HUMAN AND ANIMAL LANGUAGES WHAT IS LANGUAGE? HUMAN AND ANIMAL LANGUAGES

HUMAN AND ANIMAL LANGUAGES The issue of continuity Are humans just a step further in practising an adapted behaviour? What are the similarities and differences in human and animal communication? Are they qualitative or quantitave? - measurable? - origin?

LANGUAGE AS A SYSTEM Duality Patterning Structural dependence „But I’m not so think as you drunk I am.” (Sir J.C. Squire, writer)

How many possibilities are there to order the following items in a meaningful way? Boathouse vs. houseboat A, B, S, T I, walks, on, long, sometimes, go Tabs, bats, stab, ??sbat I sometimes go on long walks. Sometimes, I go on long walks. I go on long walks sometimes. ??On long walks, I go sometimes. ??Go I sometimes on long walks.

Reflexiveness "As modifiers of nouns, present and past participles of verbs function very much like adjectives. Indeed, they are sometimes regarded as adjectives when they modify nouns.”

LANGUAGE AS A UNIQUE HUMAN CAPACITY Genetically coded ability: Unique cognitive system Unique vocal system Wiring LAD

Where is language in the brain?

Signals

Why are vocal signals easier to use? Work from a distance: sender and receiver do not have to be close Work in the dark Receiver does not have to turn toward sender Can be used simultaneously with other activities

Focus on sound signals Rapidly fading signal - Special memory - Bears Total feedback - Talking to yourself

Traditional transmission vs. Genetically coded behaviour Birds

Species-specific behaviour

LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATION Interaction, negotiation of meaning Peacocks

Function and intention Chimps and dolphins Washoe video

Specialisation Interchangeability Peacocks

Displacement Prevarification No Past Future Questions Lies

LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PRODUCT Bonding (phatic communication) Expressing self, establishing status in community (e.g. keeping a dialect) Operating social ties and institutions Recording and passing on info from generation to generation (schooling, literature) Elisa

What determines the nature of signals? Higher position on the evolutionary scale? - Of birds and chimpanzees Social activity? - Of cuckoos, bees and ancient hunters

Arbitrary symbols Animals: signal meaning “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more not less.” (L. Carroll: Alice in Wonderland) Animals: signal meaning Humans: interpretation is based on consensus

Semanticity, openness Can you guess the meaning of the following words? Staycation Credit crunch Bossnapping Unfriend Tweetup Jeggings Snollygosters As is usual at this time of year, the Oxford English Dictionary is pointing out the words it has added in the last 12 months. “It has been another rich year,” says Susie Dent, the lexicographic specialist who led the comprehensive scanning of more than 2 billion words. “Last year, we found that ‘credit crunch’ was the most familiar new word, and the effect of the recession has stayed with us through 2009.” Staycation – a money-saving holiday at home – is an elision of words that caught on immediately. ‘Zombie bankers’ are only one of a rich vocabulary from the fallout of the City’s near-meltdown: paywalls, freemiums (free service providers with paid-for premium extras) and bossnapping, to oppose sackings or pay cuts, are also popular. The overwhelming influence of the internet also continued, with ‘Unfriend’ coming from the practice of dropping a contact from a Facebook site. Although voted the word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary, the UK uses the alternative ‘Defriend’. ‘Tweetup’ has prospered via the practice of organising gatherings through Twitter, using the rhyme with “meet” in the traditional way of creators of new words. ‘Simples’, meanwhile, comes from an older-fashioned source. “It appeared on the ‘compare the meerkat’ TV adverts for insurance and quickly become a catchphrase said to mean something very easy to achieve,” says Dent. “It really seems to have captured the public’s imagination in 2009.” ‘Jeggings’ comes from the traditional word-marrying school of new terms – mixing jeans and leggings to describe new clothing style. ‘Snollygosters’, meaning “shrewd, unprincipled people”, is an old word revived: first recorded in 1855, it fell into obscurity until the first stirrings of election fever in autumn 2009.

What is language? Systematic and generative A set of arbitrary symbols Primarily verbal signals but also visual Conventionalised meanings Used for communication only Operates in a speech community Essentially human Both language and language learning have universal features