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Theories about language change
Human language and animal language
The origin of human language
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Recommended: Theories about language change
Introduction
Linguistics classifies language as a mechanism that permits free and creative expression of feelings into signs, and the opposite interpretation of such signs back into feelings (Christiansen & Kirby, 2005). According to Becker, 2005, “human language is seen as the last key evolution in the development of life on earth (2)”. His idea is that biological changes in humans are as a result of forces of evolution implying that human language originated from certain sources, and that its characteristics derived from human genes. Language by itself is a distinction amongst the various animal communication systems as it permits creation of infinite symbols through the innovative blending of finite vocabulary, using recursions (Caplan et al., 1984). In this regard, language is similar to the genetic code, which utilises a limited set of DNA bases to create numerous proteins.
Even though linguistics and psychologists are united in the notion that language is a natural system, there is a contradiction of way language originated and evolved. The leading theories are: grand change theory, gradual emergence theory, neo-Darwinian theory, and gene interaction theory (Aaron & Joshi, 2006). This paper will analyse two theories that have a biological perspective of the way language has evolved. The two theories that will be highlighted are neo-Darwinian and the gradual change with a further emphasis on the predictions that the theories make about the future.
Grand Change Theory
Chomsky as qtd., by Aaron & Joshi, proposed that language was inborn, a biological requisite, species specific, and had implications for genetic determination. This theory came after Chomsky defined universal grammar as a system of rules and principles that a...
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Descendants of humans who currently speak the current language which consists of the four levels might be using a human language that has extra levels due to natural selection processes. The gradual change in human language over time may be accompanied by adaptations which ultimately result in the old system of human language dying out. Therefore the theory stipulates that at one instance there will be no possibility of two forms of human language existing.
Conclusion
The two theories of language evolution prove that language in the future will not be the same as it is currently. Despite one advocating for gradual change and the other sudden, both of them claim that the evolution is random. Furthermore, the theories have proven that language evolution corresponds to human evolution where new language will ultimately be formed at the end of the process.
The prehistoric times stand evidence to the power of language as a tool for communication and growth. Language has proven to be an effective medium and factor surrounding the evolution of man. Language has played a big role in the development of individuals and societies. What is spoken and/or written, help in the initiation of imagination, expression of feelings, and conveyance of thoughts and ideas.
Hill, Jane H., P. J. Mistry, and Lyle Campbell. The Life of Language: Papers in Linguistics in Honor of William Bright. Berlin [etc.: Mouton De Gruyter, 1998. Print.
How can it be that something so uniquely human and commonplace in our everyday existence as language, could transcend the limits of our immediate understanding? We all know how to speak and comprehend at least one language, but defining what we actually know about that language an infinitely more demanding process. How can a child without previous knowledge of the construction and concepts of language be born into the world with an innate ability to apprehend any dialect? Mark Baker, in his book The Atoms of Language, seeks to address these unsettling questions, proposing as a solution, a set of underlying linguistic ingredients, which interact to generate the wide variety of languages we see today.
First version of their hypothesis is about human beings remarkable ability in language acquisition in their early life. In this hypothesis they predict that people's ability to acquire languages will be fade or decrease with maturity if they do not practice in early life. Whereas, they will have an active ability to acquire languages if they practice in their early life. The second version of their hypothesis is that human beings will completely or partially lose their available ability to acquire languages as time went by with maturity.
The analysis of Chomsky’s argument in Christiansen & Chater’s (2008) article suggests that there may be an innate universal grammar (UG), meaning that humans are born with the biological ability obtain...
In the discussion of nature verse nurture, one controversial issue is language. Arguing on the side of nature, children across the world seem to exhibit universal stages of linguistic development. Infants as young as seven months old are able to recognize simple linguistic rules from a string of sounds. When a child is first learning to speak, they typically combine words in ways that an adult would not. They can also speak and communicate clearly without adult correction. These observations suggest that we are born with the capacity to communicate verbally and through the use of kinesics, or gestures. However, nurture also plays a large role in the use of language. Linguistics differ amongst children from region to region based on the way the people around them speak. Thousands of languages such as: Spanish, English, Italian, and Creole are spoken around the world. Vernacular and accents also vary within each language and is acquired through a learning process, not genetics(Brown, 10/1/13). Another major environmental factor is correction from parents and adults. A child may be born with the ability to speak, but grammatical correctness and annunciation requi...
In linguist and psychologist Noam Chomsky’s Language and Mind, he asserts that a “universal grammar provides a highly restrictive schema to which any human language must conform” (55). The theory of universal grammar that Chomsky proposed states that the ability to comprehend and produce a language is already built in the human brain before birth. Even from an early age, children’s brains are programmed to constantly analyze grammar and syntax. To back up his claim, Chomsky elaborates on “the intrinsic structure of a language-acquisition device” (99).
The evolution of languages is constant even though minor and major changes are not usually apparent unless looking at the broader picture over a long period of time. Vocabulary is lost in the process, pronunciation and syntax are changed, and more vocabulary is added. Any language in the world has evolved from another, and most of these proto languages have suffered extinction. The Indo-European macro-family has seen this evolution and it has given rise to smaller micro-families that are each derived from a common ancestor. The Proto-Indo-European, in which the ‘proto’ stands for a reconstructed language from evidence that was given at a later point in time, gave rise to the Indo-European branch of the language tree, which in turn has been subdivided into ten different micro-families including Celtic, Germanic, Italic, Balto-Slavic, Balkan, Hellenic, Anatolian, Armenian, Indo-Iranian, and Tocharian (Slocum). In addition, each of these families is broken up based on the common language that is shared. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the Italic branch of the Indo-European language family, which is further split into Latino-Faliscan, Osco-Umbrian, and Romance.
In the last few decades, the notion of language and brain has been highlighted in different scientific fields such as: neurology, cognitive science, linguistics biology, technology and finally education.
There are three main theories of child language acquisition; Cognitive Theory, Imitation and Positive Reinforcement, and Innateness of Certain Linguistic Features (Linguistics 201). All three theories offer a substantial amount of proof and experiments, but none of them have been proven entirely correct. The search for how children acquire their native language in such a short period of time has been studied for many centuries. In a changing world, it is difficult to pinpoint any definite specifics of language because of the diversity and modification throughout thousands of millions of years.
Next, we shall evaluate the key features of language which are; communicative, arbitrary, structured, generative, and dynamic. Communicative, language can allow one to interact with another. According to Willingham (2007), the bond found with the elements in language and what they mean is arbitrary. The way language is set up shows how the symbols are not arbitrary. The set up language shows precisely how intricate it can be. Generative, one is able to build countless number of meanings from words. Dynamic, language never stays the same, therefore it can be known as sporadic. According to Willingham (2007), changes are being made all the time as new words get added and as the ways of grammar change. These elements can be quite critical when it comes to language.
Biological foundation of language may contribute significantly to such universality. The issue here is not whether language is innate, for, clearly, language must be learned. Nor is the issue whether the aptitude for learning a la...
Still today, it is the commonly held belief that children acquire their mother tongue through imitation of the parents, caregivers or the people in their environment. Linguists too had the same conviction until 1957, when a then relatively unknown man, A. Noam Chomsky, propounded his theory that the capacity to acquire language is in fact innate. This revolutionized the study of language acquisition, and after a brief period of controversy upon the publication of his book, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, in 1964, his theories are now generally accepted as largely true. As a consequence, he was responsible for the emergence of a new field during the 1960s, Developmental Psycholinguistics, which deals with children’s first language acquisition. He was not the first to question our hitherto mute acceptance of a debatable concept – long before, Plato wondered how children could possibly acquire so complex a skill as language with so little experience of life. Experiments have clearly identified an ability to discern syntactical nuances in very young infants, although they are still at the pre-linguistic stage. Children of three, however, are able to manipulate very complicated syntactical sentences, although they are unable to tie their own shoelaces, for example. Indeed, language is not a skill such as many others, like learning to drive or perform mathematical operations – it cannot be taught as such in these early stages. Rather, it is the acquisition of language which fascinates linguists today, and how it is possible. Noam Chomsky turned the world’s eyes to this enigmatic question at a time when it was assumed to have a deceptively simple explanation.
Languages are continually changing and developing, and these changes occur in many different ways and for a variety of reasons. Language change is detectable to some extent in all languages, and ‘similar paths of change’ can be recognised in numerous unrelated languages (Bybee, 2015, p. 139). Since users of language all over the world have ‘the same mental processes’ and ‘use communication for the same or very similar ends’ (Bybee, 2015, p. 1), similar changes occur on the same linguistic aspects, and in many cases these changes produce similar results in multiple languages. However, language change is limited by the function it performs. Languages must be learnt to such an extent which allows communication between the generation above and below one’s own (McMahon, 1994, p. 5). Hence language change is a gradual, lethargic process, as only small changes in
Chomsky advocates the principle that no child can acquire a language and its complicated grammar based only on language input form his environment. On a first note, most of the time children are not able to repeat what adults say. In addition, a study carried by Brown and Hanlon showed that parents and adults in general cheer for a child when he says something true and accurate, rather than for being grammatically correct. Chomsky believes that a child’s biological endowment is responsible for his acquisition of language, as long as there are people speaking to the child. One could also question to what extent can the environment encourage language learning? From famous writers of the age of enlightenment to contemporary abstract writers, each novelist has his own style of writing and present a talent that not any other individual has. The prominent linguist explains, in his theory of Universal Grammar, that this ability is hardwired into the brain and not a consequence of social circumstances that shaped this talented person’s language. In his article Behaviorist Theory and Language Learning, Dr. Mehmet Demirezen argues that each individual learns differently; it is not possible for two children put under the same conditions to learn the same way and have equal vocabulary and structure their sentence exactly the same way. According to Chomsky, there definitely are “some innate capacities which human beings possess that predispose them to look for basic patterns in