Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T02:57:53.997Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Animal comparative studies should be part of linguistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Daniel Margoliash  and
Howard C. Nusbaum
Daniel Margoliash
Affiliation:
Departments of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, and Psychology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637dan@bigbird.uchicago.eduhttp://margoliashlab.uchicago.edu
Howard C. Nusbaum
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637. h-nusbaum@uchicago.eduhttp://psychology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/hnusbaum.shtml
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Universal Grammar promotes the study of an idealization of language behavior and language learning. In examining the diversity of actual behavioral strategies used to achieve linguistic goals, Evans & Levinson (E&L) move towards studying language as a behavior. This approach can benefit from studying communicative and cognitive capacities more broadly – across species. We exhort like-minded linguists to cast off the remaining intellectual shackles of linguistic speciesism.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 32 , Issue 5 , October 2009 , pp. 458 - 459
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Fitch, W. T. & Hauser, M. D. (2004) Computational constraints on syntactic processing in a nonhuman primate. Science 303( 5656):377–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gentner, T. Q., Fenn, K. M., Margoliash, D. & Nusbaum, H. C. (2006) Recursive syntactic pattern learning by songbirds. Nature 440(7088):1204–1207.Google Scholar
Hauser, M. D., Chomsky, N. & Fitch, W. T. (2002) The faculty of language: What is it, who has it and how did it evolve? Science 298(5598):1569–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marler, P. & Tamura, M. (1964) Culturally transmitted patterns of vocal behavior in sparrows. Science 146 (3650):1483–86.Google Scholar