Approaches to the Evolution of Language
Approaches to the Evolution of Language
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Summary
This book situates language within the framework of modern evolutionary theory. Linguists, anthropologists, and cognitive scientists explore the origins and evolution of human language, emphasizing the social bases on which very complex language structure is founded, and showing how this structure emerges and develops.
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Approaches to the Evolution of Language by James R Hurford
This is one of the first systematic attempts to bring language within the neo-Darwinian framework of modern evolutionary theory, without abandoning the vast gains in phonology and syntax achieved by formal linguistics over the past forty years. The contributors, linguists, psychologists, and paleoanthropologists, address such questions as: what is language as a category of behavior; is it an instrument of thought or of communication; what do individuals know when they know a language; what cognitive, perceptual, and motor capacities must they have to speak, hear, and understand a language? For the past two centuries, scientists have tended to see language function as largely concerned with the exchange of practical information. By contrast, this volume takes as its starting point the view of human intelligence as social, and of language as a device for forming alliances, in exploring the origins of the sound patterns and formal structures that characterize language.James R. Hurford, Emeritus Professor, University of Edinburgh James R. Hurford is Emeritus Professor at the University of Edinburgh, where he was previously Professor of General Linguistics from 1979 until his retirement in 2009. Over the last 25 years he has pioneered the rebirth of serious scientific interest in the origins and evolution of language. He
co-founded with Chris Knight the biennial international conferences on the evolution of language (known as EVOLANG), with Simon Kirby the Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit at the University of Edinburgh, and with Kathleen Gibson the OUP series on language evolution. His previous
publications include The Origins of Meaning (OUP 2007) and The Origins of Grammar (OUP 2011).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780521639644 |
| ISBN 10 | 0521639646 |
| Title | Approaches to the Evolution of Language |
| Author | James R Hurford |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Year published | 1998-09-17 |
| Number of pages | 456 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |