Is The Language Faculty Non Linguistic

Author : Umberto Ansaldo
Publisher : Frontiers Media SA
ISBN 13 : 2889199142
Total Pages : 125 pages
Book Rating : 4.43/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Is the Language Faculty Non Linguistic? written by Umberto Ansaldo and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2016-08-15 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A line of research in cognitive science over several decades has been dedicated to finding an innate, language-specific cognitive system, a faculty which allows human infants to acquire languages natively without formal instruction and within short periods of time. In recent years, this search has attracted significant controversy in cognitive science generally, and in the language sciences specifically. Some maintain that the search has had meaningful results, though there are different views as to what the findings are: ranging from the view that there is a rich and rather specific set of principles, to the idea that the contents of the language faculty are - while specifiable - in fact extremely minimal. But other researchers rigorously oppose the continuation of this search, arguing that decades of effort have turned up nothing. The fact remains that the proposal of a language-specific faculty was made for a good reason, namely as an attempt to solve the vexing puzzle of language in our species. Much work has been developing to address this, and specifically, to look for ways to characterize the language faculty as an emergent phenomenon; i.e., not as a dedicated, language-specific system, but as the emergent outcome of a set of uniquely human but not specifically linguistic factors, in combination. A number of theoretical and empirical approaches are being developed in order to account for the great puzzles of language - language processing, language usage, language acquisition, the nature of grammar, and language change and diversification. This research topic aims at reviewing and exploring these recent developments and establishing bridges between these young frameworks, as well as with the traditions that have come before. The goal of this Research Topic is to focus on current developments in what many regard as a paradigm shift in the language sciences. In this Research Topic, we want to ask: If current explicit proposals for an innate, dedicated faculty for language are not supported by data or arguments, how can we solve the problems that UG was proposed to solve? Is it possible to solve the puzzles of language in our species with an appeal to causes that are not specifically linguistic?

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ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.70/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Is the Language Faculty Non Linguistic?. written by and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A line of research in cognitive science over several decades has been dedicated to finding an innate, language-specific cognitive system, a faculty which allows human infants to acquire languages natively without formal instruction and within short periods of time. In recent years, this search has attracted significant controversy in cognitive science generally, and in the language sciences specifically. Some maintain that the search has had meaningful results, though there are different views as to what the findings are: ranging from the view that there is a rich and rather specific set of principles, to the idea that the contents of the language faculty are - while specifiable - in fact extremely minimal. But other researchers rigorously oppose the continuation of this search, arguing that decades of effort have turned up nothing. The fact remains that the proposal of a language-specific faculty was made for a good reason, namely as an attempt to solve the vexing puzzle of language in our species. Much work has been developing to address this, and specifically, to look for ways to characterize the language faculty as an emergent phenomenon; i.e., not as a dedicated, language-specific system, but as the emergent outcome of a set of uniquely human but not specifically linguistic factors, in combination. A number of theoretical and empirical approaches are being developed in order to account for the great puzzles of language - language processing, language usage, language acquisition, the nature of grammar, and language change and diversification. This research topic aims at reviewing and exploring these recent developments and establishing bridges between these young frameworks, as well as with the traditions that have come before. The goal of this Research Topic is to focus on current developments in what many regard as a paradigm shift in the language sciences. In this Research Topic, we want to ask: If current explicit proposals for an innate, dedicated faculty for language are not supported by data or arguments, how can we solve the problems that UG was proposed to solve? Is it possible to solve the puzzles of language in our species with an appeal to causes that are not specifically linguistic?

Author : Elly van Gelderen
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 019975604X
Total Pages : 460 pages
Book Rating : 4.49/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Linguistic Cycle written by Elly van Gelderen and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 460 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Elly van Gelderen examines the linguistic cycle and describes how it offers a unique perspective on the language faculty.

Author : W. Tecumseh Fitch
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 113948706X
Total Pages : 625 pages
Book Rating : 4.61/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Evolution of Language written by W. Tecumseh Fitch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-01 with total page 625 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Language, more than anything else, is what makes us human. It appears that no communication system of equivalent power exists elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Any normal human child will learn a language based on rather sparse data in the surrounding world, while even the brightest chimpanzee, exposed to the same environment, will not. Why not? How, and why, did language evolve in our species and not in others? Since Darwin's theory of evolution, questions about the origin of language have generated a rapidly-growing scientific literature, stretched across a number of disciplines, much of it directed at specialist audiences. The diversity of perspectives - from linguistics, anthropology, speech science, genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary biology - can be bewildering. Tecumseh Fitch cuts through this vast literature, bringing together its most important insights to explore one of the biggest unsolved puzzles of human history.

Author : Nicholas Allott
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1119598680
Total Pages : 644 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Companion to Chomsky written by Nicholas Allott and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 644 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A COMPANION TO CHOMSKY Widely considered to be one of the most important public intellectuals of our time, Noam Chomsky has revolutionized modern linguistics. His thought has had a profound impact upon the philosophy of language, mind, and science, as well as the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science which his work helped to establish. Now, in this new Companion dedicated to his substantial body of work and the range of its influence, an international assembly of prominent linguists, philosophers, and cognitive scientists reflect upon the interdisciplinary reach of Chomsky's intellectual contributions. Balancing theoretical rigor with accessibility to the non-specialist, the Companion is organized into eight sections—including the historical development of Chomsky's theories and the current state of the art, comparison with rival usage-based approaches, and the relation of his generative approach to work on linguistic processing, acquisition, semantics, pragmatics, and philosophy of language. Later chapters address Chomsky's rationalist critique of behaviorism and related empiricist approaches to psychology, as well as his insistence upon a "Galilean" methodology in cognitive science. Following a brief discussion of the relation of his work in linguistics to his work on political issues, the book concludes with an essay written by Chomsky himself, reflecting on the history and character of his work in his own words. A significant contribution to the study of Chomsky's thought, A Companion to Chomsky is an indispensable resource for philosophers, linguists, psychologists, advanced undergraduate and graduate students, and general readers with interest in Noam Chomsky's intellectual legacy as one of the great thinkers of the twentieth century.

Author : Antonio Benítez-Burraco
Publisher : Frontiers Media SA
ISBN 13 : 2889456315
Total Pages : 179 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Adaptive Value of Languages: Non-Linguistic Causes of Language Diversity written by Antonio Benítez-Burraco and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2018-11-08 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The goal of this eBook is to shed light on the non-linguistic causes of language diversity, and in particular, to explore the possibility that some aspects of the structure of languages may result from an adaptation to the natural and/or human-made environment. Traditionally, language diversity has been claimed to result from random, internally-motivated changes in language structure. However, ongoing research suggests instead that different factors that are external to language can promote language change and ultimately account for aspects of language diversity, specifically features of the social and physical environments. The contributions in this eBook discuss whether some aspects of languages are an adaptation to ecological, social, or even technological niches.

Author : Robert Stainton
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199250383
Total Pages : 261 pages
Book Rating : 4.87/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Words and Thoughts written by Robert Stainton and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is a near truism of philosophy of language that sentences are prior to words---that they are the only things that fundamentally have meaning. Robert's Stainton's study interrogates this idea, drawing on a wide body of evidence to argue that speakers can and do use mere words, not sentences, to communicate complex thoughts.

Author : Cedric Boeckx
Publisher : Language Science Press
ISBN 13 : 3961103283
Total Pages : 76 pages
Book Rating : 4.87/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Reflections on language evolution written by Cedric Boeckx and published by Language Science Press. This book was released on with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This essay reflects on the fact that as we learn more about the biological underpinnings of our language faculty, the dominant evolutionary narrative coming out of the linguistic tradition most explicitly oriented towards biology ("biolinguistics") appears increasingly implausible. This text offers ways of opening up linguistic inquiry and fostering interdisciplinarity, taking advantage of new opportunities to provide quantitative, testable hypotheses concerning the complex evolutionary path that led to the modern human language faculty. The essay is structured around three main themes: (i) renewed appreciation for the comparative method applied to cognitive questions, leading to the identification of elementary but fundamental abstractions in non-linguistic species relevant to language; (ii) awareness of the conceptual gaps between disciplines, and the need to carefully link genotype and phenotype without bypassing any "intermediate" levels of description (certainly not the brain); and (iii) adoption of a "philosophical" outlook that puts the complexity of biological entities front and center.

Author : Hajime Hoji
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 3110724898
Total Pages : 408 pages
Book Rating : 4.99/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Theory and Practice of Language Faculty Science written by Hajime Hoji and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2022-11-07 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book demonstrates that it is possible to study the language faculty with the core scientific method, i.e., by deducing definite predictions from hypotheses and obtaining and replicating experimental results precisely in accordance with the predictions. In light of the "reproducibility crisis" as extensively addressed in recent years in a number of fields, the demonstration that rigorous replication can be obtained in the study of the language faculty in terms of correlational and categorical predictions is particularly significant. While the claim has been made over the years that Chomsky’s research program is meant to be a scientific study of the language faculty, a conceptual and methodological articulation has never been made as to how we can accumulate our knowledge about the language faculty by the basic scientific method, including, most crucially, how exactly we can put our hypotheses to rigorous empirical and experimental test. The book proposes how to do that by providing a conceptual basis for the methodology for language faculty science. The book also offers empirical demonstrations of the viability of the proposed methodology. The experiments were conducted with Japanese and English speakers. Overall, the book explores new directions for the study of the mind.

Author : Daniela Isac
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191538612
Total Pages : 334 pages
Book Rating : 4.12/5 ( download)

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Download or read book I-Language written by Daniela Isac and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-04-24 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: I-Language introduces the uninitiated to linguistics as cognitive science. In an engaging, down-to-earth style Daniela Isac and Charles Reiss give a crystal-clear demonstration of the application of the scientific method in linguistic theory. Their presentation of the research programme inspired and led by Noam Chomsky shows how the focus of theory and research in linguistics shifted from treating language as a disembodied, human-external entity to cognitive biolinguistics - the study of language as a human cognitive system embedded within the mind/brain of each individual. The recurring theme of equivalence classes in linguistic computation ties together the presentation of material from phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. The same theme is used to help students understand the place of linguistics in the broader context of the cognitive sciences, by drawing on examples from vision, audition, and even animal cognition. This textbook is unique in its integration of empirical issues of linguistic analysis, engagement with philosophical questions that arise in the study of language, and treatment of the history of the field. Topics ranging from allophony to reduplication, ergativity, and negative polarity are invoked to show the implications of findings in cognitive biolinguistics for philosophical issues like reference, the mind-body problem, and nature-nurture debates. This textbook contains numerous exercises and guides for further reading as well as ideas for student projects. A companion website with guidance for instructors and answers to the exercises features a series of pdf slide presentations to accompany the teaching of each topic.