Human Evolution, Language and Mind
Author: William Noble
Publisher: CUP Archive
Published: 1996-07-26
Total Pages: 292
ISBN-13: 9780521576352
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Human Evolution, Language, and Mind
Author: William Noble
Publisher:
Published: 1997
Total Pages: 272
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe Evolution of Human Consciousness and Linguistic Behavior
Author: Karen A. Haworth
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Published: 2020-09-22
Total Pages: 173
ISBN-13: 1538142899
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDrawing from the disciplines of cognitive science, Paleolithic anthropology, art history, and semiotics, Karen A. Haworth and Terry J. Prewitt offer a novel discussion of the origins of language, based primarily in the distinction of holistic versus analytical cognitive processing. Also, by employing a refined view of human symboling capacities grounded in the writings of C. S. Peirce, they provide a short but comprehensive explanation of what the artifacts and art of the Paleolithic and Mesolithic periods suggest about language origins. Their interpretation supports a semiotic argument that “iconic and indexical logical modeling” precedes human elaboration of experience by symbolic reference in words or propositions, and ultimately in what Peirce called “the argument.” Further, they suggest that the use of symbols to model the world developed rapidly between about 20,000 and 10,000 years ago, and has the effect of giving emphasis to analytic thought as the dominant mode of human consciousness. Rather than seeing symbols as the impetus for human logic, they argue for presymbolic elements of logic in Peirce’s sign categories shared widely by humans and other animals. Intended readers are scholars in philosophy, anthropology, psychology, linguistics, and semiotics, as well as interested nonspecialists. The presentation is also complemented with brief personal narratives, intended to offer background that helps make a dense academic argument more accessible to the widest audience possible. The authors’ insights into the basis for language have ramifications for any number of other fields: education, psychology, philosophy, prehistory, and art, to name a few.
The Symbolic Species: The Co-evolution of Language and the Brain
Author: Terrence W. Deacon
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 1998-04-17
Total Pages: 532
ISBN-13: 0393343022
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"A work of enormous breadth, likely to pleasantly surprise both general readers and experts."—New York Times Book Review This revolutionary book provides fresh answers to long-standing questions of human origins and consciousness. Drawing on his breakthrough research in comparative neuroscience, Terrence Deacon offers a wealth of insights into the significance of symbolic thinking: from the co-evolutionary exchange between language and brains over two million years of hominid evolution to the ethical repercussions that followed man's newfound access to other people's thoughts and emotions. Informing these insights is a new understanding of how Darwinian processes underlie the brain's development and function as well as its evolution. In contrast to much contemporary neuroscience that treats the brain as no more or less than a computer, Deacon provides a new clarity of vision into the mechanism of mind. It injects a renewed sense of adventure into the experience of being human.
Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution
Author: Kathleen Rita Gibson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1993
Total Pages: 506
ISBN-13: 9780521485418
DOWNLOAD EBOOKLooks at how humans have evolved complex behaviours such as language and culture.
Evolution and the Human Mind
Author: Peter Carruthers
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2000-11-02
Total Pages: 352
ISBN-13: 9780521789080
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis volume of essays offers an interdisciplinary examination of the evolution of the human mind.
Eve Spoke
Author: Philip Lieberman
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 1998
Total Pages: 222
ISBN-13: 9780393040890
DOWNLOAD EBOOKToday, scientists cite language as the distinctively human feature. But what is language--a sign, a grunt? A sound with collective symbolic meaning? This remarkable book seeks to set the record straight with a critical refinement of the language theory, providing readers for the first time with a scientific explanation of how Eve came to speak at all. Illustrations.
How Language Began
Author: David McNeill
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2012-08-30
Total Pages: 279
ISBN-13: 1107021219
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe first book to explain how speech and gesture evolved together into a system that all humans possess.
How Language Began: The Story of Humanity's Greatest Invention
Author: Daniel L. Everett
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
Published: 2017-11-07
Total Pages: 309
ISBN-13: 087140477X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA Buzzfeed Gift Guide Selection “Few books on the biological and cultural origin of humanity can be ranked as classics. I believe [this] will be one of them.” — Edward O. Wilson At the time of its publication, How Language Began received high acclaim for capturing the fascinating history of mankind’s most incredible creation. Deemed a “bombshell” linguist and “instant folk hero” by Tom Wolfe (Harper’s), Daniel L. Everett posits that the near- 7,000 languages that exist today are not only the product of one million years of evolution but also have allowed us to become Earth’s apex predator. Tracing 60,000 generations, Everett debunks long- held theories across a spectrum of disciplines to affi rm the idea that we are not born with an instinct for language. Woven with anecdotes of his nearly forty years of fi eldwork amongst Amazonian hunter- gatherers, this is a “completely enthralling” (Spectator) exploration of our humanity and a landmark study of what makes us human. “[An] ambitious text. . . . Everett’s amiable tone, and especially his captivating anecdotes . . . , will help the neophyte along.”— New York Times Book Review
Language in Our Brain
Author: Angela D. Friederici
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2017-11-16
Total Pages: 300
ISBN-13: 0262036924
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA comprehensive account of the neurobiological basis of language, arguing that species-specific brain differences may be at the root of the human capacity for language. Language makes us human. It is an intrinsic part of us, although we seldom think about it. Language is also an extremely complex entity with subcomponents responsible for its phonological, syntactic, and semantic aspects. In this landmark work, Angela Friederici offers a comprehensive account of these subcomponents and how they are integrated. Tracing the neurobiological basis of language across brain regions in humans and other primate species, she argues that species-specific brain differences may be at the root of the human capacity for language. Friederici shows which brain regions support the different language processes and, more important, how these brain regions are connected structurally and functionally to make language processes that take place in milliseconds possible. She finds that one particular brain structure (a white matter dorsal tract), connecting syntax-relevant brain regions, is present only in the mature human brain and only weakly present in other primate brains. Is this the “missing link” that explains humans' capacity for language? Friederici describes the basic language functions and their brain basis; the language networks connecting different language-related brain regions; the brain basis of language acquisition during early childhood and when learning a second language, proposing a neurocognitive model of the ontogeny of language; and the evolution of language and underlying neural constraints. She finds that it is the information exchange between the relevant brain regions, supported by the white matter tract, that is the crucial factor in both language development and evolution.
