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Animal comparative studies should be part of linguistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 October 2009

Daniel Margoliash  and
Howard C. Nusbaum
Daniel Margoliash
Affiliation:
Departments of Organismal Biology and Anatomy, and Psychology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL [email protected]://margoliashlab.uchicago.edu
Howard C. Nusbaum
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637. [email protected]://psychology.uchicago.edu/people/faculty/hnusbaum.shtml
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Abstract

Universal Grammar promotes the study of an idealization of language behavior and language learning. In examining the diversity of actual behavioral strategies used to achieve linguistic goals, Evans & Levinson (E&L) move towards studying language as a behavior. This approach can benefit from studying communicative and cognitive capacities more broadly – across species. We exhort like-minded linguists to cast off the remaining intellectual shackles of linguistic speciesism.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 32 , Issue 5 , October 2009 , pp. 458 - 459
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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