How and When is Language
Possible?
How is Language Possible?
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Theories…
Defining language…
Primates…
Humans…
When is language possible?…
How is language possible?….
Theories About Beginnings
• Early speculative theories
– philosophical
• 1700s: gestures, social contracts
• 1800s: imitations, emotions, natural sounds, group work
– Bow wow, ouch, ding dong, yo-he-ho
– 1866 Linguistic Society of Paris bans discussions
• Contemporary data-based theories
– anthropological, holistic
• using all four subfields of anthropology.
Contemporary Theories
• Theoretical linguistics:
– Still speculative
• Language too complicated to have evolved over time
• Language developed all at once and is 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.
Defining Language
Language
Communication
Sending
Yes
Yes
Receiving
Yes
Possible
Responding
Yes
Possible
Socially learned
Yes
No
Complex grammar
Yes
No
Lies, games, etc.
Yes
No
Defining Language
• Hockett’s Design Features of language
– 1960s
– Defining what is unique to humans
– Thirteen features
• Four are unique to human language.
Design Features of Language
Not Unique to Humans
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Vocal/auditory channel
Broadcast transmission / directional reception
Rapid fading
Interchangeability
Total feedback
Specialization
Semanticity
Arbitrariness
Discreteness
Design Features of Language
Unique to Humans
(according to Hockett)
• Displacement
• Productivity
• Traditional transmission
• Duality of patterning
– / k + æ + t + s /.
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
– /kæts, ækts, skæt, tæks, æskt/.
Primate Communication
• Experiments:
– Chimpanzees
– Gorillas
– Bonobos (video)
• 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.
Children and Language
• 3 days – recognizing parents’ sounds
• 3 months – cooing, playing with intonation
• 6 months – babbling, playing with sounds
– 9 months – beginning signs
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1 year – recognizable spoken words
15 months – naming “explosion”
2 years – simple sentences, displacement
Then – negatives, questions, clauses.
Theories about Language in Children
• Innatist theories
– Language hard-wired in brain
• Language acquisition device helps w adjustments
• Behaviorist theories
– Stimulus and reward
• Doesn’t explain “mouses”
• Cognitivist theories
– Concepts come first
• Research suggests simultaneity
• The theory theory (active construction of a grammar
theory)
– Children observe and build theories
• Different languages - different theories?
– Korean vs English, verbs vs nouns.
Anthropological Observations
• Ochs and Schieffelin
• Stress ethnographic field studies of children
• Language learned in social settings.
– Encouragement by adults is not universal
– Baby talk is not universal
• Becoming part of a speech community
– Learning how and when to use language
• Ideas about language learning
– Bilingualism vs monolingualism
– Can adults learn more languages?
• Adult impatience
• Classwork vs fieldwork.
WHEN is Language Possible?
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Connected to HOW
Involves research into brain…
And vocal tract…
And origins of culture….
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
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“Neocortex”
Controls language
80% of human brain
Divided (by sulci) into lobes
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Frontal
Temporal
Parietal
Occipital.
Lateralization & Language
• Two cerebral hemispheres
• Connected by corpus callosum
• Left hemisphere
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association
calculation
analysis
language
• Right hemisphere
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touch
space
music
contexts for language
use
Language Areas of the
Brain
• Broca’s area
– Clarity of speech
– Function words
– Some word order
• Wernicke’s area
– Understanding
words
– Producing
sentences.
The Fossil Record
• Koobi Fora, Kenya
– Broca’s & Wernicke’s areas present
• In Homo habilis 1.8-2 mya
• But not in Australopithecus (Paranthropus)
1.26-1.8 mya
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.
The Fossil Record
• Evidence from basicranium
– Where muscles attach
– More curved = lower larynx
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Australopithecus (1.5 mya) not curved
Homo habilis (2 mya) no data
Homo erectus (1.6 mya) some curve
Premodern Humans (400,000 ya) definite curve
Modern Homo sapiens (125,000 ya) ditto
BUT Neanderthal (130,000 ya) somewhat
different.
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.
Archaeology and The Fossil
Record
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Robust forms of Australopithecus (1.5 mya) tool use?
Homo habilis (2 mya) Stone Tools
Homo erectus (1.8 mya) bifacial tools, organized hunting?
Premodern Humans (400,000 ya) shelters
Modern Homo sapiens (200,000 ya) increased tool complexity
• Neanderthal (130,000 ya) burials, music.
Tools and Language?
• Language and complex behaviors
– Remembering steps
– Transmitting instructions (teaching and learning)
• Mirror Neurons
• Italian researchers were studying motor neurons in F5 area
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of macaque brains – seemed to find motor activity almost
formed a kind of “vocabulary” when They found, by accident, that certain neurons not only
“fire” when the animal engages in motor action, but fire
when observing others engage in the same action. F5 area
is in same location as Broca’s area in humans!
So, learning and observing tool making may be similar to
learning language.
Putting it all
Together
• Using all four fields of anthropology:
– Culture (tools) possible 2.5 mya, early H. habilis
– Signed language possible 2mya, H. habilis
– Spoken language possible 125,000 ya, H. sapiens;
perhaps much earlier.
Somehow, Closed Systems
Became Open Systems
• How do you open a closed call/sign system?
– Through blending (Hockett)
• Situations requiring communicating two ideas [dangerous food]
– Through play? (Ottenheimer)
• Mimicking, pretending, discovering symbolism
• How do you discover/use duality of patterning?
– Through identifying discrete recombinable units
• Also through play?
– Playing with symbols
– Playing with language
 Shintiri, other Pig Latins.