SASL Newsletter - Fall 2018 Issue Issue 11 - Fall 2018 | Page 12

assert that). She claims it was a different language, “Gorilla Sign Language.” The distinction is useful in rebutting any human signer who might claim to see no ASL in Koko’s gestural behavior. Plenty of linguists have expertise in the analysis of sign languages, and none of them have ever independently confirmed Koko’s incipient linguistic competence. Koko never said anything: never made a definite truth claim, or expressed a specific opinion, or asked a clearly identifiable question. Producing occasional context-related signs, almost always in response to Patterson’s cues, after years of intensive reward-based training, is not language use. Not even if it involves gestures that a genuine signer could employ in language use. Neither journalists nor laypeople will ever be convinced of that. Such is their yearning to believe that Koko had mastered language, and had things to say, and shared those things with Penny Patterson. They want to believe these things, and they will not be denied. Moreover, they will accuse me (probably in the comments below) of being an arrogant, hyperskeptical, human-biased speciesist, contemptuous of ape abilities. But I would love to learn about the experiences and opinions of nonhuman primates through direct conversation with them. Unfortunately, all that was established by Penny Patterson’s years of devotion to training Koko was that we are not going to have that opportunity. (Original source: Lingua Franca, a blog published on the website of The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 27, 2018, , reprinted by permission) Source: www.thatdeafguy.com/?p=492 The Power of ASL 12 Fall 2018 – Issue 11