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WHAT IS LANGUAGE?

WHAT IS LANGUAGE?. HUMAN AND ANIMAL LANGUAGES. HUMAN AND ANIMAL LANGUAGES The issue of continuity. Are humans just a step further in practising an adapted behaviour? What are the similarities and differences in human and animal communication? Are they qualitative or quantitave?

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WHAT IS LANGUAGE?

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  1. WHAT IS LANGUAGE? HUMAN AND ANIMAL LANGUAGES

  2. HUMAN AND ANIMAL LANGUAGES The issue of continuity • Are humans just a step further in practising an adapted behaviour? • What are the similarities and differences in human and animal communication? • Are they qualitative or quantitave? - measurable? - origin?

  3. LANGUAGE AS A SYSTEM • Duality • Patterning • Structural dependence „But I’m not so think as you drunk I am.” (Sir J.C. Squire, writer)

  4. How many possibilities are there to order the following items in a meaningful way? • Boathouse vs. houseboat • A, B, S, T • I, walks, on, long, sometimes, go • Tabs, bats, stab, ??sbat • I sometimes go on long walks. • Sometimes, I go on long walks. • I go on long walks sometimes. • ??On long walks, I go sometimes. • ??Go I sometimes on long walks.

  5. Reflexiveness "As modifiers of nouns, present and past participles of verbs function very much like adjectives. Indeed, they are sometimes regarded as adjectives when they modify nouns.”

  6. LANGUAGE AS A UNIQUE HUMAN CAPACITY • Genetically coded ability: • Unique cognitive system • Unique vocal system • Wiring • LAD

  7. Where is language in the brain?

  8. Signals

  9. Why are vocal signals easier to use? • Work from a distance: sender and receiver do not have to be close • Work in the dark • Receiver does not have to turn toward sender • Can be used simultaneously with other activities

  10. Focus on sound signals • Rapidly fading signal • - Special memory • - Bears • Total feedback • - Talking to yourself

  11. Traditional transmission vs. Genetically coded behaviour • Birds

  12. Species-specific behaviour

  13. LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATION • Interaction, negotiation of meaning

  14. Function and intention • Chimps and dolphins

  15. SpecialisationInterchangeability • Peacocks

  16. No Past Future Questions Lies DisplacementPrevarification

  17. LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PRODUCT • Bonding (phatic communication) • Expressing self, establishing status in community (e.g. keeping a dialect) • Operating social ties and institutions • Recording and passing on info from generation to generation (schooling, literature) • Elisa

  18. What determines the nature of signals? • Higher position on the evolutionary scale? - Of birds and chimpanzees • Social activity? - Of cuckoos, bees and ancient hunters

  19. Arbitrary symbols “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty saidin a rather scornful tone, “it means just whatI choose it to mean – neither more notless.”(L. Carroll: Alice in Wonderland) Animals: signal meaning Humans: interpretation is based on consensus

  20. Semanticity, openness • Can you guess the meaning of the following words? • Staycation • Credit crunch • Bossnapping • Unfriend • Tweetup • Jeggings • Snollygosters

  21. What is language? • Systematic and generative • A set of arbitrary symbols • Primarily verbal signals but also visual • Conventionalised meanings • Used for communication only • Operates in a speech community • Essentially human • Both language and language learning have universal features

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