ANTA02H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: American Sign Language, Noam Chomsky, Nonverbal Communication
Document Summary
The structure of language: introduction: language and communication, the evolution of language, the structure of language, meaning and symbolism (semiotics) Language and culture like two side of coin. Language is part of culture, but also tool through which culture is communicated. While many different animals and organisms can communicate only humans have the capacity of fully developed language- grammar, syntax, and speech. Allows humans to communicate cultural ideas and symbolic meaning from one generation to another in a cumulative fashion, and to generate new cultural ideas based on our experience. The logic of a culture is also the logic of its language --> how it orders and classifies the world. Linguist noam chomsky argues that the human brain contains a limited set of rules (universal grammar) for organizing language, so that all languages have a common structural basis. All humans have same physical capacity of language in their brain. Language is the core property that determines human being.
