ANTH151 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Lithic Technology, Merlin Donald, Acculturation

47 views6 pages
Language origin and development: The ability to communicate do other animals
talk?
Noam Chomsky and Innate Grammar
o Saw an unbridgeable gap between animal calls and speech
o Saltation’ leap to language
o Chomksy: humans born with innate grammar because language too
complex to learn (‘mental module’)
o Made it hard to talk about language evolution
Saltation event or emerging gradually over evolutionary time?
o Challenge is how to study unique system that leaves no physical trace
Background
o Semantics the study of word meaning (vocab)
o Semiotics the study of grammatical structuring (profoundly
distinguishes language from animal call systems)
o Animal call systems
o What were the first languages like? Proto-languages?
Evolution of language:
o When did language arise?
Difficult to say because of absence of material remains, but
500,000 to 50,000 years ago
o Brain large enough 500,000 years ago
o Anatomical changes in throat likely in place before split from
Neandertals? Hypoglossal nerve, descent of larynx
o Modern humans frequently said to arise 200-250,000 years ago
o Evidence of ‘cultural big bang’ only about 50,000 years ago?
o No intermediate steps preserved, no comparative animal cases so hard
to even guess what phylogenetic trajectory would have been
o Children learning language a poor analogue because they are immersed
in language environment
How is language different from a call system?
Animal communication many forms of communication: whale song, bee
dancing, prairie dog ‘talking’, dolphin whistles, vervet monkey calls,
chimpanzee hoots
Different from ‘animal languages’
Human language - this is what makes it different:
Arbitrariness no inherent link between symbol and signified
Cultural transmission
Discreteness language built up of smaller units (unlike call systems)
Displacement
Layers language has both semantic and surface meaning
Metalinguistics talk about talk
Productivity
Recursive phrases inside phrases or nested
What can language do?
Human languages vs. animal call systems
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Unlock document

This preview shows pages 1-2 of the document.
Unlock all 6 pages and 3 million more documents.

Already have an account? Log in
o Displacement talk about something not present (not just indexical)
Things absent, remembered, abstractions
o Productivity ability to produce novel expressions
o Cultural transmission codes must be learned; complexity greater
o Other animals may have latent potential…
Communication e.g. birdsong:
o Young birds learn species-typical songs from adults
o Dialects form from learning
o Birds have critical learning period when adult influence is crucial
o To develop song, birds must hear typical songs and hear themselves
o Young birds go through ‘subsong’ phase like babbling
o Vocal imitation self reinforcing
o Left brain hemisphere specialised
Evidence of the capacity for language in hominin evolution:
o Shift in anatomy chimpanzee and human throat and mouth
(larynx)
Throat and mouth - newborn infant, neanderthal, adult human
‘Great leap’ in language?
o Evidence from lithic technology should make us suspicious about
sudden change in cognition (long periods of intermediate steps v.
saltation events)
o Because no material evidence of language, intermediate steps wiped
out
o People do exist who have no language (e.g. the deaf in places without
sign language)
o Absence of language at crucial stage deflects cognitive development
Evidence from gesture
o Original languages may have been gestural
Overlap in brain areas (dexterity vocal control is difficult)
o Merlin Donald argues ‘mimetic’ reasoning before symbolic (symbol
before grammar)
o Some evidence of primary grammatical order? Speakers of SVO
languages shift to SOV when gesturing
The ‘first language’ communities
o Understanding first languages by analogy to present might be like
studying first tools by analogy to current tools
o Earliest communities were tiny, with intense, long-term relations.
‘Society of intimates’ with ‘all generic information shared’
o Early communities likely did not amass so much information and may
have been socially closed. Non-explicit opaque expression.
Stages of language evolution (proposal)
o Symbols unlike calls, symbols have multiple uses e.g. food…,
food!, food? Etc. Formulaic phrases can survive brain damage to
language
o Open class of symbols most complex call system: dozens average
adult = 10s of 1000s of words generative phonology (syllables)
o Concatenation multiple words (infant ‘sentences’)
o Simple syntax using word order to communicate e.g. pidgin
o Full fledged grammar phrasing, relational words and infection
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Unlock document

This preview shows pages 1-2 of the document.
Unlock all 6 pages and 3 million more documents.

Already have an account? Log in

Document Summary

Proto-languages: evolution of language, when did language arise, difficult to say because of absence of material remains, but. 500,000 to 50,000 years ago: brain large enough 500,000 years ago, anatomical changes in throat likely in place before split from. How is language different from a call system: animal communication many forms of communication: whale song, bee dancing, prairie dog talking", dolphin whistles, vervet monkey calls, chimpanzee hoots, different from animal languages". Society of intimates" with all generic information shared": early communities likely did not amass so much information and may have been socially closed. Hopi verbs designate degree of definiteness: whorf"s examples, nootka language (vancouver islands) Culture" becomes biological as language affects brain function. In long run, capacity for language likely proved an advantage in selection, What can we do with language: human language distinctive in that it has all the characteristics, language generates a shared virtual world" of abstract concepts, ideas, mistakes, memories and expectations.

Get access

Grade+20% off
$8 USD/m$10 USD/m
Billed $96 USD annually
Grade+
Homework Help
Study Guides
Textbook Solutions
Class Notes
Textbook Notes
Booster Class
40 Verified Answers
Class+
$8 USD/m
Billed $96 USD annually
Class+
Homework Help
Study Guides
Textbook Solutions
Class Notes
Textbook Notes
Booster Class
30 Verified Answers

Related Documents