Darcine
Welcome to my page :)
Hi, my name is Darcine and I am glad you came to visit my page. Do not expect much from me, however, I hope I will not deceive you. Some of my favorite things in life, include drawing and music. Later in life, I wish to travel all around the world. Some of my biggest dreams when I was younger, were to go to space ( which I think almost everyone wanted to do at some point in life), and learn new languages. I think I will be able to achieve the second dream but not the first one. Space terrifies me now :(. Anyways, that is my little summary about who I am and again have fun reading my blogs. <3
Topic Ideas:
The evolution of Language (philosophy and scientific).
Shakespeare's impact on modern theatre.
Gender issues in modern society.
#1: Charles Darwin theory of evolution:
I decided to talk about Charles Darwin theory of language evolution. During my first semester at Dawson, I had a class called Evolution, in this class we mostly talked about how humans evolve to become what we are today. I thought this topic was interesting and I thought it would be a great idea to revisit this and do more research about it.
Annotated Bibliography:
Davies, Roy. “1 July 1858: What Wallace Knew; What Lyell Thought He Knew; What Both He and Hooker Took on Trust; and What Charles Darwin Never Told Them.” Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, vol. 109, no. 3, July 2013, pp. 725–36. EBSCOhost, dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2325/10.1111/bij.12081.
David Roy, talks about the different takes Charles Darwin and Alfred R. Wallace have on the theory of evolution. In the text, it talks about the timeline of events that happened between a span of four months where both naturalists were sending each other letters to share their view on evolution. In the text, the author shares that if Wallace had more calculated his actions, in today's time, Darwinism would not be at its peak.
Although there are not many sources about who exactly is the author, the text is peer-reviewed. The text was published in The Linnean Society of London which was founded in 1788. It is known to be a society mostly dedicated to the study of natural history and even evolution.
I will use this source, to compare both Charles Darwin and Alfred R. Wallace ideas regarding evolution. Also, this text would be useful to use for a short paragraph on history.
SOUSA CRISTINA. “The Scientific Methods of Biology, Starting with Charles Darwin.” The American Biology Teacher, vol. 78, no. 2, Feb. 2016, pp. 109–17. EBSCOhost, dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2070/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.26411010&site=eds-live&scope=site.
In this article, the author Cristina Sousa talks about Darwin’s theory of evolution more in-depth. She uses other scientific or naturalists to help the readers understand more Darwin’s theory. By using all these different points of view, the readers are able to understand the flaws that can be seen in certain of Darwin’s theories.
This article was published at the University of California. I assume that Cristina Sousa must be a teacher there. The article is reliable since it is peer-reviewed.
I will use this article, to present in-depth what are the changes that Darwin gave to biology but also what were the different theories he came up with. I will also talk about what is the theory of evolution by using this source.
#2: Darwin's Bibliography
#1
Kevin Padian. “Ten Myths about Charles Darwin.” BioScience, vol. 59, no. 9, Oct. 2009, pp. 800–04. EBSCOhost, dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2325/10.1525/bio.2009.59.9.10.
This text by Kevin Padian shows myths that we attributed to Darwin. Some of the examples given in the text are simply theories or ideas that are popularized by the public. Myths such as Darwin’s religious belief or credit of the natural selection theory that might have been stolen by him from Alfred Russel Wallace. Kevin gave a couple of myths about Darwin that can help readers or Darwin fanatics to learn more about him.
This text is reliable since the text is from Bioscience which is a property of the American Institute of Biological Science. Kevin Padian is also a well-renowned paleontologist which makes this text more reliable.
I will use this text to try and make the text more interesting by showing some fun facts about Darwin or even use it to help concrete one of the arguments that is somehow related to one of these myths.
#3: Blog
Darwin Correspondance Project. 2022. The origin of language, University of Cambridge, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/commentary/human-nature/origin-language>
[Accessed 20 February 2022].
This text talks about the origins of Language based on Charles Darwin’s studies. Darwin published his views on language in his book title the Descent of Man, as part of a chapter on the comparative mental powers of humans and the lower animals. His arguments were based on his knowledge of anthropology, language use and acquisition in children, linguistic pathologies, and wide range of animals, wild and domestic behaviors. He also talk about Max Müller natural theology.
Although we can not find the author of this article, it was published on the University of Cambridge website which makes this text more credible
I will use this article, to further explain what is the origins of Language for Charles Darwin. This article helps with summarizing what is the basic of this theory.
#4: Blog
Liberman, Mark, “Language Log.” Language Log " Musical Protolanguage: Darwin's Theory of Language Evolution Revisited, 2009, https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1136.
Liberman talks about Darwin’s theory of Language evolutions. In this text, he gives a full-on insight into the theory and its issues. He touches on Darwin’s sexual selection and its impact on the phenomenology of modern music and language. One of the issues he touched on was complex phrasal semantics and how Darwin failed to explain it.
This article is reliable since the author of this text, is a renowned linguist. At the end of the article, there is also a discussion between people on the same subject. Different people with similar points of view or even different helps with making the text much more relatable since many read it and approved it.
I will use this article to further explain Darwin’s theory of language evolution. This text also helps since the website gives other points of view on the article by comments and discussion
Topic Sentences
Humans created language because of the need to survive.
Charles Darwin's theory of language evolution is not reliable since it lacks evidence.
Language is not considered as an instinct since humans have to either learn it or need to be though to.
#5: Blog
Strongman, Luke "Chapter: Language Evolution, Acquisition, Adaptation and Change." IntechOpen - Open Science Open Minds IntechOpen, Sep. 2016, www.intechopen.com/chapters/54552
This text shows another point of view of how Language Evolved not based on Darwin. The author uses biology and physiology as a way to explain why humans created a language to communicate with each other. This way of thinking is quite similar to Charles Darwin’s theory of language.
This text is reliable since the author, Luke Strongman has a Ph.D. in English and also wrote many books. He also studied at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.
I will use this article to show a different view and opinion to Charles Darwin's Languages Evolution theory. This article would help to compare different ideas when it comes to how and why humans created languages.
Youtube Video about The Origins and Evolution of Language by Michael Corballis
Minnesota Library Publishing Project:
This website shows some fun facts about Language and the show "Speaking in tongues the history of Language"
https://mlpp.pressbooks.pub/introductiontohumanitiesv2/chapter/language/
#6: Blog
Hauser, Marc et al. “The Mystery of Language Evolution.” Frontiers, 2014, www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00401/full.
This article by Marc et al. talks about the origins of Language from a scientific and linguistic point of view. It gives in detail the reason why language started and also touches on phonetics and all other aspects of linguistics. The scientific theory that they use is quite similar to Darwin’s theory of Language Evolution.
This text is reliable since the authors of this article are well-renowned scholars or teachers. Having different people that studied at infamous universities such as Harvard and Cambridge, help the text to be more credible.
I will use this text to make a comparison between both theories of Language. Darwin’s and the one written in this text.
Text:
Darcine Izivyose
Prof: Nathalie Lachance
Integrating Activity
29 April 2022
A deep dive into language history
Language has been the most effective mode of communication that evolution brought to the human being. The ability to learn and acquire language is something many species can do but very few, if any, can communicate with a similar complex as the one humans use. However, one question remains unanswered: How did language evolve to what it is now? Charles Darwin created a theory called: Language Evolution. In this theory, the naturalist explains how humans were able to acquire the skills to communicate and shows the different factors that helped humans to make the language more complex. This theory, however, does not make the unanimity in the linguistics field. In this essay, Charles Darwin’s theory of Evolution will be revisited and compared to the linguistic theory of how language evolved.
To start off, here is an introduction to Charles Darwin. Darwin is a naturalist who became famous because of his research on the natural world. He is also the mastermind behind the famous Theory of Evolution. 163 years ago, he published the book called: On the Origins of Species, which is still one of his most famous books to date. The naturalist became obsessed with nature after his trip to the Galapagos Island situated in the Archipelago in Ecuador1. It is only in his two other books called The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex published in 1871, that the question of language acquisition and evolution is aborded and in need of answers.
To start off, what is Language? “Language, in all aspects, consists of abstract units of information that are organized and combined following specific computational procedures. The phoneme, originally held to be the basic unit of phonology, has been shown to further decompose into combinations of features that characterize articulatory actions, which shape the sound patterns of languages.” 1
Continue, the Evolutionary Linguistics or also called the Darwinian linguistics is based on the theory that humans acquired language based on survival and struggles to happen in the natural world. There are four simple keys to the creation of an evolving species in a new environment or issue: variation, inheritance, selection, and time. Having these four factors is the start of an evolving phenomenon. On the University of Cambridge website, the article titled: Darwin’s correspondent project, explained what was the thoughts behind the beginning of this theory; “He noted the physical connections between words and sounds, exhibited in words like “roar”, “crack”, and “scrape” that seemed imitative of the things signified. He drew parallels between language and music, and asked: “did our language commence with singing—is this the origin of our pleasure in music—do monkeys howl in harmony”? (Barrett ed. 1987, p. 568) 2.” In Darwin’s theory, language is what distinguishes humans from other species. The ability to have a complex and elaborate sentence structure is an ability that very few if any species can have. It is quite impossible to think that other species would have complex language, why would they bother with things such as grammar and phonetics? Darwin believed that an early form of language must have started with humans imitating their predators, in order to know and recognized danger without needing the entire pack or group to see the animal in question. His main theory is that language sparkled from sexual selection as well as natural selection. “Darwin compared birds learning to sing to infants babbling. An early progenitor of man, he wrote, probably used his voice as did the male gibbon, to produce musical cadences for courtship, and to compete with other males.” 2 . Therefore, in Darwinian linguistics, humans created a complex language because they were in a situation of struggle. Whether it was for trying to not get attacked by a predator or to make sure that they would be able to produce offspring, the need for the struggle was needed in order to create language.
To add, Darwinian linguistics, is not as much appreciated in modern linguistics. Very few linguists support the idea of how language evolved from Darwin’s point of view. Mark Liberman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, stated that: “Darwin's explanation, as typical for his day, was concerned only with word meanings (what today would be termed "lexical semantics"). But from the viewpoint of modern linguistics, his model seems wholly inadequate to deal with large swaths of semantics, particularly those aspects tied in with the interpretation of whole phrases and sentences ("phrasal semantics").4 Liberman says, that Darwin also failed to explain the idea of “grammaticalization": “…He states that "conjugations, declensions, &c., originally existed as distinct words, since joined together" (p 61). But he offers no model for the origin of these distinct words, and it is hard to see how onomatopoeia or similar processes could have generated this original syntactic and semantic "glue"4. In other words, in Darwin’s theory of language evolution, he failed to explain further how parts of language were able to evolve and create a more complex structure such as grammar.
To furthermore explain the issue with the Darwinian linguistics theory, Noam Chomsky a linguist, proposed that contrary to the idea that struggle was the main reason for how and why language evolved. He proposed that “there is a sophisticated genetically encoded propensity for humans to acquire language”.4 Berwick and Chomsky argue that: “We can think of language as, in essence, an ‘organ of the body’… it is a cognitive organ, like the systems of planning, interpretation, reflection… We can think of language as a mental organ, where the term ‘mental’ simply refers to certain aspects of the world, to be studied in the same way as chemical, optical, electrical, and other aspects. 4” For that reason, it is understandable, that few linguists believed in the theory that struggle was what led humans to create language. When comparing the idea that language could be already in our genes, to the idea that struggling with staying alive and the reproduction of offspring, the genetic answer seems to englobe a wider range and can explain another phenomenon that Darwinian Linguistics can simply not do. Therefore, natural selection, as well as sexual selection, were probably not the factors that made humans create a sophisticated level of language. It is more probable that it was already genetically encoded in humans’ bodies, making it easier to have an evolving language.
To conclude, the language evolution theory created by Darwin is a phenomenal piece of linguistic discovery. Linguistics nowadays may not fully accept or follow this theory however, they can not deny that the man was ahead of his time. Without discrediting Darwin’s effort, his work is not adapted to the extent of modern linguistics study. From the lack of grammar explanation to the ability to recognize language as an “organ”, Darwinian linguistics is quite different than the linguistic theory of language evolution. It is quite impressive that a 151-year-old book helped humanity understand how we created one of the most elaborate forms of communication in history. Who knows, maybe in a hundred years from now on, the same question could sparkle more research: how did language evolve?
Bibliography
1 Hauser, Marc et al. “The Mystery of Language Evolution.” Frontiers, 2014, www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00401/full
2 Kevin Padian. “Ten Myths about Charles Darwin.” BioScience, vol. 59, no. 9, Oct. 2009, pp. 800–04. EBSCOhost, dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2325/10.1525/bio.2009.59.9.10.
3 Darwin Correspondance Project. 2022. The origin of language, University of Cambridge, https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/commentary/human-nature/origin-language>
4 SOUSA CRISTINA. “The Scientific Methods of Biology, Starting with Charles Darwin.” The American Biology Teacher, vol. 78, no. 2, Feb. 2016, pp. 109–17. EBSCOhost,dc153.dawsoncollege.qc.ca:2070/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,url,uid&db=edsjsr&AN=edsjsr.26411010&site=eds-live&scope=site.
5 Liberman, Mark, “Language Log.” Language Log " Musical Protolanguage: Darwin's Theory of Language Evolution Revisited, 2009, https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1136
6 PAGEL, Mark. “Darwinian Perspectives on the Evolution of Human Languages - Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.” SpringerLink, Springer US, 1 July 2016, https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/s13423-016-1072-z.
7 OUDEYER, Pierre-Yves, and Frédéric Kaplan. Language Evolution as a Darwinian Process: Computational Studies. 12 Jan. 2007, http://www.pyoudeyer.com/oudeyer-kaplan-cp07.pdf.
8 Strongman, Luke "Chapter: Language Evolution, Acquisition, Adaptation and Change." IntechOpen - Open Science Open Minds IntechOpen, Sep. 2016, www.intechopen.com/chapters/54552.
9 Thanukos, Anastasia. “A Look at Linguistic Evolution - Evolution: Education and Outreach.” BioMed Central, Springer US, 20 June 2008, https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s12052-008-0058-3#:~:text=In%20linguistic%20evolution%2C%20variation%20takes,and%20simply%20make%20one%20up.
10 Gong, Tao et al. “Evolutionary Linguistics.” Evolutionary Linguistics - an Overview | ScienceDirect Topics, https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/evolutionary-linguistics.
11 STEBBINS, Jeff Roesler. “The Evolution of Evolutionary Linguistics” Colorado Research in Linguistics. June 2007. Vol. 20. Boulder: University of Colorado, rcaillet,+The+Evolution+of+Evolutionary+Linguistics.pdf
12 Miyagawa, Shigeru et al. “The integration hypothesis of human language evolution and the nature of contemporary languages.” Frontiers in psychology vol. 5 564. 9 Jun. 2014, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4048833/