Constructing Identity The Source of Language

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Constructing Identity The Source of Language?
Paper presented at the Constructing Identities
Conference, Cardiff University 22 June 2006

• Martin Edwardes
• University of East London
• martin.edwardes_at_btopenworld.com

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Language Origins - Names and Faces
Steven Pinker
Michael C Corballis
Derek Bickerton
Noam Chomsky
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The Pirahã Language without Recursion
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Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) and
Bonobo (Pan paniscus)
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Language Universals

• Action-object there are two types of
  experience performing an action and encountering
  a thing.
• Subject-verb-object there are three roles in an
  observed event the action performed, the thing
  performing the action, and the thing the action
  is performed on

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Modelling Requires Brain Power
Chimpanzee
Human
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Modelling the Self some questions answered?

• Who am I?
• What can I do?
• When can I do it?
• What can I tell you?
• What can you tell me?
• How can we work together?
• Why should we work together?
• How am I able to change myself?

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Co-operative HuntingBrings Home the Bacon
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Ritual and Cultural Co-operation
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Constructing Identity The Source of Language?
Thank you for listening
Martin Edwardes University of East
London martin.edwardes_at_btopenworld.com