Journal
LINGUA
Volume 117, Issue 3, Pages 510-526Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2005.02.006
Keywords
language evolution; protolanguage; holophrastic language; social intelligence; mirror neurons; FOXP2 gene
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
For the benefit of linguists new to the field of language evolution, the author sets out the issues that need to be distinguished in any research on it. He offers a guided tour of contemporary approaches, including the work of linguists (Bickerton, Carstairs-McCarthy, Chomsky, Hurford, Jackendoff, Pinker, Wray), animal behaviour experts (Dunbar, Hauser, Premack, Savage-Rumbaugh), neurophysiologists (Arbib, Calvin), psychologists (Corballis, Donald), archaeologists (Davidson), and computer modellers (Batali, Kirby, Steels). He criticises the expectation that recent discoveries such as 'mirror neurons' and the FOXP2 gene will provide easy answers. He emphasises the extremely interdisciplinary nature of this field, and also the importance of involvement in it by linguists, after more than a century of neglect. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available