Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

434 Roman Jakobson
structure of any human language are totally unfamiliar to animals, whereas
several other properties formerly believed to be confined to human speech have
been detected now also in various species of primates (4).
The transition from ‘zoosemiotic’ to human speech is a huge qualitative leap,
in contradiction to the outdated behaviorist creed that the ‘language’ of animals
differs from men’s language in degree but not in kind. On the other hand, we
cannot but share objections raised recently on the linguistic side against ‘study-
ing animal communication systems within the same framework as human
language’ and motivated by a presumable lack ‘of continuity, in an evolutionary
sense, between the grammars of human languages and animal communication
systems’ br, p. 73). But no revolution, however radical, discards the evolution-
ary continuity; and a systematic comparison of men’s speech and their other
semiotic structures and activities with the ethological data on the communica-
tive means of all other species promises a stricter delineation of these two distinct
fields (20; 193) and a deeper insight into their substantial homologies and no
less important differences. This comparative analysis wil promote a further
broadening of the general theory of signs.
For the most part, observations and description of animal communication
belonged until recently to the neglected tasks, and records made were usually
fragmentary, unsystematic, and superficial. At present we possess much richer
data, collected with greater skill and care; however, in many cases they suffer
from a somewhat anthropomorphic interpretation of the valuable material
stored by assiduous field work. Thus, for instance, among cicadas the communi-
cation of messages, in spite of excessive attempts to ascribe to them a high
semiotic differentiation, consists solely of ticks used for distance signals and of
close-range buzzes; both varieties are combined into a squawk when the call is
addressed simultaneously to the nearby and the remote recipients (2).
The traditional opposition of human language and animal communication
as cultural vs. natural phenomena proves to be oversimplified. The nature-
nurture dichotomy (40, p. 55) presents an utterly entangled problem. The buildup
of animal communication implies, in Thorpe’s terms, ‘an elaborate integration
of inborn and learned components’, as proved by vocalizations of song birds
separated while in eggshells from their associates, and not only reared in total
isolation but in certain experiments even deafened (173; r71; 172). They still
perform the inborn blueprint of the song proper to the habit of their species or
even to the dialect of the subspecies, and the pattern of this song ‘is not funda-
mentally affected’ and after gradual trials may undergo some corrections and
ameliorations. If hearing has been left intact and the bird returns to its native
environment, the quality of its performances improves and the song repertory
can grow, but all this only occurs within the period of the bird’s maturation,
e.g. no alterations and additions are achievable in the warbling skill of a chaf-
hch when the latter is more than thirteen months old. The lower the organism,
the more nature prevails over nurture, but even lower animals can benefit from
learning (118, p. 316). As Galambos states, learning is common, for example,
‘to octopus, cat, and bee despite the large differences in their neural apparatus’
(50, P. 233).