1331 words (5 minute read)

WCCT news broadcast dated December 8, 1972:

INT – STUDIO - NIGHT

 A female newscaster sits behind a desk.  She smiles and addresses the camera.

Newscaster: Now we present a remarkable story from our roving reporter, Art Delafield, who earlier today visited Yale University’s Primate Studies Center to investigate a groundbreaking new experiment. 

 Cut to tape of male reporter standing in a laboratory.

 Art Delafield: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.  My beat is generally the human interest story, and while this particular story is sure to interest humans, it features another animal entirely.  Let me show you what I mean.

 Camera focuses on a man approximately 45-50 years-old, with a receding hairline, dark eyebrows, and piercing eyes.  He wears a collared shirt with the top button open and smokes a pipe. A dark-haired, bearded young man in his mid-20s wearing a lab coat, stands behind him stirring something in a bowl.  Delafield sits beside the older man.

 Delafield: I’m here with Dr. Piers Preis-Herald, formerly of Cambridge University, currently a professor of psychology and the famed voice of radio’s syndicated "Secrets of the Mind in 60 Minutes." Dr. Preis-Herald, I understand you’ve long been interested in the process of language acquisition. What does that involve?

 Dr. Preis-Herald: Please, Art, feel free to call me Piers.  It’s less unwieldy.  To briefly answer your question, my research has concentrated on how humans learn new words and acquire the rules of language, or syntax.  Moreover, how does one learn to do more sophisticated things with language, such as use idiomatic expressions or discern sarcasm and veiled threats?

 Delafield: That all sounds complex.

 Dr. Preis-Herald: Indeed.  Some of my peers have suggested language is such a complicated beast only the human brain is equipped to handle it.  I disagree.  Higher mammals such as porpoises and primates and even certain breeds of bird have shown an aptitude for advanced understanding of language.  This led me to wonder at what stage of development language can be learnt.  Now by “development,” I mean the development of mankind, not merely of a single human.  For instance, can man’s biological coevals develop language?  Are certain components of the brain required to perform this magic?  To investigate, I’ve decided to look more closely at how an infant acquires language.  The infant I’ve selected is a young chimpanzee.  My wish is for this little chimp to tell me if the brain is hard-wired to develop a structure for arranging and applying words, or can these skills be taught. 

 Delafield: Doctor—

 Dr. Preis-Herald: Piers, I insist.

 Delafield: Why a chimpanzee?  Surely there are plenty of infants in New Haven that could help answer your questions.

 Dr. Preis-Herald: Ah, but my hypothesis is that language is a consequence of transmittable skill, much like cooking or tying a shoe,. Although apes can communicate the presence of dangerous predators nearby, they do not use language as you and I do. Chimpanzees do not debate. They don’t pour out their hearts to an analyst. But, if an ape were raised from birth in a context where communication for communication’s sake were the norm, it could adopt this norm. Chimpanzees are biologically similar to humans and share our high intellectual capacity.  If such an animal were immersed in language from birth, taught and reinforced to use words, then we would see language mastery at least on par with a human toddler or a retarded adult.

 Piers’s begins to reload his pipe.  As he speaks, he gestures to the bearded youth behind him.

 Dr. Preis-Herald: My research assistants and I have acquired an infant chimpanzee—about two months old now—that we have been keeping at our lab in anticipation of placing the animal with a human family to be reared like an ordinary child.  You see, Art, I believe that language is a cultural acquisition.  A human infant absorbs language by observing it in action as well as by direct coaching.  In order to better transmit language to our chimpanzee, we shall relate to him as one human being to another.  He will be exposed to the same milestones as a human child—including dressing, feeding, and toilet training—the better to stimulate his intellectual growth.

 As Piers smokes, the reporter’s eyes visibly water.  Delafield averts his face to cough discreetly several times.

 Delafield: That’s an amazing proposition.  Will you be raising the chimp yourself?

 Dr. Preis-Herald: Ah, dear me, no.  The faculty housing isn’t spacious enough for a youngster, and besides, a baby needs a mother. I, alas, as a bachelor, am not suited for the role.  But, all is not lost, for I have maintained contact with a very promising former graduate student, who is now married and rearing her own family.  She and her husband have agreed to take our little chimpanzee into their home as a surrogate son.  He will have every advantage that a good solid American family can provide and he will be drilled in language every single day.  I shall periodically visit to observe, record, and measure the protégé’s progress, but I will not be a surrogate father.

 Delafield: How do you plan to test this chimp for language, Doc—Piers?  Do you expect to make the chimp talk to you?

 Dr. Preis-Herald: To vocalize as you and I do, no.  Instead we shall use signing, which is the method that the Deaf use.  Our chimp’s host family happens to have a Deaf child, and so the family uses Ameslan alongside spoken English.  They will teach the chimpanzee to recognize and produce these signs.  We can document his progress by having registered Ameslan interpreters independently judge his use of sign language. 

 Delafield: But, Piers, aren’t you concerned that some of your colleagues might accuse you of, er, simply monkeying around?  This is a non-standard experiment.

 Dr. Preis-Herald: To be sure.  It’s high time scientists broke out of the box created by the current paradigms in psychology and linguistics.  After all, we would never have reached the moon if everyone continued to parrot Aristotle.  Science is about questioning and daring.  The way to do this successfully is to launch a new venture with a careful plan.  In our chimpanzee language study, we will chart the introduction of new words into his vocabulary, the accuracy of their usage, frequency, and pattern of presentation.  All will be thoroughly documented and the data made available for any interested party to review.  I’m confident that the results will speak for themselves.  Now, would you care to meet our subject? 

 Piers rises and crosses the room. Both Delafield and the camera follow him as he steps behind a highchair in which sits a baby chimpanzee wearing a bib.  The bearded young man is feeding him with a spoon. 

 Dr. Preis-Herald: This is the young man of the hour.  At the facility where he was born, he was known as Chimpanzee #710642.  However, I have decided to call him “Webster.” An affectation, perhaps, or rather, an augury.

 The bearded man lifts the chimpanzee out of the high chair and paces in the background of the shot as Piers speaks, patting Webster’s back to burp him

 Delafield: How so?

 Dr. Preis-Herald:  We will teach our Webster a wide vocabulary, the likes of which would impress even his illustrious namesake, who demonstrated his own mastery of language by creating a dictionary.  Our goal is to fashion him into a proper wordsmith.

 In the background of the shot, the chimp spits.  The bearded man wipes its mouth with a towel.

 Delafield: That’s a most ambitious goal, Doctor, er, Piers.  We look forward to learning from both you and little Webster all about the mysteries of this most precious—and up till now, most human—talent: language!

 Jeff Dalton murmurs to Webster, but the camera picks up his words.

 Jeff: You hear that?  You’ve got your work cut out for you, little smithy.

Next Chapter: Orientation Day