It's communicated very rarely, whether by sign or through speech. — Xtrix
After reading Chomsky, I now lean much more towards the idea that not only did language not evolve gradually as a form of communication, but that language isn't communication at all. — Xtrix
Do you mean thought is communicated very rarely? And very rarely, does that mean not very often or not very accurately? — Brett
Sure. But you’re feeling is that thought is communicated very rarely, and language is doing something else, except on those rare occasions. — Brett
Language is a system of thought. It's communicated very rarely, whether by sign or through speech. So it's communicative properties aren't what's essential. One can communicate with a hairstyle, bees with a waggle dance, etc. There are all kinds of ways to communicate, down through the insects. So language certainly isn't that. — Xtrix
Humans share many basic attribute of spoken language with other animals — I like sushi
We don’t need the former to think — I like sushi
There were years when I was convinced that our capacity for language must have evolved gradually as a complex form of communication, in accordance with the widely-held belief in evolutionary biology that organisms change slowly and incrementally via natural selection (with some exceptions, Steve Gould being an obvious example). — Xtrix
There were years when I was convinced that our capacity for language must have evolved gradually as a complex form of communication, in accordance with the widely-held belief in evolutionary biology that organisms change slowly and incrementally via natural selection (with some exceptions, Steve Gould being an obvious example).
After reading Chomsky, I now lean much more towards the idea that not only did language not evolve gradually as a form of communication, but that language isn't communication at all.
I'm interested to hear if others, who have specialized in the evolution of language or are well versed in its literature, have considered Chomsky's ideas on this matter. I haven't seen much in this forum so far, although I am new to it. — Xtrix
Isn’t part of that argument basically saying a humans ability to walk is cultural? — I like sushi
And In 2005, the US linguist-anthropologist Daniel Everett has claimed that Pirahã – a language indigenous to the Amazonian rainforest – does not use recursion at all.
But we now have several well-documented cases of so-called ‘feral’ children – children who are not exposed to language, either by accident or design, as in the appalling story of Genie, a girl in the US whose father kept her in a locked room until she was discovered in 1970, at the age of 13. The general lesson from these unfortunate individuals is that, without exposure to a normal human milieu, a child just won’t pick up a language at all. Spiders don’t need exposure to webs in order to spin them, but human infants need to hear a lot of language before they can speak. However you cut it, language is not an instinct in the way that spiderweb-spinning most definitely is.
Were we talking about literally any other biological function, the very idea that 'something happened at some point in the past that made us speak language good' ought to be taken seriously as a thesis would be laughed out of the room so fast as to leave anyone with sympathies to it perennially embarrassed. It's unscientific bunkum. — StreetlightX
Have you tried the advanced search tool?I'm interested to hear if others, who have specialized in the evolution of language or are well versed in its literature, have considered Chomsky's ideas on this matter. I haven't seen much in this forum so far, although I am new to it. — Xtrix
I am unfamiliar with Chomsky, and my interest in language is from a psychological, rather than biological, level of abstraction. So, in terms of semiotics, information theory, and information philosophy:After reading Chomsky, I now lean much more towards the idea that not only did language not evolve gradually as a form of communication, but that language isn't communication at all. — Xtrix
When it comes to questions of phylogeny, I have always contended that the emergence of life on earth, some 3.5 billion years ago, was tantamount to the advent of semiosis. The life sciences and the sign science thus mutually imply one another. I have also argued that the derivation of language out of any animal communication system is an exercise in total futility, because language did not evolve to subserve humanity's communicative exigencies. It evolved, as we shall see in the next chapter, as an exceedingly sophisticated modelling device, in the sense of von Uexkiill's Umweltlehre, as presented, for example, in 1982 (see also Lotman 1977), surely present - that is, language-as-a-modelling-system, not speech-as-a-communicative-tool - in Homo habilis. — Sebeok, Thomas Albert. 2001. Signs: An Introduction To Semiotics. Canada: University of Toronto Press. p.136.
Perhaps many dislike what he says as it is too analytic/theoretical? — I like sushi
So language as a system of thought is only used rarely because it’s only required on those rare occasions when needed — Brett
What I trying to establish is whether language as a system of thought is used rarely because it has a specific role among other systems, or it’s used rarely because it’s inadequate for communication? Or it appears to be used rarely because it’s not communication? — Brett
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