Psychology 3228 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Kanzi, Linguistic Determinism, Steven Pinker

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 3228
• Professor: Caroline Strang

Document Summary

Language communication is widespread, but language is a human thing referential semantic information: referring to objects and our words are meaningful, not exclusively human e. g. , honeybees, vervet monkeys combinatorial syntax. Specific rules about how we put words together: not exclusively human e. g. , chick-a-dee calls, moreover, other species can be taught aspects of language, e. g. , teaching sign language to apes, parrots, etc, washoe, nim chimsky, alex the parrot. Koko? (gorilla) (don"t know a lot about language learning of this gorilla) however, no other species shows spontaneous development of even the most rudimentary of languages. Infinite creativity: human language has infinite creativity, in a way that no other communication system that animals have can do, displacement. Can speak about the future and past, not just the present. Language thought thinking can occur in the absence of language little support for the sapir-whorf hypothesis or linguistic determinism.