ENLS 60

• THE DIVINE SOURCE 


  It states in the books of Genesis that language was given to humans by a divine source (God)
• THE NATURAL SOUND SOURCE 


  Based on the concept of natural sound. The idea of primitive words could have been imitation of natural sounds which only men and women heard around them.
• THE SOCIAL INTERACTIONS SOURCE 


  Another proposal is the "yo-he-ho" theory, the sound of a person involved in physical effort could be the source of our language especially when that physical effort involved several people and the interaction had to be coordinated
• THE PHYSICAL ADAPTATION 


  Physical Characteristics that a human possess.
• TEETH 


  Are upright, not slanting outwards like those of apes and they are roughly even in height. It is useful for ripping or tearing food and for grinding and chewing.
• LIPS


  Have intricate muscle interlacing than is found in other primate and their resulting flexibility certainly helps in making sounds like p or b
• MOUTH 


  Can be opened and closed rapidly and contains smaller and thicker muscular tongue.
• TONGUE 


  Can be used to share a wide variety of sounds inside the oral cavity.
• LARYNX 


  Voice box containing vocal folds or vocal cords.
• PHARYNX 


  Above the vocal folds which acts as resonator for increased range and clarity of the sounds produced via the larynx and the vocal tract.
• THE TOOL-MAKING SOURCE 


  There's evidence that humans had developed preferential right handedness, tool making with both hands is evidence of brain at work.
• THE HUMAN BRAIN 


  It is lateralized and has specialized functions in each of the two hemispheres. These functions that control the motor movements involved in complex vocalization (speaking and object manipulation) are very close to each other in the left hemisphere of the brain.
• THE GENETIC SOURCE 


  This indicate that human offspring are born with a special capacity for language. Special "language gene" that human possess.
• THE INNATES HYPOTHESIS 


  The idea that humans are genetically equipped to acquire language.
• CHARLES DARWIN 


  Early humans had already developed musical ability prior to language and were using it "to charm each other"
• PSAMMETICHUS


  An Egyptian Pharaoh consisting of isolating newborns to see if they would spontaneously start speaking the original language.
• HERODOTUS


  Greek writer who reported the story of an Egyptian Pharaoh named Psammetichus
• SARASVATI


  This is were language came from, creator of the universe wife of Bhrama
• KING JAMES THE FOURTH OF SCOTLAND 


  Carried out a similar experiments around the year 1500 and the children reportedly started speaking Hebrew.
• HEBREW 


  The language of the Garden of Eden.
• Informative signals


  Messages you unintentionally sent, no intention of communicating something directly
• Communicative signals


  Pieces of information or messages you intentionally conveyed, intentional and carry meaning
• Human language structure


  • Different from animals
• Reflexibility


  The ability of language users to think and talk about language itself, one of the distinguishing features of human language
• Displacement


  Humans can refer to past and future time, allows users to talk about things in the past not present in the immediate environment
• Arbitrariness


  No "natural" connection between a linguistic form and its meaning, cannot be questioned, because of wider social acceptance or universal recognition that is how things are known by particular names
• Productivity


  Continuous creation of new expressions and novel utterances to describe new objects and situations, infinite potential in human language
• Cultural transmission


  A process whereby a language is passed on from one generation to the next, we acquire our first language as children in a culture (not parental genes)
• Duality


  A property where human language is organized at two levels or layers simultaneously or double articulation
• Distinct sound


  Individual sounds do not have meaning at all, example: /n/, /b/, /i/
• Distinct meaning


  When these sounds are combined, they give us meaning
• Neurolinguistics


  The study of language and the brain, has its origins in the 19th century
• Phineas P. Gage a construction foreman, survived a severe brain injury in 1848.
• Language areas in the brain


  • The shaded areas in this illustration indicate the general locations of those language functions involved in speaking and listening. We have come to know that these areas exist largely through the examination, in autopsies, of the brains of people who, in life, were known to have specific language disabilities.
• Broca's area


  The "Anterior speech complex", named after the French physician and anatomist Pierre Paul Broca, is a critical part of our brain involved in speech production. It acts as a command center, managing the intricate muscle movements needed to articulate spoken words.
• Wernicke's area


  The "Posterior speech cortex", named after the German neurologist Carl Wernicke, is a crucial part of our brain that's involved in language comprehension. When someone speaks to us, it helps us understand their words by decoding the sound patterns into meaningful sentences. It's also involved in selecting the right words when we want to form our own sentences.
• The motor cortex


  An important part of our brain that is responsible for controlling voluntary movements. It acts as a command center, sending signals to our muscles to initiate and coordinate movements.
• The arcuate fasciculus


  A bundle of nerve fibers that connects two important language-related areas in the brain: Broca's Area and Wernicke's Area. It serves as a communication pathway between these areas, allowing them to work together for language processing.
• The localization view

  A perspective that suggests that different functions of language are localized or located in specific areas of the brain. The Localization view suggests that these specific areas of the brain, along with other language-related regions, play a vital role in different aspects of language processing.
• TONGUE TIPS AND SLIPS

  Refers to phenomena related to errors or mistakes that occur during speech production. We have all experienced difficulty, on some occasion(s), in getting the brain and speech production to work together smoothly.