How and When is Language Possible

1
How and When is Language Possible?
Chapter 8
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How is Language Possible?

• Theories
• Defining language
• Design Features
• Primates
• Children language acquisition
• When is language possible?
• How is language possible?.

3
Contemporary Theories

• Theoretical linguistics
• Still speculative
• Language- evolved at once
• Language- innate feature in humans
• Children born with universal grammar
• Only need to acquire specifics
• Linguistic anthropology
• Uses all four fields of anthropology
• Language too complicated to have developed all at
  once
• Language probably evolved slowly along with
  culture
• Children born with ability to learn language
• Learning takes place in social situations.

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Defining Language
5
Defining Language

• Hocketts Design Features of language
• 1960s
• Defining what is unique to humans
• Thirteen features
• Four are unique to human language.

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Design Features of Language

• Not Unique to Humans
• Vocal/auditory channel
• Broadcast transmission / directional reception
• Rapid fading
• Interchangeability
• Total feedback
• Specialization
• Semanticity
• Arbitrariness
• Discreteness.

• Unique to Humans
• (according to Hockett)
• Displacement
• Productivity
• Traditional transmission
• Duality of patterning
• / k æ t s /.

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Design Features and the Emergence of Human
Language

• The idea of blending
• Combining calls to establish productivity
• Starting from closed calls (limited, specific)
• A B A B
• danger food danger food
• Moving to blended calls (prelanguage)
• A B AB
• danger food dangerous food
• breakfast lunch brunch
• Making duality of patterning possible
• Isolation of units for recombining
• A B C ABC, CBA, BAC, ACB

8
Primate Communication

• Experiments
• Chimpanzees
• Gorillas
• Orangutans
• What this tells us about language
• Duality of patterning is uniquely human
• What it tells us about language origins
• Pre-language abilities of humans and other
  primates probably similar.

9
Children and Language

• 3 days recognizing parents sounds
• 3 months cooing, playing with intonation
• 6 months babbling, playing with sounds
• 9 months beginning signs
• 1 year recognizable spoken words
• 15 months naming explosion
• 2 years simple sentences, displacement
• Then negatives, questions, clauses.

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Theories about Language in Children

• Innatist theories
• Language hard-wired in brain
• Behaviorist theories
• Stimulus and reward
• Cognitivist theories
• Concepts come first
• The theory theory
• Children observe and build theories
• Different languages - different theories?

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WHEN is Language Possible?

• Connected to HOW
• Involves research into brain
• And vocal tract
• And origins of culture.

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The Human Brain

• Cortex
• The convoluted surface of the brain
• Two millimeters thick
• Surface area 1.5 square yards
• Contains 100 million neurons

• Oldest part of cortex
• Controls long term memory
• And emotion
• Newer part of cortex
• Neocortex
• Controls language
• 80 of human brain
• Divided into lobes
• Frontal
• Temporal
• Parietal
• Occipital.

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Lateralization Language

• Two cerebral hemispheres
• Connected by corpus callosum

• Left hemisphere
• association
• calculation
• analysis
• language

• Right hemisphere
• touch
• space
• music
• contexts for language use.

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Language Areas of the Brain

• Brocas area
• Clarity of speech
• Function words
• Some word order
• Wernickes area
• Understanding words
• Producing sentences.

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The Human Vocal Tract

• Lowering of the larynx
• Where vocal cords are located
• Lengthening of the pharynx
• More space for tongue
• Increased vowel resonance
• Differentiation of vowels i a u
• Human infants born with high larynx
• Begins to lower at three months
• Reaches adult location by 3-4 years
• Except in adult males further descent at
  adolescence.

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The Fossil Record

• Evidence from basicranium
• Where muscles attach
• More curved lower larynx
• Australopithecus (1.5 mya) not curved
• Homo habilis (2 mya) no data
• Homo erectus (1.6 mya) some curve
• Early Homo sapiens (400,000 ya) definite curve
• Homo sapiens sapiens (125,000 ya) ditto
• Neanderthal (130,000 ya) no curve.

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Origins of Culture

• Associating language with complex tools
• evolution of tool design provides clues
• complexity of Upper Paleolithic tools
• requires description (vs imitation)
• Associating language with cultural complexity
• art, music, ritual, cooperative
  hunting/childcare.

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The Fossil Record

• Australopithecus (1.5 mya) first stone tools
• Homo habilis (2 mya) control of fire
• Homo erectus (1.6 mya) organized hunting?
• Early Homo sapiens (400,000 ya) shelters, burials
• Homo sapiens sapiens (125,000 ya) knitting,
  basketweaving
• Neanderthal (130,000 ya) burials, music.

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Next

• Change and Choice
• Read
• Textbook Chapter 9
• Workbook/Reader
• Haller (pp. 114-120)
• Prepare to do
• Writing/Discussion Exercises (W/R p. 120-122)
• Practice with Languages (W/R pp. 122-124)
• Language Creating (W/R p. 129)
• Conversation partnering (W/R p. 129).