What is unique about human language?

1. What is unique about human language?

2. If human language is unique among animal systems of communication, it would have to include features of design not found elsewhere.

3. Charles Hockett (1977) developed a list of features that characterize speech. • Human languages possess all of the following design features, whereas the communicative systems of other animals possess only some. • The degree to which any one of the design features is employed also differs.

4. 2. Broadcast transmission and directional reception: speech sounds move out from the source of their origin in all directions. The sender and the receiver need not see each other to communicate. 1. Vocal-auditory channel

5. Speech sounds are heard within a very limited range and only at the time they are being produced. Then they are lost. Writing is relatively permanent in contrast. Rapid Fading

6. Human beings are capable of uttering what others say. This is not true of many animal species. 4. Interchangeability Today Koko (a female gorilla) uses over a thousand words of ASL to express her thoughts and feelings in complex phrases, and she invents new signs as the need arises. She also understands spoken English ASL: American Sign Language

7. Koko sign history ref. • http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/galleryfiles/545/Koko_Vocab_4Signs.jpg&imgrefurl=http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php%3FitemID%3D545%26version%3D286%26page%3D2&usg=__6qXcRSMHUK85kxfWmkJm1K4wZGs=&h=349&w=319&sz=30&hl=en&start=51&um=1&tbnid=HGBT2I6mdbi1pM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=110&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dspeech%2Binterchangeability%2Bpicture%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1024%26start%3D40%26um%3D1

8. Kanzi the bonobo • http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/susan_savage_rumbaugh_on_apes_that_write.html

9. Speakers of any language hear what they themselves are saying. They are therefore capable of monitoring their messages. As such, they can make any corrections they consider necessary or appropriate. Complete feedback

10. This means that the organs used for producing speech are specially adapted to that task. The human lips, tongue, throat, etc. have been specialized into speech apparati instead of being merely the eating apparati they are in many other animals. Dogs, for example, are not physically capable of all of the speech sounds that humans produce, because they lack the necessary specialized organs. 6. Specialization

11. Many communicative systems in the animal kingdom have semantic components. Degree is important here. 7. Semanticity – meaning is transmitted and received In no system other than human language is there such an elaborate correlation between the vast number of words and possible sentences and the widely different topics that humans talk about.

12. There is no intrinsic relationship between the form of a meaningful unit of a language (such as a word) and the concept for which the unit stands. 8. Arbitrariness

13. Messages in human languages do not consist of sounds that are continuous (like a siren). Messages are made up of discrete individually distinct segments. 9. Discreteness Moaning, crying, screaming are probably indiscrete sounds and less like language.

14. Humans can talk about (or write about) something that is far removed in time or space from the setting in which the communication occurs. 10. Displacement Like these two ladies, many Guatemalans sit to talk about the future under the new Social Democratic Government.

15. Humans are capable of making completely unprecedented statements and having them understood by the listener. "The little green men who live in my socks drawer told me that Elvis will come back from Mars on the 10th to do a benefit concert for unemployed Pekingese dogs." 11. Productivity or Openness

16. One does not inherit a particular language genetically. Children learn language from parents or others who speak to and with them. Speaking a particular language is therefore a part of one’s overall cultural behavior, that is, behavior acquired through learning. 12. Cultural transmission

17. The smallest meaningful parts of a language are made up of sounds characteristic of the language. The number of different contrastive sounds (phonemes) in English is relatively small – between three and four dozen, depending on the dialect. But the total number of the smallest meaningful units these sounds make up runs into many tens of thousands. 13. Duality of patterning !Xu (!Kung), who live in the Kalahari desert, have as many as 141 phonemes.

18. What a person may say can be completely false. Among animals the opossum may feign death or a bird may pretend to have a broken wing. Attempts at simulation are not common among animals. Prevarication

19. Humans can and do use language to discuss language or communication in general. Nonhuman animals do not appear to be capable of transmitting information about their own or other systems of communication. Reflexiveness

20. Speakers of any language can learn a second language or even several languages. Some communicative behavior among animals is also the result of learning, either by experience or from humans. No other animal has learned one or several systems of communication as complex as language. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6KvPN_Wt8I Learnability Alex “Irene Pepperberg of Brandeis University began working with Alex when he was little more than a year old, hoping to gain insights into avian intelligence. Her pioneering research revealed that Alex was no mere mimic: his skills in language and reasoning rivaled those of chimps and dolphins.” Kate Wong, science writer.

21. Human Intelligence And its relationship to language

22. Brain researchers Gerhard Roth and Ursula Dicke Mental or behavioral flexibility is a good measure of intelligence. Mental flexibility is the appearance of novel solutions that are not part of an animal’s normal repertoire. What is intelligence? Corvids such as crows and ravens • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmbWqyRdMF0

23. Absolute brain size? Is not an accurate measure of intelligence For example, Homo sapiens have much smaller brains than elephants and some cetaceans. Monkeys have much smaller brains than ungulates (hoofed animals) Brain characteristics that may be relevant for LANGUAGE ABILITY: Size, the most general of brain properties.

24. Encephalization quotient The extent to which the brain size of a given species deviates from the expected brain size based on a standard species of the same taxon. The cat is standard for mammals. The human brain is 7-8 times larger than expected. This large human brain is related to extremely rapid increases in brain size during hominid evolution. Dolphins, for example, have a brain size five times larger than would be expected. Relative brain size?This means that with increasing body size, brains become absolutely larger, but relatively smaller. Enchephalization quotient is not always an optimal predictor of intelligence, however. For example, New World capuchin monkeys have higher EQ than chimpanzees and gorillas despite their lower intelligence.

25. Size and power of the cortex, the density of and number of cortical neurons? From cortical volume and cell density, we can calculate the number of cortical neurons. The human cortex is smaller than cetaceans and elephants but has a higher cell density. Cats have much smaller brains than dogs, but a much higher cell density. Humans have the largest number of cortical neurons. Cetaceans and elephants closely follow humans.

26. Do humans and their brains have unique properties? Human intelligence appears to be the result of a combination of factors and the enhancement of properties that are also found in non-human primates. Old ideas • tool use (great apes and corvids or crow family) • tool making (great apes and corvids or crow family) • syntactical grammatical language (under debate) • consciousness … or conscious action and planning (evidence that great apes have some states of consciousness) • self-awareness (great apes and cetaceans) • imitation (under debate) • deception (found in monkeys, great apes) • theory of mind (under debate)

27. ‘I intend that you believe that I suppose that...’ Possible Unique Properties Theory of mind We think we know what other people are thinking. We anticipate and empathize as part of our ability to communicate.

28. Other areas of the brain and body related to speech

29. Damage to Wernicke's Area(Wernicke's aphasia) loss of the ability to understand language person can speak clearly, but the words that are put together make no sense. This way of speaking has been called "word salad" Wernicke’s speech areaIs not unique to humans.

30. Damage to Broca's Area(Broca's aphasia) prevents a person from producing speech person can understand language words are not properly formed speech is slow and slurred. Broca’s Area

31. Broca's area seems to be concerned not with the production of individual sounds but with the regulation of sequences of sounds. Chimpanzees have less need for more development of such an area. Chimanzee natural calls are not made up by varying the sequential order of elementary units. Chimpanzees have less need for duality of patterning or syntax.

32. Most paleontologists now understand that a second evolutionary pulse occurred around 1.9 million years ago that produced hominids with much larger brains, Homo erectus.  1) H. erectus had enlarged Broca’s area 2) H. erectus had an efficient walking style 3) H. erectus also used fire 4) First hominid to spread across the world 5) Migrated to China by 800,000 YA 6) Migrated to Europe by 500,000 YA 7) Replaced by Homo Sapiens beginning 60,000 YA

33. The human larynx is much lower in the throat Begins descent at about 3 months of age A second smaller descent occurs in males at puberty Lowered larynx means humans can produce a greater variety of sounds Evolution of vocal apparatus

34. A standard mammalian tongue rests flat in the oral cavity Non-human mammals are unable to create key vowel sounds Lowered larynx gives tongue room to move vertically and horizontally

35. XRay movie showing places of articulation http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/course/chapter3/placesmovie.htm XRay movie showing some manners of articulation http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/course/chapter3/mannermovie.htm

36. Fine, rapid motions of the tongue that modify formation of sounds … must be closely synchronized with lips and palate and vibrations of the larynx (a quantitative comparison of the degree of vocal motor control in humans and animals is yet unavailable) Sophisticated nervous control

37. Do brain and speech specialties come from responding to challenges from the environment? Do brain specialties come from complexities of social relationships? When and why did hominids evolve improved linguistic abilities?

38. Dunbar feels that the evidence points to human intelligence and large brains as the result of cognitive demands of living in complexly bonded social groups. Contrasts theories that large brains developed in order to solve ecological problems, or that … Human brain-size increases were associated with the production and use of tools. The Social Brain: Mind, Language, and Society in Evolutionary PerspectiveBy Robin Dunbar

39. ?? It may be that brains increased in size because of ecological problem solving. (This provided the opportunity for the species to exploit their larger brains for social purposes.) Do social situations require different or greater cognitive powers? Dunbar and others see natural selection as having occurred for social reasons, in terms of brain size.

40. The social brain hypothesis: neocortex size limits the number of relationships an individual animal can effectively maintain within its mental social world. • Neocortex is blue

41. Neocortex size limits the number of relationships an individual animal can effectively maintain within its mental social world • Not so much the total social group • Rather it is the inner social group that an individual primate is most concerned about. • This corresponds, in primates, to the number of key social partners an individual animal has, as defined by its number of regular grooming partners • And the number of individuals who are willing to act as allies during conflicts

42. In order to maintain a larger social group, an animal has to be able to service that group through grooming. A balancing act Rhesus monkeys The animal has to be able to integrate the group members into its mental social world and the time it can afford to invest in grooming with these individuals.

43. The larger the group size, the less possible for the individual to groom everybody. • She or he concentrates on a core group of partners. • As group size increases, primates invest increasingly on their core social partners. • Primates need to ensure that these alliances work effectively in order to buffer themselves against the costs of group living. • Costs increase with group size. • It is a balancing act between taking time to groom partners and taking time to get food and reproduce.

44. Group size limits are set by the point where, for any given species, social groups start to become unstable and fission rather easily. Limit points to group sizes in species Neocortex size correlates with common group size in a species.

45. For humans the common group size as related to neocortex size is about 150 people. That is about the number an individual might be able to ask a favor of and expect to have it granted

46. Until H. erectus … or later with archaic H. sapiens, group size was similar to the size of current non-human primate groups. Non-human primate populations now spend about 20 percent of their time in grooming activity. Until H. erectus, social grooming was probably sufficient to keep relationships going Grooming bonobos

47. With their group size of 150, humans would have to spend 43 percent of their time grooming to keep their social bonds active. Humans apparently spend 20 percent of their time talking to other people, on average.

48. With language, several individuals can be groomed at once It is possible to timeshare with speech in a way that is not possible with grooming. We can talk and walk or eat while grooming. Dunbar says that language evolved to bridge this gap in bonding time requirement

49. Language allows us to talk about events within our social network that happened during our absence. (Displacement) What non-human primates do not see they never know about. Humans are able to maintain a better knowledge database on a larger social network than any nonhuman primate.

50. Conventional grooming-based process for australopiths Increasing use of vocal chorusing to bond groups in the way that some living primates already do for H. erectus Language probably did not arise as single phenotypic or genotypic event but as series of stages.