Sign Language And Language Acquisition In Man And Ape

Sign Language And Language Acquisition In Man And Ape
Author: Fred C. C. Peng
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 165
Release: 2019-06-10
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000311465

This volume brings together recent research findings on sign language and primatology and offers a novel approach to comparative language acquisition. The contributors are anthropologists, psychologists, linguists, psycholinguists, and manual language experts. They present a lucid account of what sign language is in relation to oral language, and o

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

The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain
Author: Terrence W. Deacon
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 532
Release: 1998-04-17
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0393343022

"A work of enormous breadth, likely to pleasantly surprise both general readers and experts."—New York Times Book Review This revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic thinking: from the co-evolutionary exchange between language and brains over two million years of hominid evolution to the ethical repercussions that followed man's newfound access to other people's thoughts and emotions. Informing these insights is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes underlie the brain's development and function as well as its evolution. In contrast to much contemporary neuroscience that treats the brain as no more or less than a computer, Deacon provides a new clarity of vision into the mechanism of mind. It injects a renewed sense of adventure into the experience of being human.

The Education of Koko

The Education of Koko
Author: Francine Patterson
Publisher: Holt McDougal
Total Pages: 256
Release: 1981
Genre: Science
ISBN:

A personal, scientific account of the ground-breaking Project Koko discusses Patterson's controversial experimental program of teaching sign language to an ape.

From Hand to Mouth

From Hand to Mouth
Author: Michael C. Corballis
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2002
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780691088037

Writing with wit and eloquence, Corballis makes nimble reference to literature, mythology, natural history, sports, and contemporary politics as he explains in fascinating detail what is now known about the evolution of language. Line illustrations.

Perspectives on Classifier Constructions in Sign Languages

Perspectives on Classifier Constructions in Sign Languages
Author: Karen Emmorey
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 350
Release: 2003-04-02
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1135632960

This text is the result of work discussed and presented at the Workshop on Classifier Constructions. It aims to bring to light issues related to the study of classifier constructions and to present contemporary linguistic and psycholinguistic analyses of these constructions.

The Evolution of Human Language

The Evolution of Human Language
Author: Wolfgang Wildgen
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2004-01-01
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9789027251930

Wolfgang Wildgen presents three perspectives on the evolution of language as a key element in the evolution of mankind in terms of the development of human symbol use. (1) He approaches this question by constructing possible scenarios in which mechanisms necessary for symbolic behavior could have developed, on the basis of the state of the art in evolutionary anthropology and genetics. (2) Non-linguistic symbolic behavior such as cave art is investigated as an important clue to the developmental background to the origin of language. Creativity and innovation and a population's ability to integrate individual experiments are considered with regard to historical examples of symbolic creativity in the visual arts and natural sciences. (3) Probable linguistic 'fossils' of such linguistic innovations are examined. The results of this study allow for new proposals for a 'protolanguage' and for a theory of language within a broader philosophical and semiotic framework, and raises interesting questions as to human consciousness, universal grammar, and linguistic methodology. (Series B)

Roots of language

Roots of language
Author: Derek Bickerton
Publisher: Language Science Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2016-02-05
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 3946234089

Roots of language was originally published in 1981 by Karoma Press (Ann Arbor). It was the first work to systematically develop a theory first suggested by Coelho in the late nineteenth century: that the creation of creole languages somehow reflected universal properties of language. The book also proposed that the same set of properties would be found to emerge in normal first-language acquisition and must have emerged in the original evolution of language. These proposals, some of which were elaborated in an article in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (1984), were immediately controversial and gave rise to a great deal of subsequent research in creoles, much of it aimed at rebutting the theory. The book also served to legitimize and stimulate research in language evolution, a topic regarded as off-limits by linguists for over a century. The present edition contains a foreword by the author bringing the theory up to date; a fuller exposition of many of its aspects can be found in the author's most recent work, More than nature needs (Harvard University Press, 2014).