Niklas Forsberg
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1441155686
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 517

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Book Description
New research into human and animal consciousness, a heightened awareness of the methods and consequences of intensive farming, and modern concerns about animal welfare and ecology are among the factors that have made our relationship to animals an area of burning interest in contemporary philosophy. Utilizing methods inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein, the contributors to this volume explore this area in a variety of ways. Topics discussed include: scientific vs. non-scientific ways of describing human and animal behaviour; the ethics of eating particular animal species; human nature, emotions, and instinctive reactions; responses of wonder towards the natural world; the moral relevance of literature; the concept of dignity; and the question whether non-human animals can use language. This book will be of great value to anyone interested in philosophical and interdisciplinary issues concerning language, ethics and humanity's relation to animals and the natural world.

Nim Chimpsky

Nim Chimpsky PDF Author: Elizabeth Hess
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0553904701
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 386

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Now Elizabeth Hess’s unforgettable biography is the inspiration for Project Nim, a riveting new documentary directed by James Marsh and produced by Simon Chinn, the Oscar-winning team known for Man on Wire. Hess, a consultant on the film, says, “Getting a call from James Marsh and Simon Chinn is an author’s dream. Project Nim is nothing short of amazing.” Could an adorable chimpanzee raised from infancy by a human family bridge the gap between species—and change the way we think about the boundaries between the animal and human worlds? Here is the strange and moving account of an experiment intended to answer just those questions, and the astonishing biography of the chimp who was chosen to see it through. Dubbed Project Nim, the experiment was the brainchild of Herbert S. Terrace, a psychologist at Columbia University. His goal was to teach a chimpanzee American Sign Language in order to refute Noam Chomsky’s assertion that language is an exclusively human trait. Nim Chimpsky, the baby chimp at the center of this ambitious, potentially groundbreaking study, was “adopted” by one of Dr. Terrace’s graduate students and brought home to live with her and her large family in their elegant brownstone on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. At first Nim’s progress in learning ASL and adapting to his new environment exceeded all expectations. His charm, mischievous sense of humor, and keen, sometimes shrewdly manipulative understanding of human nature endeared him to everyone he met, and even led to guest appearances on Sesame Street, where he was meant to model good behavior for toddlers. But no one had thought through the long-term consequences of raising a chimp in the human world, and when funding for the study ran out, Nim’s problems began. Over the next two decades, exiled from the people he loved, Nim was rotated in and out of various facilities. It would be a long time before this chimp who had been brought up to identify with his human caretakers had another opportunity to blow out the candles on a cake celebrating his birthday. No matter where he was sent, however, Nim’s hard-earned ability to converse with humans would prove to be his salvation, protecting him from the fate of many of his peers. Drawing on interviews with the people who lived with Nim, diapered him, dressed him, taught him, and loved him, Elizabeth Hess weaves an unforgettable tale of an extraordinary and charismatic creature. His story will move and entertain at the same time that it challenges us to ask what it means to be human, and what we owe to the animals who so enrich our lives.

Living Beings

Living Beings PDF Author: Penelope Dransart
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000189619
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
Living Beings examines the vital characteristics of social interactions between living beings, including humans, other animals and trees.Many discussions of such relationships highlight the exceptional qualities of the human members of the category, insisting for instance on their religious beliefs or creativity. In contrast, the international case studies in this volume dissect views based on hierarchical oppositions between human and other living beings. Although human practices may sometimes appear to exist in a realm beyond nature, they are nevertheless subject to the pull of natural forces. These forces may be brought into prominence through a consideration of the interactions between human beings and other inhabitants of the natural world.The interplay in this book between social anthropologists, philosophers and artists cuts across species divisions to examine the experiential dimensions of interspecies engagements. In ethnographically and/or historically contextualized chapters, contributors examine the juxtaposition of human and other living beings in the light of themes such as wildlife safaris, violence, difference, mimicry, simulation, spiritual renewal, dress and language.

Adding Sense

Adding Sense PDF Author: Mary Kalantzis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108857213
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
In recent years, with the rise of new media, the phenomenon of 'multimodality' (communication via a number of modes simultaneously) has become central to our everyday interaction. This has given rise to a new kind of literacy that is rapidly gaining ground as an area of research. A companion to Making Sense, which explored the functions of reference, agency and structure in meaning, Adding Sense extends this analysis with two more surrounding functions. It addresses the ways in which 'context' and 'interest' add necessary sense to immediate objects of meaning, proposing a 'transpositional grammar' to account for movement across these different forms of meaning. Adding Sense weaves its way through philosophy, semiotics, social theory and the history of ideas. Its examples cross a range of social contexts, from the meaning universes of the First Peoples, to the new forms of meaning that have emerged in the era of digitally-mediated communication.

Why Chimpanzees Can't Learn Language and Only Humans Can

Why Chimpanzees Can't Learn Language and Only Humans Can PDF Author: Herbert S. Terrace
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231550014
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
In the 1970s, the behavioral psychologist Herbert S. Terrace led a remarkable experiment to see if a chimpanzee could be taught to use language. A young ape, named “Nim Chimpsky” in a nod to the linguist whose theories Terrace challenged, was raised by a family in New York and instructed in American Sign Language. Initially, Terrace thought that Nim could create sentences but later discovered that Nim’s teachers inadvertently cued his signing. Terrace concluded that Project Nim failed—not because Nim couldn’t create sentences but because he couldn’t even learn words. Language is a uniquely human quality, and attempting to find it in animals is wishful thinking at best. The failure of Project Nim meant we were no closer to understanding where language comes from. In this book, Terrace revisits Project Nim to offer a novel view of the origins of human language. In contrast to both Noam Chomsky and his critics, Terrace contends that words, as much as grammar, are the cornerstones of language. Retracing human evolution and developmental psychology, he shows that nonverbal interaction is the foundation of infant language acquisition, leading up to a child’s first words. By placing words and conversation before grammar, we can, for the first time, account for the evolutionary basis of language. Terrace argues that this theory explains Nim’s inability to acquire words and, more broadly, the differences between human and animal communication. Why Chimpanzees Can’t Learn Language and Only Humans Can is a masterful statement of the nature of language and what it means to be human.

Apes, Language, and the Human Mind

Apes, Language, and the Human Mind PDF Author: Sue Savage-Rumbaugh
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198026978
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Current primate research has yielded stunning results that not only threaten our underlying assumptions about the cognitive and communicative abilities of nonhuman primates, but also bring into question what it means to be human. At the forefront of this research, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh recently has achieved a scientific breakthrough of impressive proportions. Her work with Kanzi, a laboratory-reared bonobo, has led to Kanzi's acquisition of linguistic and cognitive skills similar to those of a two and a half year-old human child. Apes, Language, and the Human Mind skillfully combines a fascinating narrative of the Kanzi research with incisive critical analysis of the research's broader linguistic, psychological, and anthropological implications. The first part of the book provides a detailed, personal account of Kanzi's infancy, youth, and upbringing, while the second part addresses the theoretical, conceptual, and methodological issues raised by the Kanzi research. The authors discuss the challenge to the foundations of modern cognitive science presented by the Kanzi research; the methods by which we represent and evaluate the abilities of both primates and humans; and the implications which ape language research has for the study of the evolution of human language. Sure to be controversial, this exciting new volume offers a radical revision of the sciences of language and mind, and will be important reading for all those working in the fields of primatology, anthropology, linguistics, philosophy of mind, and cognitive and developmental psychology.

The Origins of Europeans and Their Pre-Historic Innovations from 6 Million to 10,000 BCE

The Origins of Europeans and Their Pre-Historic Innovations from 6 Million to 10,000 BCE PDF Author: Neil Harrison
Publisher: Algora Publishing
ISBN: 1628943793
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Who are we and where on earth do we come from? Scientists have traced back human ancestry to tropical Africa and small primates living in trees. But what happened after that has been hotly debated, and the accepted explanations have led down blind alleys. By putting aside theories anchored in religion and perceived political imperatives anchored in post-World War II guilt, we can hope to obtain a more accurate understanding of human origins. That is the goal of this book. The story starts 6 million years ago, when the small and timid animal that was our forerunner (and the chimpanzee’s) still existed. The narrative follows the evolution of our ancestors from then, through their great achievements, such as learning to walk on two legs, finding a profitable use for the two hands, learning to communicate and then actually talk. As our tools evolved, so did our bodies. Then 1.8 million years ago, some of these early ‘people’ strayed into Europe, surviving in a freezing world and encountering challenges hitherto unknown. This is the incredible story of how Europeans evolved and populated Eurasia and onwards to the Americas. The story brings the reader to the Mesolithic when cultures, towns and trades that we are familiar with today started to emerge. Anyone interested in European, Eurasian or Native American ancestry should read this book to discover how we really came to be who we are: a story as gripping as traditional versions such as Adam and Eve, Popul Vuh and Gaia.

Dialogues on the Human Ape

Dialogues on the Human Ape PDF Author: Laurent Dubreuil
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452958297
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 239

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Book Description
A primatologist and a humanist together explore the meaning of being a “human animal” Humanness is typically defined by our capacity for language and abstract thinking. Yet decades of research led by the primatologist Sue Savage-Rumbaugh has shown that chimpanzees and bonobos can acquire human language through signing and technology. Drawing on this research, Dialogues of the Human Ape brings Savage-Rumbaugh into conversation with the philosopher Laurent Dubreuil to explore the theoretical and practical dimensions of what being a “human animal” means. In their use of dialogue as the primary mode of philosophical and scientific inquiry, the authors transcend the rigidity of scientific and humanist discourses, offering a powerful model for the dissemination of speculative hypotheses and open-ended debates grounded in scientific research. Arguing that being human is an epigenetically driven process rather than a fixed characteristic rooted in genetics or culture, this book suggests that while humanness may not be possible in every species, it can emerge in certain supposedly nonhuman species. Moving beyond irrational critiques of ape consciousness that are motivated by arrogant, anthropocentric views, Dialogues on the Human Ape instead takes seriously the continuities between the ape mind and the human mind, addressing why language matters to consciousness, free will, and the formation of the “human animal” self.

How Animals Think and Feel

How Animals Think and Feel PDF Author: Ken Cheng
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1440837155
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 309

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Book Description
This highly accessible book explains key scientific findings in the areas of animal cognition, emotion, and behavior in easy-to-understand language. Why do dogs get separation anxiety? Can a chimpanzee recognize itself in a mirror? Do animals in a zoo get neurotic? Do animals actually have emotions, or are humans simply anthropomorphizing them? How Animals Think and Feel: An Introduction to Non-Human Psychology answers these interesting questions and many more in its examination of animal psychology—particularly non-human primates (our closest relatives) and companion animals (the animals with which we spend the most time). Readers will learn about the history of the study of animals as well as the methodologies and applications of animal research, examples of higher-level thought and problem solving in animals, learning and memory, emotion, and basic behaviors such as feeding and mating. Chapters examine specific animal species or groups in greater depth to address particular behaviors and discuss characteristic traits. The book also includes sidebars that offer additional high-interest, ready-reference content; a bibliography of print and electronic sources for further study; and a glossary of unfamiliar terms.