Quote:
|
Would that imply language use in a case like this? :
|
Attempts to argue that some animals possess something like human culture - patterns of behaviour that are not built-in, that are passed on from one generation to the next, and that differ from one group to another within the same species - are interesting. Similar observations have been made for several kinds of monkey and several of the great apes, one of the most common being the observation that termite fishing with a twig seems to be passed on from mother to infant.
However, in all these cases the mode of transmission appears to be unintentional: the adult does not set out to teach the infant, who simply picks up the behaviour by imitation. Human children also use imitation, but it accounts for a very reduced set of rather rudimentary routines. For humans, such routines may lie at the base of much of our practical culture, but it doesn't account for it at anything beyond the simplest level.