Language Evolution

This course begins with a consideration of the history of the field of study. This is followed by a discussion of the methods used in current research, including concepts and techniques from a variety of disciplines: primatology, archaeology, paleontology, anthropology, linguistics, cognitive neuroscience, and child language acquisition. A review of major theories that have been put forward in recent years to explain how language might have evolved from earlier forms of representation and communication will then be given. This includes Pinker's language instinct theory, Gould's `spandrel theory', Lieberman's speech theory, Dunbar's `gossip theory', Deacon's language-brain co-evolution theory and others.