iability. The dolphin using its whistle mode of vocalization imitated all of the sounds, and all were distinct from the unreinforced whistles produced prior to training. The large majority of each dolphins whistle vocalizations were individually specific acoustic patterns, described as a signature whistle; the rest of the whistles were short chirps. The results of the mimicry training have shown that dolphins can mimic tonal sounds with frequencies between 4 and 20 Hz. Due to this research, scientists can now learn from these mimicry skills how to understand and develop natural communication based on a stronger emphasis on the animals cognitive abilities (Brecht, 1993). In object labeling, the dolphins seemed to understand the task of associating model sounds with displayed objects. Progress was most rapid when the model sound was always presented at full intensity, but the probability of its being presented on any given trial was systematically decreased over successive trials. There wasnt any confusion of the objects themselves, but only a tendency to drift in the quality of the rendition of the labels. This demonstration of symbolic use of vocalizations could lead to the investigation of the potential of animals to form referential concepts, thus creating a new understanding of dolphin communication and its uses in the wild. The main purpose of study in dolphin language, is the interest in whether the animals speech is intentional communication like our own human speech. The fact that awareness as applied to the phenomena of human communication also implies something we would not attribute to animals-and this is the awareness that communicative acts are behaviors about behaviors (Crook, 1983, as cited in Schusterman et al. 1986). Language, as we know it, could not exist without the capacity for intentional communication, as all linguistic communications are, by definition, intentional. Dolphins have been observed to have some of thes...
