The development of human language: theories and brain areas involved

Facultad de Lenguas y Educación

Patricia González Grado en Educación Primaria Usos y Funciones de la Lengua Inglesa I

UNIT 1: The development of human language

GLOBAL CAMPUS NEBRIJA Patricia González

UNIT 1 The development of human language

1.1 Human v.s Animal language

1.2 The expansion of modern humans and human evolution

1.3 Origins of human language

1.4 Language and the brain

1.4.1 Language areas in the brain.

1.5 Language acquisition

1.5.1 Crystal's Imitation Theory

1.5.2 Chomsky's Innateness Hypothesis

1.5.3 Piaget's Cognitive Theory

1.5.4 Skinner's Input Theory (Behaviourism)

1.6 Some brief conclusions

TEST

Bibliography Usos y Funciones de la Lengua Inglesa I. [2] GLOBAL CAMPUS NEBRIJAGLOBAL CAMPUS NEBRIJA

UNIT 1

1. The development of human language

1.1 Human vs. Animal language

If someone is asked what the main difference between humans and animals is, their answer will probably be 'language'. Language is fundamental to human existence and it is difficult to imagine life without it. In fact, the word 'language' originally referred to a part of the body -language is derived from the Latin word lingua, meaning tongue. But at the same time, animals also communicate: they use sounds, movements, and even odour to pass on messages or to communicate social status to their congeners. Humans have the capacity of communicating among themselves using different systems that go from the simplest ones (basic sounds and gestures) to extremely complex formulas to pass information. One of the properties that characterise humans is their capacity of acquiring and using complex language systems that are far more sophisticated than those used by other species. This capacity has been really important for the development of human society and technology. One of the most important advantages that human language brings is the capacity of acquiring and storing new knowledge that is relevant for the evolution of rational thought. It is pretty obvious that our language is quantitatively more complex (more sounds, more words, more structures) but it is not so clear if it is also qualitatively better. There are other species that have relatively complex communication systems (dolphins, monkeys, bees, etc.), some of them even have the capacity of learning and understanding some aspects of human language (dogs can recognise and understand basic orders, and parrots can imitate human sounds). They cannot develop this system more due mainly to physical limitations. Animals who communicate with one another have what is known as a closed vocal system: this means different sounds cannot be combined together to produce new symbols with different meanings. Humans, by contrast, have open vocal systems, which allow for combinations of symbols to create new symbols with a totally new meaning and therefore allows for an infinite number of ideas to be expressed. During the 70s, there were many projects that tried to test the capacity of some primates to learn human language. Some of those primates were taught a pidgin version of American Sign Language (ASL), their symbols but not their combinatory rules (grammar) while they were monitored. Finally, they developed a basic communicative system based on ASL with combinatory structures similar to the ones used by human babies under two years old. The objective was to check if they were capable of develop naturally the combinatory structures that children acquire when they interact with adults while growing up. It is a process of imitation and cognitive awareness in which children and the primates tested become more creative in the use of the acquired words/signs developing thus their language system. The big differences between primates and children are the limited capacity of such language development (children go on increasing and modifying their system even during their adult life) and the complexity of the relationship stablished among the linguistic elements used by children (more complex semantic relations are stablished through the use or declensions and particles). Communication in both animals and humans consists of signals. Signals are sounds or gestures that have meaning to those using them. The use and meaning of those symbols are framed by the context where they are produced and present a specific communicative objective: for example, many animals roar, growl, or groan in response to threats of danger; similarly, humans may wave their arms or scream in the event of something dangerous.

1 Extracted from: https://owlcation.com/stem/The-difference-between-animal-and-human-communication Usos y Funciones de la Lengua Inglesa I. [3] 30/8/2017GLOBAL CAMPUS NEBRIJA However, despite presenting basic similarities that were probably more evident during the first stages of human evolution (when social interaction and technological development were in their earlier stages), the cognitive and physical differences that allowed humans to develop their language system in a more sophisticated way are still there.

These main differences are listed in the chart below:

The 7 main differences in depth:

1- Duality: Each human language has a fixed number of sounds called "phonemes" that combine to create "morphemes", the smallest units that contains meaning. Thus, language has got two levels of patterning that are not present in other animals' communication.

JR Distinctive sounds, called phonemes, are arbitrary and have no meaning. But humans can string these sounds in an infinite number of ways to create meaning via words and sentences.

Other animals do not communicate by arranging arbitrary sounds, which limits the number of messages they can create.

2- Creativity: Humans use their linguistic knowledge to produce new units and complex structures in order to communicate. They manipulate phonemes, morphemes, words, and phrases in a way so they can express an infinite number of ideas. Animal language is a closed system that does not allow such flexibility. It cannot produce new units that can cover what has been newly learnt; neither can they express complex ideas or thoughts.

3- Displacement: Humans can talk about things and places that are not there or that do not even exist in a real sphere. They can also refer to things or events that happened in a past time or might happen in the future. Animals are strongly connected to the present and the environment surrounding them. They communicate in relation to the stimuli they receive from their surroundings such as food or danger. Because of this, human language is considered context-free, whereas animal communication is mostly context-bound.

Once upon a time Human language can talk about things that aren't happening here or now.

DANGER! Other animals react only to stimuli in the present.

4- Interchangeability: Human language can be used by both sexes without any special distinction; however, certain communications that take place in the animal world is limited to one of the genders (i.e. some mating ritual are only performed by the male; bee dancing is only performed by worker bees, which are female).

5- Cultural Transmission: Human language and everything attached to it (cultural and social relations) is transmitted from one generation to the next. Humans brought up in different cultures learn different languages and social norms; however, it is possible for a person to learn the language and social rules from a culture different to theirs. Animals are limited to their kind, more specifically to their subspecies, so they are not able to learn how to communicate with other animals. Their communication ability is transmitted biologically.

6- Arbitrariness: Language is a symbolic system. The signs, or words, in language have no inherent connection to what they signify or mean (that's why one object can have so many names in different languages). These signs can also be written with the symbols, or alphabet, of that language. Both verbal and written language can be Usos y Funciones de la Lengua Inglesa I. [5] 30/8/2017GLOBAL CAMPUS NEBRIJA passed down to future generations. Animal communication is not symbolic, which means ideas cannot be preserved for the future.

7- Biology: That human language is basically based on vocal communication highlights the fact that humans have the required physical structure that allows them to produce and modulate sounds into words. Human vocal cords can produce a large number of sounds. Each human language uses a number of those sounds. Animals and birds have entirely different biological structures, which impact the way they can form sounds.

If you want to know more, click on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Onp5caCVV6w&list=WL&index=5

1.2 The expansion of modern humans and human evolution

The study of human evolution has made recent advances, and we now have a reasonable model of how humans spread around the globe populating it with Homo sapiens sapiens. The basic findings say that modern humans descend from a small group, perhaps a single tribe, which most probably lived in East Africa and spread slowly from there to the rest of Africa beginning around 100.000 years ago. About 50,000 years ago growth became more rapid, generating a fast demographic and geographic expansion that populate the continent . The Old World (Africa and Eurasia) was the time of the modern human expansion to places inhabited by other earlier humans, who had previously spread from Africa. At the time of the expansion of modern humans out of Africa, Neandertals lived in Europe and West Asia, but disappeared very quickly when modern humans arrived to Europe. The settling of the world by modern humans must have started first from East Africa to the nearest parts of Asia. It also continued north, probably along the coast of East Asia settling in Japan, and later gave rise to a migration to the American continent. It is possible that this migration was also performed via boats and thanks to them, they reached also Oceania. Another branch of human migration went to West Europe. The stimuli to growth and expansion were very often technological innovations and among the most important ones that promoted the migratory movements was human language. Every human individual, with few exceptions, can learn any language in existence, and all living languages show more or less the same degree of complexity. It is unlikely that languages developed suddenly, but it is more likley that there were several stages of improvement, and the current degree of development was reached in the final stage. As we have seen, the most important difference between humans and other animals is the ability to speak a language which has dramatically increased our capacity to communicate. Communication is the source of culture, understanding 'culture' as the ability to learn from past experience or from the experience of others and thus the ability to accumulate knowledge over generations. This theory gives importance to language as the property which was common to the group that multiplied and rapidly settled the whole Earth. From a genetic point of view, we can conclude that this original African tribe that started the migration movement spoke initially a single language, from which most, if not all, modern languages derived.

1.3 Origins of human language

Noam Chomsky said: "Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation."2 Many definitions of language have been proposed over time. Although they vary in the wording, they are generally similar in their meaning:

2 http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/language.html Usos y Funciones de la Lengua Inglesa I. [6] 30/8/2017