PSYC 050 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Actual Infinity, Phoneme
Document Summary
Every psychologists has had to make a claim about the nature of language. Theres an entire field devoted to language, linguistics. You could use language in a different sense- describe animals, music, art, or any communicative system. if you use the word language broadly, from a scientific view, its useless to ask interesting questions. Once we"ve made generalizations about language, we can ask to what extent do other systems relate to it. 2 important facts- 1) languages all share some deep, intricate universals, can all convey abstract notions like thoughts and proposition and spatial relations 2) languages are very different, if you know one you wont necessarily know another. Any adwquate theory of language must allow for commonalities and differences. Darwin said man has an instinctive tendency to speak as we see in kids, but no kids have instinct to bake or write. Hes saying language is special and comes naturally. Facts that support this- every society has language.
