Lecture 1: Language, its meaning and functions
System of communication:
it's system used by human beings and other species, for example animals. It’s not only verbal language, but also gestures.
Examples of communication among animals:
dolphins: sound system (click, squeak, creak, buzz click)
birds: songs (twitter, tweet)
insects: bees
chimpanzees: saying ‘goodbye’ (chimpanzee Dorothy’s Death and chimpanzee family saying ‘goodbye’ to her)
human beings: verbal and non-verbal language
Language is a system of communication:
inborn/innate
/’The result of child acquisition is the tacit or latent language knowledge whose operation principles may be compared to those of a spider which can spin web successfully without any awareness of the principles it is following’/
distinctive feature of human beings
Language functions:
interactional – deals with how humans use language to interact with other members of community (how they use language socially, emotionally, e.g. to show co-operation, anger, pleasure)
transactional – concerns the ability of human beings to use language to communicate knowledge, skills and information
Why is language a distinctive property of human beings only?
Yule 1996: 31-36
In 1930s Chimpanzee Gua was raised with the infant son of scientists Luella Winthrop Kellog. She was reported to be able to understand 100 words but did not say any of them
In 1940s another chimpanzee called Viki reared by another scientist couple (Catherine and Keith Hayes) in their own home, exactly as if she was human child. They attempted to get Viki to “say” English words by trying to shape her mouth as she produced sounds. Viki eventually managed to produce some words, rather poorly articulated versions of “mama”, “papa” and “cup”.
In 1960s another scientist couple (Beatrix and Allan Gardner) wanted to teach female chimpanzee – Washoe – to use a version of American Sign Language. Sign language was always used when Washoe was around and she was encouraged to use signs. In a period of 3,5 years Washoe came to use signs for more than a hundred words ranging from airplane, banana to window, women. Even more impressive was her ability to combine forms to produce ‘sentences’ of the type ‘gimme tickle’, ‘more fruit’ and ‘open food’, ‘drink’ (to get someone to open the refrigerator). Some of the forms appear to have been inventions by Washoe (‘water bird’ referring to swan)
Clever Hans was a German horse, which could answer arithmetical questions and tapped out the letters of alphabet by using hoof beats. It must have been visual cues, without which Hans didn’t get the number of the letters right.
Language origins
Otto Jespersen 1921 (from Yule 1996)
‘The genesis of language is not being sought in the prosaic but the poetic side of life; the source of speech is not gloomy seriousness but many play and youthful hilarity…
In primitive speech I hear the laughing cries of the exultation when lads and lassies vied with one another to attract the attention of the other sex, when everybody sang his merriest and danced his bravest to lure a pair of eyes to throw admiring glances in his direction. Language was born in the courting days of mankind.’
/Otto Jespersen/
The divine source
God created Adam and ‘Adam called every living creature’ (Genesis)
In Hindu tradition language comes from Sarasvati – the wife of Brahma, the creator of the universe
The early experiments
600 BC – Egyptian pharaoh put two infants among goats and a mute shepherd for 2 years. The children were then repeated to use the word ‘bekos’ for bread. As the words were taught to be Phrygian the pharaoh concluded the original language had to be Phrygian.
AD 1500 James IV of Scotland – similar experiment but this time it turned out that Hebrew was the original language
The natural sound source:
‘Bow-wow’ theory of language origins
primitive words could have been imitations of natural sounds
all modern languages have words which echo such sounds e.g.: cuckoo, meow, splash
such words echoing natural sounds are called onomatopoeic words
primitive words could have come from natural cries emotions such joy, pain, anger, e.g. ouch, wow, hey.
Yo-heave-ho theory
another natural sound theory according to which first words might have originated from the sound produced by a person during physical work and effort (grunts, groans, swear words)
whatever the origin human sounds must have had some social dimension, too
The oral – gesture theory – links physical gestures and orally produced sounds:
physical gestures were developed as a mean of communication
oral gestures were developed – they were movements or articulatory organs (tongue, lips, etc.) imitating physical gestures (i.e. movement of the tongue for ‘goodbye’ resembles waving of the hand)
Glossogenetics
it's connected to the idea of biological adaptation of human beings and their speech organs in the course of evolution. At some point of education there appeared certain physical features, particularly relevant for speech.