The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain

1998 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 437
Author(s):  
J. Marshall Unger ◽  
Terrence W. Deacon
Keyword(s):  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
The Brain

Linguists play catchup with evolution

2001 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 581-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
DEREK BICKERTON
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Computational Linguistics ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Language And Communication ◽  
Georgetown University ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Oxford University Press

Donald Loritz, How the brain evolved language. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. 227.Lyle Jenkins, Biolinguistics : exploring the biology of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii+264.In the course of reviewing recent books on the evolution of language and communication (Dunbar 1996, Hauser 1996, Deacon 1997) I have had occasion to note that relatively few writers on these topics know much about linguistics, and to wish that more of them did. I should have remembered the old adage that one shouldn't wish for things - one might get them.For more than a century, linguists honored the Linguistic Society of Paris's ban on all discussion of language evolution; other disciplines went ahead with it regardless. Now that the centrality of language evolution to any study of our species is becoming apparent, linguists are desperately trying to play catchup, and the two volumes reviewed here both appeared in the last couple of years. Both authors are linguists, albeit hyphenated ones. Donald Loritz teaches computational linguistics at Georgetown University; his doctorate was in psycholinguistics. Lyle Jenkins works in the Biolinguistics Institute in Cambridge, MA; however, his doctorate was in unhyphenated linguistics. It would be difficult to find two authors whose ideas were more diametrically opposed.

Is the Neural Basis of Vocalisation Different in Non-Human Primates and Homo Sapiens?

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Detlev Ploog
Keyword(s):  
Auditory System ◽  
Vocal Communication ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Nervous Control ◽  
Vocal Behaviour ◽  
The Voice ◽  
The Brain

From an evolutionary perspective, the voice was a prerequisite for the emergence of speech. Speech, the most advanced mode of vocal communication, became possible only after gradual transformations of the sound-producing system and its central nervous control, in co-evolution with the transformations of the auditory system, had taken place. The discussion suggests that the last step in the evolution of the phonatory system in the brain was the outgrowing and augmenting of the fine fibre portion of the pyramidal tract synapsing directly with the motor nuclei for the vocal cords and the tongue, so that the direct and voluntary control of vocal behaviour became possible. It holds that the answer to the question raised in the title is ‘yes’. The neural basis is in fact quite different. The chapter also explains this difference and its consequences for the evolution of language.

Peircean anti-psychologism and learning theory

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cary Campbell ◽  
Alin Olteanu ◽  
Sebastian Feil
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Ecological Perspective ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Developmental Progression ◽  
Semiotic Modeling ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Peircean Semiotics

Abstract Taking influence from Peirce’s phenomenological categories (Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness), a notion of what we call bottom-up modeling has become increasingly significant in research areas interested in learning, cognition, and development. Here, following a particular reading of Peircean semiotics (cf. Deacon, Terrence. 1997. The symbolic species: The co-evolution of language and the brain. London and New York: W. W. Norton; Sebeok, Thomas and Marcel Danesi. 2000. The forms of meaning: Modelling systems theory and semiotic analysis. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter), modeling, and thus also learning, has mostly been thought of as ascending from simple, basic sign types to complex ones (iconic – indexical – symbolic; Firstness – Secondness – Thirdness). This constitutes the basis of most currently accepted (neo-Peircean) semiotic modeling theories and entails the further acceptance of an unexamined a priori coherence between complexity of cognition and complexity of signification. Following recent readings of Peirce’s post-1900 semiotic, we will present, in abbreviated form, a discussion as to the limits of this theoretical approach for theories of learning that draws upon Peirce’s late semiotic philosophy, in particular his late work on iconicity and propositions. We also explore the corollary conceptions of semiotic resources and competences and affordances to develop an ecological perspective on learning that notably does not impose a linear developmental progression from simple to complex. In conclusion, we address some of the implications of this (post-Peircean) conceptualization for transdisciplinary research into learning.

scholarly journals Brains, genes, and language evolution: A new synthesis

2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 537-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
Morten H. Christiansen ◽  
Nick Chater
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
New Synthesis ◽  
Target Article ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Close Fit

AbstractOur target article argued that a genetically specified Universal Grammar (UG), capturing arbitrary properties of languages, is not tenable on evolutionary grounds, and that the close fit between language and language learners arises because language is shaped by the brain, rather than the reverse. Few commentaries defend a genetically specified UG. Some commentators argue that we underestimate the importance of processes of cultural transmission; some propose additional cognitive and brain mechanisms that may constrain language and perhaps differentiate humans from nonhuman primates; and others argue that we overstate or understate the case against co-evolution of language genes. In engaging with these issues, we suggest that a new synthesis concerning the relationship between brains, genes, and language may be emerging.

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