Apes and Language:
A Review of the Literature
By Karen Shaw
For Professor Dyer's Class
March 2, 2005


Over the past 30 years researchers have demonstrated that the great apes (chimpanzees gorillas and orangutans) resemble humans in language abilities more than had been thought possible. Just how far that resemblance extends however has been a matter of some controversy. Researchers agree that the apes have acquired fairly large vocabularies in American Sign Language and in artificial languages but they have drawn quite different conclusions in addressing the following questions:
1. How spontaneously have apes used language?
2. How creatively have apes used language?
3. Can apes create sentences?
4. What are the implications of the ape language studies?
This review of the literature on apes and language focuses on these four questions.

How Spontaneously Have Apes Used Language?

In an influential article Terrace, Petitto, Sanders, and Bever (1979) argued that the......

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Title: Apes And Language
Approximate Word Count: 1587
Approximate Pages: 7 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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