WEEK 3: Language and the Brain March 8

Topics: Vocal learning

             Language change: Survival of the fittest?

             Genetic disorders as manifested in language        

How Humans Invent Language

• Communicating from scratch
• When gestures replace language
• Language: It takes a village to learn
• Streamlining signing and coding
• The sensitive period of learning cf. innate language cognition

     web activities on sign language in ch. 2

• Language changes
• Evolution of a prayer
• What’s adapting to what?
• Language evolution in the lab  

The PROJECT on English language variation and change, p. 53 

• Williams syndrome: An island of preserved function?
• Linguistic and nonlinguistic impairments in Williams and Down syndromes
• The new frontier: Tracing our ancestors’ genes

     dichotic listening, ch. 3 https://learninglink.oup.com/access/content/sedivy-2e-student-resources/sedivy2e-chapter-3-web-activity-1?previousFilter=tag_chapter-03

Readings: Sedivy, ch. 2, part 2, and ch. 3, part I, Genetic Disorders, pp. 54-62 (62-7)

• IF YOU WANT TO GO FURTHER...

• Seeds of Speech, by Jean Aitchison, Cambridge U Press 2000
• Researchers Debate the Origin of Language, by Marc Hauser 2002, in Harvard Gazette and How human mind originated 2009