LING 443 - Evolution of Language

Credits: (4)
Prerequisite(s): LING 220 and one of LING 304, LING 307, LING 308, LING 310, LING 400
College Curriculum: COLL 400
A Linguistics capstone seminar investigating interdisciplinary research carried out on the evolutionary origins and development of human language. Questions to be addressed include: How are forms of primate communication similar to and different from human communication? What anatomical, cognitive, and social abilities underlie human language? When might they have emerged? What social and ecological conditions may have facilitated the emergence of distinctively human communication and language in hominins? What different kinds of evidence do we have for hypotheses about language evolution: biological, archaeological, genetic, ontogenetic, grammatical, psychological, sociocultural, primatological, etc.? When and how might particular components of human languages have emerged, developed, and diversified? What are the main issues which today divide the leading theories of language evolution?