Communication with Russians in Corporate Discourse Format

1
LANGUAGE AND REASONING IN HUMANS AND OTHER
ANIMALS Tatiana Chernigovskaya St. Petersburg
State University
2

• D. Premack
• Human language is an embarrassment for
  evolutionary theory
• ??????????? ???? (?. ?. ?????-?????????)
• ??????? ?????? ? ???????? ?? ?????, ?? ????
  ?? ????? ??? ???!

3
(No Transcript)
4

• Nature vs. Nurture
• What comes from Biology (genetics) and what comes
  from cultural development?

5

• Darwin The difference between humans and other
  species is not qualitative but quantitative

6
Cradle of Language, South Africa Birdsong,
Speech and Language. Converging Mechanisms,
Utrecht2007

• Protolanguage - arose about a million years ago
  in Homo erectus and has distinctive devices
  (sequential order, null elements, arguments of
  verbs, mechanisms for expansion and grammatical
  correctness) (Bickerton 1990)
• Autonomous vocal language, with a largely
  nonessential visual component, may have arisen
  in Africa from a genetic mutation some time
  between 100,000 and 250,000 year ago (Crow
  1997,2000, 2006, Corballis 2003)
• Fully syntactical language is arguably an
  essential requisite to share and transmit the
  symbolic meaning of beadworks and abstract
  engravings such as those from Blombos Cave
  inhabited 75,000 years ago." (Henshilwood et
  al. 2004)

7
Cradle of Language, South Africa Birdsong,
Speech and Language. Converging Mechanisms,
Utrecht,2007

• An analysis of Middle Stone Age artefacts found
  at the Klasies River show that by at least
  115,000 years ago, people were able to think and
  speak symbolically. (Wurz 2000)
• Animal vocalizations led not to speech but to
  song (Nobuo Masataka, 2007)
• Recursiveness in human language (Eric Reuland
  2007) vs. Recursive vocal processing in birds and
  humans (Daniel Margoliash, 2007)
• ?mbedding. Syntax, Imitation, Quoting and Theory
  of Mind. (Chomsky, 2002 Fitch, 2007)

8

• BUT ! - Talking apes
• No genes for this
• However, its a fact and it is caused by
  education

9
(No Transcript)
10
(No Transcript)
11
(No Transcript)
12
Properties of Human language revealed
intalking primates

• Conventional nomination and even word constuction
• Semantic syntax (in Vygotskys terms)
  Topic-Comment in 2-wordspharazes similar to
  human language development in small children
• Productivity
• Transferability ( speaking of objects out of
  sight). Cognitive maps

13

• Properties of Human language revealed
  intalking primates
• Ability to use lexicograms NOW and THEN
• Cultural succession (they talk to each other
  using Amslang, theu teach their children and even
  other peaople
• Ability to use lexicograms YOURS and MINE and
  ability to recognize themselves in the mirror ( a
  feature of the ToM)
• Ability to plan a multi-step action and to
  foresee the consequence

14

• Properties of Human language revealed
  intalking primates
• Metaphoric transfer - joking and cursing
• Ability to change roles in a dialogue
• Ability to use core syntax
• Ability to perceive oral human speech and to
  translate it to Amslang