The Biological

Basis of Language
The Development of Language
 Why do we study
language
development?
• Understanding that language is acquired and part of
its elements are those that are spoken to them or
around them
• To suit the social and communicative nature of the
situation
• Language development is continuous
Animal
Communication
System
Human language has special properties that have led many
researchers to conclude that such language is both species
specific and species uniform
 Animal Communication System
Animals are clearly able to communicate to some level with one
another as well as with humans.

Various messages:
-Cats and dogs bark for attentions
-scratch at the door
-looking expectantly at dishes

However, these messages are very limited in scope and can only
be interpreted in the context of the immediate situation.
 Bee
Communication
Insects such as bees have shown to have an elaborate
communication system. Unlike the expressive meowing of a
hungry cat, in many senses the communication system of the
bee is referential-it tells other bees about something in the
outside world.

A bee performs a dance that indicates the direction and

approximate distance of the nectar from the hive.

Although the movements of the dance have structure and

meaning, there is only one possible conversational topic; where
to find nectar
Sea Mammals
and Birds
• Many animals have ways of communicating with
other members of their species.
• Dolphins employ elaborate system of whistles that
can be heard by distance by other dolphins under
water. This vocal communication reflects highly
developed skills that dolphins rely on in
surroundings that would make it difficult for visual
interactions to take place
 Sea Mammals
and Birds
According to research, during the first year of its life each baby bottle-
nosed dolphin learns a "signature whistle". This signature whistle is
different from that of its mother, but resembles other sounds in its
environment.

Later on, they display vocal learning behaviors seen in birds, but not in
other nonhuman mammals.

Furthermore, they are able to imitate the whistles of other dolphins and
use "whistle matching" when they address one another
 Sea Mammals
and Birds
• Some birds have been shown to have a variety
of meaningful calls. The eerie cry of the loon is
just one of a number of distinct and meaningful
calls made by these inhabitants of the northern
lakes.
 Sea Mammals
and Birds
• Research showed that Jackdaws, have
mischievous courting calls. A call for
flying away and one for flying home.
Researchers concerned with criteria for what constitutes language have produced lists
of characteristics that vary in both length and scope:

• True language is marked by productivity in the sense that speakers can make many
new utterances and can recombine or expand the forms they already know to say
things they have never heard before.
• It also has semanticity (or symbolism) that represents ideas, events, and objects
symbolically.
• It offers the possibility of displacement-messages need not be tied to the
immediate context
 Primate
Language
Chimpanzees possess genetic structures very similar to
our own and are our closest relatives in the animal world.

There have been numerous attempts to teach language to

chimpanzees. The ape studies have provided us with
much useful and controversial data on the ability of
nonhumans to acquire our language forms.
Gua
Gua was adopted by Professor and Mrs. W.n
Kellog in 1931 and became the first American
family to raise a chimpanzee and a child
together. Gua stayed with them and their infant
son Donald for nine months. No special effort
was made to teach Gua to talk. Although she
was ahead of the child in her motor
development, she did not babble and did not
learn to say any words.
Viki
Viki was adopted by psychologists Catherine
and Keith Hayes and raised a baby chimpanzee
as if she were their own child. The Hayes tried
to teach viki to talk. After six years of training
Viki appeared to understand but she was able to
produce, with great difficulty, only four words:
mama, papa, cup, and up.
 Washoe
The first attempt to capitalize on the ability to comprehend
language and natural gestural ability of a chimpanzee by
teaching her signed human language was made by Drs.
Beatrice and Allen Gardner at the University of Nevada in
1966.

They moved a ten-month-old chimpanzee named Washoe

into the trailer behind their house and began to teach her
ASL. She learned 130 ASL signs, as well as how to
combine them into utterances of several signs.
 Washoe
She was able to sign "Please tickle hug hurry," "Gimme food
drink," and similar requests.

Washoe was able to sign many of the same things that are said
by children in the early stages of language acquisition before
they learn the grammatical refinements of their own language.

The chimpanzees also extended, or generalized their words in

much the same way that humans do. On the practical side, the
remarkable success attained with chimps have led to
innovative programs that teach sign language to
communicatively handicapped children.
 Nim Chimpsky
Nim Chimpsky was planned to be raise in a rich human
environment, to teach him ASL, and then analyze his
emerging ability to combine signs into utterances paying
special attention to any evidenc that he could indeed
produce rammatical signed sentences.

Professor Herbert S. Terrace came up with the same

conclusion with other ape-language projects: much of
what the chimps signed had just been signed to them.
 Kanzi
Although it may be true that apes are not capable of
adult language as we know it, the chimpanzee studies
have indicated that there are substantial similarities
between very young children's chimpanzees' abilities to
engage in symbolic communication.

A pygymy chimp named Kanzi has given rise to new

hope and speculation about the primate linguistic ability.
The Biological Base: Humans
• Language in humans is clearly dependent on them having a society in which to learn it. The
emotional motivation and intelligence to make it possible.
• Human beings who are physiologically and psychologically intact will acquire the language
of those around them.
• There strong arguments that human language is biologically determined-that it owes its
existence to specialized structures of the brain and in the neurological systems of humans.
The Biological Base: Humans
• Infants are intensely interested in human faces, and there is evidence that the infant brain
contains neurons that are specialized for the identification of human faces and for the recognition
of emotions in faces.
⚬ With that fact, genetics even pointed to a specific gene, FOXP2, that is related to language,
and that may have been the result of mutation that occured in our ancestors about 120,000
years ago.

• It is clear, however, that no single gene coul account for the complexity and robustness of human
language.
Language Areas in the Brain
• Unlike our relatives the apes, humans have areas in the cerebral cortex that are known to be
associated with language. The two hemispheres of the brain are not symmetrical.
• Most individuals, about 85 percent of the population, are right-handed, and almost all right-
handers have their language functions represented in their left hemisphere. Of the left-handed
population, perhaps half also have their language areas in the left hemisphere; therefore, the vast
majority of the populace is lateralized for language in the left hemisphere.
• The right hemisphere, however, also participates in some aspects of language processing.
 Language Areas in the left hemisphere

Broca's area - left frontal region, near to the motor

strip that controls the tongue and lips. Damage to
Broca's area results to an aphasic syndrome called
Broca's aphasia-a patient that has good
comprehension but much difficulty with
pronunciation and producing the words of the
language
 Language Areas in the left hemisphere

Wernicke's area - located in the posterior left

temporal lobe, near the auditory association areas
of the brain. Damage to Wernicke's area produces
an aphasia that is characterized by fluent speech
with many neologisms and poor comprehension.
 Language Areas in the left hemisphere

Wernicke's area - located in the posterior left

temporal lobe, near the auditory association areas
of the brain. Damage to Wernicke's area produces
an aphasia that is characterized by fluent speech
with many neologisms and poor comprehension.
Special Characteristics
• In examining the attempts to teach language to apes, we saw that language is probably species
unique; the specialized areas of the brain contribute to that uniqueness.
• Humans, unlike other creatures, have a long list of adaptations in such things as the development
of their vocal cords and larynxes and the ability to coordinate making speech sounds with
breathing and swallowing.
Lenneberg (1967) cited a number of additional features as evidence that language is specific to
our species and uniform across the species in its major characteristics:

• The onset of speech is regular.

• Speech is not suppressible.
• Language cannot be taught to other species.
• Languages everywhere have certain universals.
 The Stucture of
Language:
Learning the System
The Development of Language
 The Stucture of Language: Learning the System

Competence and Performance -

A speaker who knows the syntactic rules of a language is said to have linguistic competence. The
expression of rules in everyday speech is performance.

Phonology -
includes all the important sounds, the rules for combining them to make words, and such things as
the stress and intonation patterns that accompany them.

Morphology -
includes the formation of words, and how each part relate to one another.
 The Stucture of Language: Learning the System

Syntax -
a syntactic system includes the rules for how to combine words into acceptable phrases and sentences
and how to transform sentences into other sentences.

Semantics -
a semantic system includes our mental dictionary, or lexicon;
 Language in Social Context: Pragmatics

Pragmatics refer to the use of language to express one's intentions and get things done int he world.

Conversational Principles:
• Quantity
• Quality
• Relevance
• Manner
 Language in Social Context: Pragmatics

Pragmatics refer to the use of language to express one's intentions and get things done int he
world.

Conversational Principles:
• Quantity
• Quality
• Relevance
• Manner