英语语言学课件Chapter 1 The Origins of Languag.ppt

Chapter 1 The Origins of Language,We do not know how language originated Spoken language developed well before written language,The Divine Source,In most religions, there appears to be a divine source who provides humans with language God/ Hindu tradition Experiments: An Egyptian pharaoh tried two new born infants around 600 B.C James IV of Scotland, around AD 1500, the children spoke Hebrew Children living without access to human speech in their early years grow up with no language at all.,The Natural-sound Source,Primitive words could have been imitations of the natural sounds which early men and women heard around them Modern Ls have some words with pronunciations which seem to echo naturally occurring sounds could be used to support this theory (p2) Onomatopoeic How about soundless, abstract entities in a L? L is only a set of words which are used as “names” for entities?,The Natural-sound Source,Also suggested L came from natural cries of emotion, such as pain, anger, joy “you-heave-ho” theory: the sounds of a person involved in physical effort could be the source of L, esp when several people involved The appeal of this theory is that it places the development of L in some social context Human sounds may have some principled use within the social life or early human groups. Does not answer the origins of sounds since Apes and other primates have grunts and social calls.,The Oral-gesture Source,A set of physical gestures was developed as a means of communication A set of gestures, specifically involving the mouth, developed, in which the movements of the tongue, lips and so on were recognized according to patterns of movement similar to physical gestures We can use mime or specific gestures for a variety of communicative purposes, hard to visualize the actual “oral” aspect which would mirror many such gestures. Extremely large number of linguistic messages which would appear to defy transmission via this type of gesturing,Glossogenetics,Focuses mainly on the biological basis of the formation and development of human language A concentration on some of the physical aspects of humans (past and present) that are not shared with any other creatures At some early state, our human ancestors made the transition to an upright posture, with bipedal locomotion, and a revised role for the front limbs The effects of this change can be seen the physical differences between the skull of a gorilla and that of Neanderthal man 60,000 B.C,Physiological Adaptation,Teeth: upright, not slanting roughly even Lips: more intricate muscle interlacing Mouth: relatively small, open and close rapidly Tongue: very flexible, shape a wide variety of sounds Larynx: (voice box, containing the vocal cords) differs significantly in position from that of monkeys Human brain is lateralized, it has specialized functions in each of the two hemispheres (p5),Interactions,In developing speech, humans have incorporated versions of naturally occurring sounds and cries of emotional reaction, and accompany much of their speech with physical gestures such as pointing and raising of the hand in the shape of a fist, with middle finger pointing up Has to do with how humans use L to interact with each other, socially or emotionally, how they indicate friendliness coop or hostility, annoyance, pain or pleasure.,Transactions,Humans use linguistic abilities to communicate knowledge, skills and information The transfer function of L remains fairly restricted in time and space as long as it can only be realized in speech Speech