La ciencia

The Bottlenose Dolphin is considered to have intelligence second to that of a human but this is yet to be proved, as it is both expensive and difficult to carry out research on wild dolphins. Thedolphin brain is a lot bigger than a human’s brain. Dolphin’s senses are all in the same area of the brain which allows them to make quicker decisions as they can analyse the situation a lot faster.Scientists have classed dolphins as having a ‘proto-language’ because when compared with Hockett’s design theory there is some common ground. Dolphins have discreteness,
“This means that thebasic units of speech (such as sounds) can be categorized as belonging to distinct categories...speakers will perceive a sound as either a [p] or a [b], but not as blend, even if physically it fallssomewhere between the two sounds.”
This is seen through the Bottlenose’s ability to communicate using two different sounds, these are, clicks and whistles. The click is a type of echolocation andconsists of quick broadband pulses. It is used to locate and communicate with other dolphins. The whistle is used for communication and contact calls by using their ‘signature whistle’. A ‘signaturewhistle’ is an individual and unique sound emitted by the bottlenose dolphin and it develops early in its life, it is usually an imitation of the mothers call. Dolphins are able to emit their own whistleand use other dolphin’s signature when trying to communicate with them.
Dolphins also use visuals to communicate, such as, air bubbles and postural pointing. Postural pointing is used to grab theattention of another animal; scientists argue that this may show ‘theory of mind’. So if a dolphin were to combine a ‘signature whistle’ with a pointing gesture, this would show duality ofpatterning,
“This means that the discrete parts of a language can be recombined in a systematic way to create new forms...Duality of patterning refers to the ability to recombine small units in different...