Abstract
The author addresses the problem of human and non-human animal relations by analyzing the course and consequences of a scientific experiment presented in Roger Fouts’ Next of Kin. Since the scholar’s testimony, being an example of primatological storytelling follows the patterns of various literary models, Waligóra examines it using the tools of literary studies. At the same time, he considers – in the context of animal studies and the animal-environmental turn – the ethical conditions of various 20th-century primate language teaching projects, including Fouts’ description of teaching sign language to the chimpanzee Washoe. In addition, he recognizes and classifies the project as a convincing exemplification of the gestural hypothesis, i.e. the primacy of gestures in the process of evolution of human linguistic ability.