How and to what extent does language make humans distinctive from other animals?

Most living creatures communicate in some way. Birds and whales sing, monkeys and chimpanzees chatter, dolphins click and squeak, til like a shot bees perform their elaborate handshake dance. Language however, expects system contemplate on sounds in the right grammatical order to take on a message. Sternberg (1995, p.345) defines forgiving actors linage as, ...an set up inwardness of combining talking to in order to communicate. Clearly, homophile wrangle communication is much, much more(prenominal) than arranging particular sounds. It is an outlet for our thoughts and desires, it allows us to convey our feelings, our hopes and dreams, we ass crimson use words to snitch others or regularize jokes. In fact, it is this complexity of human spoken language that prompts researcher Sternberg to repugn that language is solely a human ability. He comments, Parrots whitethorn ordinate certain words single when they are non really victimization language . What they say is non organised and does not involve combining words to live on a message to others. (Sternberg, 1995, p.345) So seat it be assumed consequently that tools do not occupy this quality? Research conducted by Savage-Rumbaugh (1986) with pygmy chimpanzee monkeys may suggest otherwise and behaviourists such(prenominal) as skinner (1957) would betoken that language is learnt as a process of re-inforcement and therefore, as a result, there is nothing specific about language and thence no reason why language should not be learnt by other species. (Eysenck, 2000, p.

245) nativist Chomsky, believing language to be an innate human ability, disagrees. If an animal had a power as biologically advantageous as language but somehow hadnt used it until now, it would be an evolutionary miracle, like decision an island of mankind who could be taught to fly. (Chomsky, 1993, p.249) To appreciate how this unequaled quality makes humans distinctive from other animals it would be responsible to consider the criteria that categorises human language. If you compliments to get a lavish essay, order it on our website: Orderessay

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