upcoming events
Date: Wednesday, October 28, 4:00 pm, CSB 003
Speaker: Matt Hall (UCSD Psychology)
Title: (Mostly) Consistent Argument Order in Pantomime: Implications for Manual Communication & Language Evolution
Abstract:
Recent research (Goldin-Meadow et al., 2008) has discovered that when
people describe events in pantomime, there is a strong tendency to
mention Actors (Ar) first, Patients (P) second, and Actions (A) last.
Most surprisingly, this "ArPA bias" is consistent across diverse
cultures & languages, including SVO languages like English. The
present work has three main aims: (1) To more fully characterize the
conditions under which this ArPA bias does and does not arise, (2) To
explore the implications of these findings for manual communication
(e.g. natural vs. artificial sign languages), and (3) To explore the
implications of these findings for language evolution, including spoken
and sign languages - especially young sign languages. To do so, I will
present preliminary data from several completed and in-progress
experiments on which I would welcome feedback, and will propose several
additional experiments on which I would welcome input. |
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