Learning Language

1. Learning Language Chapter 9

2. How is Language Possible? • Theories • Defining language • Design Features • Primates • Acquisition of Language • Speech Sounds • 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.

4. Defining Language

5. Defining Language • Hockett’s Design Features of language • 1960s • Defining what is unique to humans • Thirteen features • Four are unique to human language.

6. 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 /.

7. 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. Acquisition of Language • Development of linguistic ability is linked to maturation of cognitive processes • Sounds as abstract and arbitrary can be used to stand for objects and ideas • Chomsky (p.247): • “speaker’s ability to produce & understand instantly new sentences that are not similar to those previously heard… It seems plain that language acquisition is based on the child’s discovery of what from a formal point of view is a deep & abstract theory- a generative grammar of his/her language” • Jean Piaget & Lev Vygotsky’s theories • Individual cognition & social needs as driving force for language

10. 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 & speak single words (Holophrastic) • 15 months – naming “explosion” • 2 years – simple sentences, displacement • Then – negatives, questions, clauses.

11. 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?

12. Complex Grammars • Cognitive development and experiential maturation stimulate children to expand their linguistic abilities • Two important themes: • Development awareness that organization w/in sentences is significant • Transferring learning from one context to others by processes of analogy & rule generalization.

13. WHEN is Language Possible? • Connected to HOW • Involves research into brain… • And vocal tract… • And origins of culture….

14. 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.

15. Lateralization & Language • Left hemisphere • association • calculation • analysis • language • Right hemisphere • touch • space • music • contexts for language use. • Two cerebral hemispheres • Connected by corpus callosum

16. Language Areas of the Brain • Broca’s area • Clarity of speech • Function words • Some word order • Wernicke’s area • Understanding words • Producing sentences.

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. 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.