Has Kanzi the Bonobo Really Learned Language?
A Critique of Linguistic Research at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa
Mar 9, 2009
Kanzi is a male bonobo who was brought to the Georgia State University Language Research Centre with his mother when he was 6 months old. Currently residing at the Great Ape Trust of Iowa, Kanzi is uniquely talented and, with the help of his researchers, has demonstrated more linguistic competence than any ape before him. Critics of the bonobo research, however, have questioned the validity of some of the research team’s conclusions because of, among other things, the nature of Kanzi’s language acquisition, the simplicity of his sentence structure, and shortcomings of the lexigrams.
Kanzi’s Language Comprehension and Language Production
The vast majority of the research with Kanzi and other apes has been on language comprehension, rather than on production. In fact, Rumbaugh goes so far as to comment “he can hear everything that is said around him, just as you and I can. Therefore, we decided to measure Kanzi’s language capacity not by what he could say, but by what he could understand” (Rumbaugh 1998, p. 65).
Obviously, Kanzi’s achievements should not be dismissed; however comprehension is not a true measure of language acquisition. That being said, research in recent years has shifted focus to evaluating Kanzi’s vocalizations. It’s physiologically impossible for apes to make the variety of sounds that exist in human languages, so Rumbaugh and her colleagues have been testing whether bonobos will make sounds to one another that consistently correspond to particular pictures on the lexigrams.
Kanzi Learned Commands
The research methodology is almost entirely built on measuring Kanzi’s responses to commands. While some of the phrases are worded as “can you get the X?” or “can you tickle Y?”, these are still interpretable as polite commands. These commands reveal nothing about his ability to comprehend passives, or other syntactic structures.
It is also unclear what Kanzi is thinking about; he responds correctly to commands, but reveals little else. Records of spontaneous speech might shed light on this; however such records are scarce in the published data.
Furthermore, many critics have pointed out that most of Kanzi’s language is centered on obtaining food or some other object. In other words, it may be that this bonobo is very adept at getting what he wants as opposed to being very adept at language learning.
Shortcomings of the Lexigram
The method of language-teaching poses an obstacle since the lexigram is a large foldable ‘keyboard’ that has to be carried around. Whenever Kanzi wants to say something, he has to have his lexigram with him, unfold it, and find the correct symbol. Human languages are not this cumbersome and time-consuming. Therefore, the lexigram may discourage Kanzi and the other bonobos from communicating more frequently.
In addition to the inadequacies described here, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh and her team have been criticized for failing to provide clear data on Kanzi’s language abilities, and for making claims about his linguistic abilities that are not empirically justified. Until a detailed corpus of Kanzi’s ‘utterances’ becomes available, outsiders will have to settle for speculating about the extent of Kanzi’s language and its implications for theories of human language acquisition.
References
Jamieson, D. (1995). "Review of Language Comprehension in Ape and Child, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, by Sue Savage-Rumbaugh et al." Philosophical Psychology 8, pp. 398-400.
Rumbaugh, S.R., Shanker, S.G., and Taylor, T.J. (1998). Apes, Language and the Human Mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wray, A. (2000). "Review of Apes, language and the human mind : Sue Savage-Rumbaugh, Stuart G. Shanker and Talbot J. Taylor." Journal of Pragmatics 32, pp. 827-830.
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