Download Language Universals

Language Universals
The Mind-Brain Debate
• Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1973)
• mind is "the seat of consciousness, thoughts,
volitions, and feelings", or "memory",
• brain is "taken as the seat of sensation, the organ
of thought, memory, or imagination”
• mental - "concerned with the phenomena of
mind"
• physical is "of or pertaining to material nature;
pertaining to or connected with matter; material;
opp(osite) to psychical, mental, spiritual".
Define
•
•
•
•
•
•
Mind
Brain
Psyche
Spirit
Soul
Monism v dualism
Emotion
•
•
•
•
Sensation
Emotion
S.O.E.D
Emotion is "a mental feeling or affection (e.g.
of pain, desire, hope, etc.) as dist(inct) from
cognitions or volitions"
Define
•
•
•
•
•
•
Consciousness
Thoughts
Volitions
Feelings
Memory
Imagination
Dualism
• Plato – body and soul and brain as seat of the
soul
• Descartes’ dualism
– the body is an automaton
– the mind has free will - outside the realm of
scientific explanation
– the non-material mind functions through the
pineal gland in the brain, and controls the natural
animal instincts of the automaton-like body.
Materialism & Monism
• Ryle (1949) negation of the "ghost in the
machine", a soul or mind controlling the
automaton of the body
• Philosophical vindication of the scientific
approach to psychology by the Behaviourists.
• The brain was a physical organ, part of the body,
and the subject of physically-based analysis.
• Any notion of Mind - Bunge (1977) - is thus
"unexplainable by science".
Animals v. humans
•
•
•
•
•
Evolution
Animals >> humans
Human intelligence
= different?
= product of evolution?
Animal communication
• Konrad Lorenz (1930-50s) – geese and ducks
• Frisch (1967) - 'language' of the bees
• Animal communication seems to evolve in the
interests of survival of the species
• Genetic imprinting probably mutates to keep
pace with changing needs
• Maynard Smith (1976) & Krebs (1987) show
how animal signals evolve and become
ritualized
Primate communication
•
•
•
•
•
Jane Goodall - chimpanzees
Dian Hussey - gorillas
Experiments to train chimpanzees to use:
American Sign Language
Other symbol systems, for communication
with the human experimenters
Innate v. acquired communication
• Plato and others believed that knowledge - or
capacity for knowledge is innate
• Aristotle – Locke - Behaviourism – all
knowledge acquired – ‘tabula rasa’
‘Original language’
• Crystal (1971: 46-7) - examples of people who
tried to discover which language children
would speak spontaneously
– Phrygian, in the case of Psammetichus - 7th
century B.C.
– Inconclusive, the children died, with Frederick II of
Hohenstaufen - 13th century;
– Hebrew, with James IV of Scotland - 15th century.
Innate concepts / language
•
•
•
•
•
Sacks (1989) – ‘Seeing voices’
18th century - Abbé de L'Epée
The sign language used by the deaf in Paris
Importance of deaf sign language
Pidgins & Creoles
‘Wild children’
• Kaspar Hauser 1828
• Genie 1970
• Several others over history
Innate language structure
• Chomsky
• Pinker
• Ideas that humans are born with a ‘grammar’
hardwired into our brains
• Syntax?
• Semantics?
• Ideas?
Meaning
• Chomsky > followers – syntax all important
• Cognitivists – Langacker, Jackendoff – meaning
in syntax + lexicon
• E.g tendency for all languages to see
happiness as ‘up’ and sadness as ‘down’
• Lakoff – meaning in metaphors
• E.g- football and fighting. Love as a journey
The brain and language
• Brain – Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas >
language areas
• Damásio – research into brain damage and
language
• Damásio - ‘Descartes’ Error’
• The importance of Emotion
Are we genetically pre-disposed to
•
•
•
•
•
•
Have emotions?
Be good or bad?
Believe in God?
Be selfish?
Be altruistic?
Live in society?
Exercises
• Discuss and suggest universals
– Human environment
– Human behaviour
– Human communication – gestures
– Human language
• Search for information on Cognition