Passage Discussion

[ganbayou]

I'm kind of lost especially in passage B...

For Passage A, I think
Language function; for humans it changes other people's behavior, what other think what you say
so perception can be vocal stimulus

Animal cannot say how others perceive so evolutionary advantage and stimulus influence how they act, it is not they know why they are doing something but they are reacting to stimulus.

Is this correct?

[ohthatpatrick]

A
Scale
Animal vocalizations are instinctive, not goal-directed attempts to influence other animals' mental states.

Author's VP/Purpose
Support a Thesis

Important Lines (usually Author's view)
Lines 6-11 lay out the thesis.
Examples follow, and then 27-29 provides another summary of the thesis.

Paragraph 1
Intro to language (vocalization) as we normally think of it in humans.

Paragraph 2
Thesis / Examples: Animal vocalizations are not like human ones, because animals can't attribute mental states, so they're not really "trying to inform" other animals, even though we interpret it that way.

Takeaway/Pattern: This has a pretty nice structure. Background claim, thesis, examples, re-summary of thesis.


#officialexplanation

B
Scale
Animal communication is importantly different from human communication vs. it's not

Author's VP
Attack a Position

Important Lines
Line 53-56: This is when the author first makes it clear that she's here to disagree.
56-65, impossibly is one long sentence that gives us the author's position.

Paragraph 1
Intro to typical distinction between animal and human communication.

Paragraph 2
Summary of arguments made in favor of that typical distinction.

Paragraph 3
Author's rebuttal

Takeaway/Pattern: The structure is easy to diagnose, but the author's rebuttal is tough. "A priori" means essentially that it's decided upon in advance. So the author is saying, "Why do these scientists think that human communication is different from animal communication? Because they arbitrarily decided that animals don't have conscious intention. Who said animals don't have conscious intention? We need support for that idea, if we're using it to disqualify animal communication for being similar to human communication. The author thinks the two forms of communication are way more overlapping than we think: animal communication has more intention than we think, and human communication has more mechanical response than we think.


#officialexplanation