Language

Language is a system of symbols and rules that enable us to communicate. It is either spoken or written, consisting of words that are used in a structured and conventional way. Language is primarily used to communicate but it is also used in recording information, expressing emotion, thought, and in expressing group identity.

Language is not entirely uniquely human. Panbanisha (Bonobo chimpanzee) had extensive language training, and could use a special keypad with 400 geometric patterns. By the age of 14, they had a 3000 word vocabulary and had a fairly good grasp of grammar. However, language competence was worse than a child and they could produce very few novel sentences.

Chomsky (1993): if animals had a capacity as biologically advantageous as language but somehow hadn't used it until now, it would be an evolutionary miracle, like finidng an island of humans who could be taught to fly.

B.F Skinner - Behaviourism: Skinner explained language development through the means of environmental influence. He argued that children learn language based on reinforcement principles like positive and negative reinforcement. In essence, children are conditioned into correct language usage.

Chomsky - Nativism: Chomsky criticised Skinner's theory, and argued that language was innate. He proposed the ideas of the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) and universal grammar. LAD is programmed into our brains at birth and helps us learn language without environmental help. Universal grammar is the idea of innate, biological grammatical categories that facilitate the entire language development in kids and language processing in adults. All languages share certain fundamental structural similarities. Nativism does help explain how language is acquired rapidly, how language acquisition occurs in the absence of learning situations, and how acquisition occurs in the absence of training and correction.

• Language is thought to be localised in specific regions of the brain, like Broca's area for language production, and Wernicke's area for language comprehension
• Damage to Broca's area produces ungrammatical language - this may suggest there's an innate biological basis for grammatical knowledge
• There is a critical period for language acquisition which also supports a biological basis. For specific evidence of this see Genie "feral child"
• Pidgin and Creole: children who are exposed to pidgin languages will elaborate upon the language and add grammatical complexity. These then become creole languages. Children atuomatically add grammatical complexity, suggesting that knowledge is innate. The grammatical embellishments they make are common to all creole languages, supporting universal grammar

• Localisation of language doesn't imply innateness, and these parts of the brain do other things
• Cortical plasticity: the brain can re-wire itself and recruit different regions to perform novel tasks. In the congenitally deaf, the auditory cortex is used for the processing of sign language (Nishimura et al, 1999)
• Critical period has been shown, however older children and adults can re-learn language. Also, older children and adults are able to learn a second language to a high level
• The consistency between creole language has been disputed. Jamaican, Louisiana, Mauritian, and Guyanese creole mark tense, aspect and modality in different ways

If language is innate, why and how did it evolve? It may be that language doesn't evolve, and is just a by-product of having large brains.

Group cohesion/social bonding theory (Dunbar, 1996): The primate brain is a social tool. The human brain supports group sizes, fostering social alliances and finding out about others efficiently. It allows us to exchange social information

The social exchange of information might also allow us to work out other motives and intentions. It can allow us to manipulate others so that we can deliberately mislead them

Whorfian hypothesis, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis or theory of linguistic relativity: language determines thought and linguistic categories limit and determine cognitive categories (strong version). Linguistic categories and usage only influence thought and decisions (weak version). Essentially, there are certain thoughts of an individual in one language that can't be understood by those who speak another language.

The theory claims that the structure of a language can strongly influence or determine someone's world view. The world view describes an integral sense of existence nad provides a theoretical framework for generating, sustaining and applying knowledge. The Inuit can think more intelligently about snow because their language contains more sophisticated and subtle words distinguishing various forms of it

English speakers score higher on all five categories of the Big Five save for neuroticism, and Spanish speakers score higher for neuroticism. When administering the survey to English-Spanish bilinguals, they became more 'English' when completing it in English, i.e scoring higher on the 4 categories. When completing in Spanish they scored higher on neuroticism

• Speakers of languages with absolute reference frames are better at staying oriented and keeping track of where they are. This may be because language forces them to monitor their aboslute position in space
• "I'm putting the past behind me" & "Looking forward to the future" - does this impact how we think about time?
• Zuleta (1984) certain psychotic fluent bilinguals who'd learnt their second language during or after puberty could present with different psychotic phenomena depending on which language they used. e.g case of "Mr Z" - when he spoke in Spanish to his psychiatrist, he no longer appeared to be thought disordered, whereas he had before in English