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Language in Comparative PerspectiveThe twentieth century will be noted for a wide variety of scientific and technological advancements, including powered flight, antibiotics, space travel, and the breaking of the genetic code. It also should be noted as the century in which major psychological, as well as biological, continuities between animal and human have been defined. Charles Darwin (1859) was quite right when he anticipated continuity in mental processes, some of which provide for language. Though none will argue that any animal has the full capacity of humans for language, none should deny that at least some animals have quite impressive competencies for language skills, including speech comprehension. The finding that the language skills in the bonobo and the chimpanzee are likely more fully and efficiently developed as a result of early rearing than by formal training at a later age declares a continuity even stronger than that defined by the language acquisition potential of the ape. To clarify, because early rearing facilitates the emergence of language in ape as well as in child, a naturalness to the familiar course of language acquisition, whereby comprehension precedes production, is also corroborated. In turn, the continuity and the shared naturalness of language acquisition serve jointly to define an advanced and critical point of linkage between the genera Pan and Homo - and, as concluded by Domjan (1993), one worthy of contributing to the series of reconceptions of ourselves as anticipated by Ploog and Melnechuk (1971).
Document ID
19970031213
Acquisition Source
Ames Research Center
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Rumbaugh, Duane M.
(Georgia State Univ. Atlanta, GA United States)
Savage-Rumbaugh, E. Sue
(Georgia State Univ. Atlanta, GA United States)
Date Acquired
August 17, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1994
Publication Information
Publication: Animal Learning and Cognition
Publisher: Academic Press, Inc.
Subject Category
Communications And Radar
Report/Patent Number
NAS 1.26:203789
NASA-CR-203789
Accession Number
97N72352
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NIH-HD-06016
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAG2-438
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
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