Final Project Proposal

Project Proposal

Brittany Angelilli 

For my project I look to prove that whales do have a communication style that can be called a language. I think it is important to first look at what defines a language. I plan on looking at what makes a language, communication styles, and dialect. From my research I have found that there are different communication styles between different pods/clans as well as different dialects region to region. Also something interesting I have found in my research is that men communicate in a different manner than women. Whales communicate with each other when is comes to catching prey, teaching their young, mating, etc. I think a blog style format would be best for my project because I’d really like to incorporate visual, audio, and written text into my project. A lot of the research I have been has compared sound waves of humans to those of whales so I think incorporating those graphs would be helpful in proving that whales do have language. I’d also really love to add in some audio or video clips of whales communicating within their pods/clans. I will use my scholarly sources and my own writing to provide further evidence to what the visual and audio clips show.  

Killer Whales- Language 

Annotated Bibliography

Brittany Angelilli  

 

Kaufman, Allison & et al. Using a Self-Organizing Map (SOM) and the Hyperspace Analog

to Language (HAL) Model to Identify Patters of Syntax and Structure in the Songs of Humpback Whales. International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 2012, 25, 237-275.

 

This article presents ideas that I had not previously thought of. Kaufman et al. bring up the idea that the whale’s songs represent their form of language. There is also the idea that we should not only define language in a standard manner. Instead of a complex linguistics systems whales seem to use syntax in order communicate with each other. The research was conducted using two different fully automated models that examined syntax and structure of humpback whale song. The songs were then classified depending on their patterns, which is similar to noun, verb, and direct object in human language. These patterns were identified and specified to geographical areas. These patterns did support the idea that humpback whale songs are unique to specific regions and are likely to be transferred culturally.

 

Author Allison B. Kaufman received her Ph.D. in neuroscience at the University of California at Riverside in 210. Sean Green is a professor in the Psychology department at the University of Buffalo. This article is a peer reviewed journal that can be found in the International Journal of Comparative Psychology.  

 

This research is helpful; it provided a good starting point to my research. After completing this article my interested what sparked even more. I had not before thought of the idea of considering the sound that the whales produce as a song. The graphs and research done for the completion of this article will move my research forward and provide evidence for my final project on the fact that whales do communicate and their communication differs depending on the region.

 

Riesch, Rudiger et al. Whistle sequences in wild killer whales (Orcinus orca).  Journal of the

Acoustical Society of America. Vol. 124, No.3, September 2008.

 

This article looks at stereotypical vocal signals of whales and attempted to determine if specific sequences increased the range of information being transferred. The stupid of language in marine mammals is still extremely new. The study was done in Vancouver Island, British Columbia. There were a total 1140 whistles transitions and 192 whistle sequences recorded for the whales in that specific region. The findings show that the whistles consist of whistle types that were not random. There was also a difference found between male and female whistles; this showed different social behaviors within the groups of whales.

 

Author Rudiger Riesch works for the department of zoology at the University of Oklahoma. This article is published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. The authors do a great job of admitting that some of their research only leads to more questions and do not directly answer the questions they set out to answer. I think if this stupid were to be done again it should be done so in a manner that allows for a great region of whales to be tested.

 

This article in combination with my first will both fit really nicely into my final product. This article shows directly the different manners in which the males communicate with each other. It is extremely interesting to me the social aspect of the whales, the fact that males and females communicate in different manners really helps to prove the fact that these intelligent mammals do have language.  

           

Saulitis, Eva et al. Vocal repertoire and acoustic behavior of the isolated AT1 killer whale

subpopulation in southern Alaska. Canadian Journal of Zoology. NRC Canada. 2005.

 

This article looks at different types of killer whales in the southern parts of Alaska. There are three types of whales presented in this article but one of which is studied at length and that is the AT 1 transient which is a killer whale who eats eat and lives in the Prince William Sound/Kenai Fjords region. Researched identified 14 discrete, pulsed calls in the whales vocal repertoire. These calls were found to be completely different of these whales in the West Coast and Gulf of Alaska. It was found that AT1 transients were silent most of the time and used a foraging strategy of stealth. AT1 transients vocalization was seen to be context specific dissimilar to resident (fish-eaters).  

 

Eva Saulitis, trained in marine biology received her M.S. from the University of Alaska Fairbanks in 1993. Since this time Saulitis has studied killer whales of Prince William Sound, Kenai Fjords, and the Aleutain. She is also co-author of numerous scientific publications. This article is published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology.

 

The graphs and photographs will work as great visual ideas for my presentation. Eva Saulitis seems to have great passion for better understanding and studying killer whales. This article helps present yet another instance in a completely different region of the world then the other articles. This article helps present yet another view point and that is the fact that it is not only different regions of killer whales that communicate in a different manner but those whales who have a different diet communicate in a different manner.