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Linguistics I I.S.F.D. Aguilares: ACTIVITY N°1: Read The First Chapter by Yule. ACTIVITY N°2: Study Questions

This document contains an activity assignment for a linguistics course. It includes 8 questions about the origins and development of human language. The questions cover topics like why interjections are unlikely sources of speech sounds, theories on language origins like "Bow-Wow" and "Yo-Heave-Ho", the role of the pharynx in sound production, evidence from deaf children supporting the innateness hypothesis, and comments on an article about the importance of language to human society.

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Sergio Vargas
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593 views2 pages

Linguistics I I.S.F.D. Aguilares: ACTIVITY N°1: Read The First Chapter by Yule. ACTIVITY N°2: Study Questions

This document contains an activity assignment for a linguistics course. It includes 8 questions about the origins and development of human language. The questions cover topics like why interjections are unlikely sources of speech sounds, theories on language origins like "Bow-Wow" and "Yo-Heave-Ho", the role of the pharynx in sound production, evidence from deaf children supporting the innateness hypothesis, and comments on an article about the importance of language to human society.

Uploaded by

Sergio Vargas
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Linguistics I

I.S.F.D. AGUILARES

Teacher: Ucciardello, Alejandra


Student: Vargas, Sergio Eduardo
Year: 2020

ACTIVITY N°1: Read the first chapter by Yule.


ACTIVITY N°2: Study Questions:

1- Why are interjections such as Ooh! or Yuck! Considered to be unlikely sources of human
speech sounds?
2- What is the basic idea behind "Bow-Wow" theory of language origin?
3- Why is it difficult to agree with Psammetichus that Phrygian must have been the original
human language?
4- Where is the Pharynx and how did it become an important part of human sound
production?
5- Why do you think that young deaf children who become fluent in sign language would be
cited in support of the innateness hypothesis?
6- With which of the six "sources" would you associate this quotation?
Chewing, Licking and Sucking are extremely widespread mammalian activities which, in
terms of casual observation, Have obvious Similarity with speech. (MacNeilage, 1998)
7- Choose one of the sources of origin of language and explain it with your owns words.
8- Search on the net an article about the topic and give your comments about out it.

1- Interjections such as Ooh! or Yuck! are considered to be unlikely sources of human speech
sounds because this interjection is produced with sudden intakes of breath which is the opposite of
ordinary talk. We normally produce spoken language as we breath out, so we speak while we
exhale, not inhale. The expressive noises people make in emotional reactions contain sounds that
are not otherwise used in speech production and consequently would seem to be rather unlikely
candidates as source sound of the language.

2- The basic idea behind the ”Bow-Bow” theory is that primitive words derive from imitations of
the natural sounds that early men and women heard around them. When different objects flew by
making a caw-caw or coo-coo sound the early human tried to imitate the sound and then used them
to refer to those objects even when they weren’t present.
3- It is difficult to agree with Psammetichus about that Psammetichus about that Phrygian must
have been the original human language because that seems very unlikely. Children may not have
picked up the word bekos “bread” from any human source but they must have heard what the goats
were saying (first remove the -kos ending, which was added in the Greek version of the story, then
pronounce “be” as you would the English word bed without -d at the end. Can you hear a goat?
Also, other cases of children who have been discovered living in isolation, without coming into
contact with human speech, tend not to confirm the result of these type of divine-source
experiments. Very young children living without access to human language in their early years
growing up with no language at all. If human language did emanate from a divine source, we have
no way of reconstructing that original language.

4- The pharynx is located above the vocal folds which act as a resonator for increased range and
clarity of the sounds produced via the larynx and the vocal tract.

5- If deaf children do not develop speech first, their language ability would not seem to depend on
the physical adaptations that are involved in speaking. If all children, even those who are deaf,
acquire the language more or less at the same time, they must be born with a special capacity to do
it, so the conclusion is that it must be innate and hence genetically determined.

6. I would associate this quotation with the “Physical adaptation source”, because it describes how
human sources have been used during the pass of the time and that could have influenced speech.

7. I preferred to analyse “The natural sound source”. In this theory it is said that the beginnings of
human speech is based on the concept of natural sounds that means that early men and women
imitated the natural sounds heard around them, e. g. when they heard a flying object making cuckoo
sound, that natural sound was adopted to refer to that object. In all modern languages there occur
some words pronunciation of which seem to echo natural sounds e. g. bang, hiss, buzz, splash...
This theory is called BOW-WOW theory and the words echoing natural sounds are called
onomatopoeic. There are a lot of abstract words so we are rather sceptical about the view that a
language is only a set of words which are based on natural sounds. One other “natural sound
“proposal is known as YO-HEAVE-HO THEORY. These are sounds of a person involved in
physical effort when that effort had to be coordinated.

8. The importance of language is vital for the human being since it allows him to establish
communication with other living beings and thus live in community. If the human being did not
have a language system, then he could not put together projects in common with other individuals,
which is precisely the essence of life in society. Those cases of human beings who did not need
language throughout their lives are those very unique cases in which a child grew up in the jungle or
in natural environments and never learned any type of language or language. Words are dynamic
signs that, like culture, are transformed through time, responding to human needs. The truth is that
the uses and customs will always be above the rules, finally, the language belongs to everyone.
Language allows us to be what we are and to identify ourselves. What we say and how we say it
reflects the values and experience of ourselves, our family and the community to which we belong.

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