Lexical creation by signing apes
Barbara Lemaster
lemaster at csulb.edu
Mon May 14 15:25:25 UTC 2001
Hi there,
Homophony in signing would be iconization - recreating something that's
visual.
There have been good critiques of the ape language research, including
claims about Koko's signing abilities. I don't have one of those
references handy (as I am not in the office), but remember one by Mark
Sidenberg (or is it Seidenberg? - he's at USC now) and Laura Pettito (at
McGill). I can get that reference for you if you want.
Barbara LeMaster
Celso =?iso-8859-1?Q?=C1lvarez?=
=?iso-8859-1?Q?_C=E1ccamo?=<lxalvarz at udc.es> wrote:
>(Please excuse the cross-posting)
>
>Hello,
>
>I've just watched a documentary on Koko, the signing gorilla. In it, it is
>reported that Koko once transferred the sign for "eyebrow" for a type of
>lettuce called "browse" (spelling?) for which researchers didn't have yet
a
>specific sign. Koko would move her thumb(s) across her eyebrow(s) to
>request browse -- not any lettuce. So, Koko seemed to be able to dettach
>the iconic component of the ASL sign and thus to create a pure symbol.
>
>If this is so (that is, if this was an innotative creation by Koko, not
>prompted by the researchers' own use of the sign, my questions are,
>
>(1) How would we better characterize this procedure? Lexical creation
based
>on partial homophony? But, since the sign is not vocal-aural, what is the
>term commonly used for homophony for visual signs?
>
>(2) Has this phenomenon been observed in other signing apes? I am not
>referring, obviously, to lexical creation by composition (e.g. Koko's
'hole
>+ hat' for 'mask', or 'ring + wrist' for 'bracelet'), or to the use of
>preestablished symbols by apes, but to a type of creative symbolization
>similar (I would say) to the transfer of ideographs for indicating
phonetic
>component of other signs, or to the use of originally ideographic symbols
>in Japanese kanji.
>
>(3) What can be said about the implications of this procedure in signing
>apes with regards to their linguistic capabilities? Does this imply
>linguistic analysis and reflexivity beyond what is commonly assumed?
>
>Thank you,
>
>Celso Álvarez Cáccamo Tel. +34 981 167000 ext. 1888
>Linguística Geral, Faculdade de Filologia FAX +34 981 167151
>Universidade da Corunha lxalvarz at udc.es
>15071 A Corunha, Galiza (Espanha) http://www.udc.es/dep/lx/cac/
>
>
More information about the Linganth
mailing list