The Lawrence Jacobsen Library
Books Received (Primate-Science/PrimateLit)

DOCTOR DOLITTLE'S DELUSION: ANIMALS AND THE UNIQUENESS OF HUMAN LANGUAGE

By Stephen R. Anderson
Yale University Press

FROM THE PUBLISHER
This June, as reported in Science magazine, Rico, a border collie, amazingly
proved that he could understand about 200 words. This left some wondering if
animals could be taught a human language and use it to communicate. To what
extent is our use of language unique to just us?

In Doctor Dolittle's Delusion: Animals & the Uniqueness of Human Language,
Stephen R. Anderson demonstrates that animals, although having interesting
properties of their own communication system, are not capable of acquiring
or using human language. Drawing on material from the scientific literature
in linguistics, psychology, animal behavior, and animal cognition, this
fascinatingly enjoyable book demonstrates how there are fallacies in the
common thinking about the relationships between human and animal
communication. Using as a background High Lofting's books, Doctor Dolittle's
Delusion illustrates the nature of human language against the background of
communicative abilities of other species.

After first discussing the general problem of studying communication and
cognition in animals, the book explores bee dances, frog vocalizations, bird
songs, alarm calls and other vocal, gestural, and olfactory communication
among primates, and the structure of human language, including the signed
languages of the deaf. These topics are treated in enough detail to show how
a number of animal communication systems work, how natural human language
operates, and why we should believe (contrary to what we often read and to
what many non-linguistics maintain) that only humans have a cognitive system
capable of natural language. Arguing that attempts to teach human language
or their equivalents to the great apes have not succeeded in demonstrating
linguistic abilities in nonhuman species, Anderson concludes that animal
communication systems do not include all the essential properties of human
language. Sorry Rico. Animals can communicate, but according to Anderson
they can't talk.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Stephen R. Anderson is professor of linguistics, psychology, and cognitive
science at Yale University.

HOW TO ORDER
Yale University Press
P.O. Box 209040
New Haven, CT 06520-9040
203-432-0163

ISBN: 0-300-10339-5
Hardcover, $35.00

Direct link: http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=0300103395


Posted Date: 06/10/05