Language as a cause‐effect communication system

Abstract

Christopher Gauker has argued that a cause‐effect analysis of the acquisition of communication skills in chimpanzees is adequate to describe the data reported in our work at the Language Research Center. I agree that the cause‐effect approach to language function is the only viable method of analyzing language. Language must be studied as a process that functions to organize behavior between two or more individuals. However, the problem of language understanding is not addressed satisfactorily by the perspective offered by Gauker. Some more recent work, particularly with the pygmy chimpanzee ‘Kanzi’, is now beginning to explicate a cause‐effect analysis of language comprehension. It is argued that in the young chimpanzee, as with children, language comprehension is the driving force underlying the language acquisition process. It is further argued that the transition from comprehension to production is made possible by the capacity for goal‐directed observational imitation.