Questions in Animal Language Research
Animal language research attempts to answer the following questions:
- What problems can animals solve without language, and can they solve them better after they have received language training?
- Can the lessons learned in teaching animals be applied to human children?
- How, and how much, do animals' abilities to learn language differ from those of humans?
- Are the abilities that underlie language general or highly specialized?
- Where is the line between language and other forms of communication?
Read more about this topic: Great Ape Language
Famous quotes containing the words questions, animal, language and/or research:
“Do not shut up the young people against their will in a pew, and force the children to ask them questions for an hour against their will.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Afflicted with existence, each man endures like an animal the consequences which proceed from it. Thus, in a world where everything is detestable, hatred becomes huger than the world and, having transcended its object, cancels itself out.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)
“Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)
“It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.”
—Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)