PSY274H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Recapitulation Theory, Vocal Tract, Homo Erectus
Document Summary
Evolution of language: this refers to the blueprint for understanding how language works is in our, related to semanticity and displacement, ie. Specifies some of the kinds of things we can denote with symbols. Provide criteria to evaluate naturally-occurring animal communication systems* Notes: make sure you understand design features: are used to evaluate communication systems, not animals, are not about attempts to teach animals language . Take home point: there seems to be a big gap between our linguistic abilities and the communicative abilities of other species. The problem: what are the data: there are no fossils that can give us nature to human communication. Maybe the ban was justified at the time . Bow-wow theory: refers to the idea that human language evolved from us imitating environmental sounds, these sounds somehow evolved into language, evidence = onomatopoeic words (ie. swish, problem: not very many words were onomatopoeia.
