Charles Explorer logo
🇬🇧

Human Language and Mind - Thinking and speaking

Class at Faculty of Arts |
ALINV422M

Syllabus

WEEK 1: ORIGINS of MODERN MAN and LANGUAGE Feb. 21

Cognition, intelligence and creativity

Nativist views/ Language as instinct vs. social learning 

Human ancestors vs. modern humans: What we need to add to the mind to get language? (J. Searle)

Animals’ communication systems vs. the language of humans (D. Premack)

What are the reasons for the rise of humans and modern language? TED Talk by Y. N. Harari

Readings: Language in Mind: Introduction to Psycholinguistics, by Julie Sedivy 2018, ch. 2, pp. 9-31

WEEK 2: HOW HUMANS INVENT LANGUAGE Feb. 28

           Inventing and learning language

          Gesturing, babbling, speaking, writing and signing

          Language change: Survival of the fittest? Language diversity

          The birth of a language documentary (Nicaragua sign language)

Readings: Sedivy, ch. 2, Evolution of speech, pp. 31-50

WEEK 3: Language and the Brain March 7 

Learning about language in the brain from genetic disorders, specific language disorder and dyslexia

        The quest to understand consciousness, TED Talk by A. Damasio

        Understanding language, by J. Elman (lecture)

Readings: Sedivy, ch. 3, Genetic Disorders, pp. 54-67

Assignment: relevant web activities in http://sites.sinauer.com/languageinmind/

 AND IF YOU WANT TO GO FURTHER...

         Seeds of Speech, by Jean Aitchison, Cambridge U Press 2000, ch. 1

         Researchers Debate the Origin of Language, by Marc Hauser 2002, in Harvard Gazette                  and How human mind originated 2009

WEEK 4: MAPPING LANGUAGE in the BRAIN March 14

How does brain process, perceive and produce language?

Reading: Sedivy, ch. 3, pp. 67-84

McGilchrist,The Divided Brain, TED Talk

Assignment: Web activity in http://sites.sinauer.com/languageinmind/

WEEK 5: LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: LEARNING SOUND PATTERNS March 21

How infants learn: The nature of speaking;

Sound recognition and matching sounds to words;

Concepts and reference

TED Talk Pat Kuhl et al., Language, culture, mind and brain File 

Reading: Learning sounds, in Sedivy, ch. 4

Recommended readings: Seeds of Speech, ch. 7, by J. Aitchison

Review: File 2.1-2.3 (Phonetics)

Assignment: Web activity in http://sites.sinauer.com/languageinmind/

WEEK 6: L ACQUISITION: Sounds and words, part II March 28

How child learns language

What are the sounds and where are the words?

Why do we talk https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Why+do+we+talk+

Readings: Sedivy, ch. 4, part II and if you want to go further: Language and the mind, by Hickey, Raymond

             Learning vs. growth, in Language in Use, by G. Diessel, pp. 313-19

             Digital mind in an analog world, in Language Instinct, by S. Pinker 1994, pp. 269-87

            Semiotic Landscape, by G. Kress and T. Leuwen, in Language in Use, pp. 344-9

ASSIGNMENT: Relevant web activities in Sedivy, online

WEEK 7: WORDS and GRAMMAR April 4

The nature of speaking; Recognizing sounds and matching them to words;

          Concepts and reference

Reading: Learning words, in Sedivy, ch. 5, part I and more, i.e., Recommended readings: 

        Productivity and the Mental Lexicon, by Ingo Plag, in Language in Use, pp. 106-13

        How do they do it?, by Steven Pinker

        Tomasello, Michael, The usage based theory of language acquisition

Syntax review: File 5.1 and 5.4   

ASSIGNMENT: Prepare a proposal to carry out research on any topic affiliated with the course (use the proposal form in our Moodle course please            prepare the relevant web activities, ch. 5, part I 

WEEK 8: LEARNING WORDS, L ACQUISITION part 3 April 11

Language in sculpting infants' brain

Understanding speakers' intentions

Parts of speech; Words vs. rules

Reading: Learning words, in Sedivy, ch. 5, part II

           Lupyan, Gary & Ben Berger, How Language Programs The Mind  for recommended readings, see below

ASSIGNMENT: Relevant web activities in Sedivy, online

WEEK 9: LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: BUILDING SENTENCES April 25

Topic: LANGUAGE ACQUISITION: LEARNING THE STRUCTURE OF SENTENCES

Description: How does mind build “logical“ sentences and “correct“ grammatical structures?

        The nature of syntactic knowledge; Learning grammatical categories

Readings: Sedivy, ch. 6, pp. 185-200

ASSIGNMENT: Relevant web activities in Sedivy, online

WEEK 10: Propaganda and words May 2

Communication from diverse perspectives

TED Talk Language shapes our thinking, by L. Boroditsky

Speech acts and performative speech acts

Readings: review Sperber & Wilson's Relevance: Communication and Cognition

The language of communist power, by Petr Fidelius 1989, in M. Goetz-Stankiewicz

The process of communication accommodation, by H. Giles, in New Sociolingcs Reader 2009

WEEK 11: LANGUAGE DIVERSITY and UNIVERSALS May 9

What do languages have in common and how to explain it?

How universal are language universals?

Reading: Sedivy, ch. 12, part I

Assignment: Relevant web activities

WEEK 12: LANGUAGE DIVERSITY May 16

Words, concepts and culture

One mind, two languages

Reading: Sedivy, ch. 12, part II

Assignment: Relevant web activities 

Sedivy, ch. 12, Diversity, part IISoubor  ch. 12, selected pp.Soubor

WEEK 13: Student presentations on research projects May 23

FINAL    

Annotation

HUMAN LANGUAGE and the MIND is a course in human thinking and speaking that deals with psychological, cognitive and anthropological aspects of language as a key to mind, intellect and creativity; interrelation of language, thoughts and brain; language in mediating experience, remembering and creating meaning; the instinctive, emotional and rational in our cognition; pre-linguistic cognition of hominids; children’s language acquisition; and language diversity.