Are Nonhuman Species Capable of Language Acquisition?
Abstract Promising results from early animal language studies were discarded after revelations of methodological problems were uncovered. This lent evidence to a biological explanation of the development of language, championed by some linguists and psychologists, who claim that linguistic skills are uniquely human. Later research, carefully designed to overcome procedural flaws has refuelled the debate, by providing evidence for the evolutionary explanation of language development, suggesting that a graduation of linguistic capabilities exists in human and nonhuman primates. Researchers and critics alike are cautious in evaluating these later studies. Many are focusing on the questions that arose from the language studies of nonhuman primates, concerning cognition and intelligence, and their relationship to linguistic ability. Conventional biological wisdom suggested that communication in nonhuman animals was reflexive (Long, 1994) and limited to signals warning of danger, defining te
