How did the biological, brain and behavioural structures underlying human language evolve? This is an introduction to the interdisciplinary debates.

Conceiving of language and cognition as biological phenomena, these lectures provide and illustrate a coherent, integrated theoretical framework for studying essentially any aspect of language systems, language use, language change, and language evolution.

Balancing arbitrariness and systematicity in language evolution / Padraic Monaghan, Morten H. Christiansen, Stanka Fitneva -- Speaker-independent perception of human speech by zebra finches / Verena R. Ohms [und weitere] -- An avian model for language evolution / Irene Pepperberg -- Grooming gestures of chimpanzees in the wild : first insights into meaning and function / Simone Pika, Chris Knight -- The relevance ofthe developmental stress hypothesis to the evolution of language / Anne Pritchard -- Co-evolution of language and social network structure through cultural transmission / Justin Quillinan, Simon Kirby, Kenny Smith -- The origins of sociolinguistic marking and its role in language divergence : an experimental study / Gareth Roberts -- Considering language evolution from birdsong development / Kazutoshi Sasahara [und weitere] -- Semantic bootstrapping of grammar in embodied robots / Yo Sato, Joe Saunders -- Why do wild chimpanzees produce food-associated calls : a case of vocal grooming? / Anne Schel, Klaus Zuberbühler, Katie E. Slocombe -- The importance of exploring non-linguistic functions of human brain language areas for explaining language evolution / P. Thomas Schoenemann -- Language evolution : the view from adult second language learners / Marieke Schouwstra -- The evolution of communication and relevance / Thomas Scoff-Phillips -- Pragmatics not semantics as the basis for clause structure / Thomas Scoff-Phillips [und weitere]

Using a comparative approach in order to understand the origins of communication, this title explores the mysterious circumstances that surround the emergence of human languages, as well as the methods that other species use in order to communicate.

Neurolinguistics is the study of the neural mechanisms in the human brain that control the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language. As an interdisciplinary field, neurolinguistics draws methodology and theory from fields such as neuroscience, linguistics, cognitive science, neurobiology, communication disorders, neuropsychology, and computer science. Researchers are drawn to the field from a variety of backgrounds, bringing along a variety of experimental techniques as well as widely varying theoretical perspectives. Much work in neurolinguistics is informed by models in psycholinguistics and theoretical linguistics and is focused on investigating how the brain can implement the processes that theoretical and psycholinguistics proposes are necessary in producing and comprehending language. Neurologists study the physiological mechanisms by which the brain processes information related to language, and evaluate linguistic and psycholinguistic theories, using aphasiology, brain imaging, electrophysiology, and computer modeling. Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer, engineering, linguistics, mathematics, medicine and allied disciplines, philosophy, physics, and psychology. The term neurobiology is usually used interchangeably with the term neuroscience, although the former refers specifically to the biology of the nervous system, whereas the latter refers to the entire science of the nervous system. The scope of neuroscience has broadened to include different approaches used to study the molecular, cellular, developmental, structural, functional, evolutionary, computational, and medical aspects of the nervous system. The techniques used by neuroscientists have also expanded enormously, from molecular and cellular studies of individual nerve to imaging of sensory and motor tasks in the brain. Recent theoretical advances in neuroscience have also been aided by the study of neural networks. Given the increasing number of scientists who study the nervous system, several prominent neuroscience organizations have been formed to provide a forum to all neuroscientists and educators. Forensic linguistics is the application of linguistic knowledge, methods and insights to the forensic context of law, language, crime investigation, trial, and judicial procedure. It is a branch of applied linguistics. There are principally three areas of application for linguists working in forensic contexts- understanding the language of the written law, understanding language use in forensic and judicial processes and the provision of linguistic evidence. The discipline of forensic linguistics is not homogenous; it involves a range of experts and researchers in different areas of the field. A linguistic fingerprint is a concept put forward by some scholars that each human being uses language differently, and that this difference between people involves a collection of markers which stamps a speaker/writer as unique; similar to a fingerprint. Under this view, it is assumed that every individual uses languages differently and this difference can be observed as a fingerprint. It is formed as a result of a merged language style. A person's linguistic fingerprint can be reconstructed from the individual's daily interactions and relate to a variety of self-reported personality characteristics, situational variables and physiological markers (e.g. blood pressure, cortical, testosterone). In the process of an investigation, the emphasis should be on the relative rather than the absolute difference between the authors and how investigators can classify their texts, however, argues that although the concept of linguistic fingerprinting is attractive to law enforcement agencies, there is so far little hard evidence to support the notion. In order to carry out the Cesium test on habits of utilizing two to three-letter words and vowel-initial words in a sentential clause, the occurrences of each type of word in the text must be identified and the distribution plotted in each sentence. The Cesium distribution for these two habits will be compared with the average sentence length of the text. The two sets of values should track each other. Any altered section of the text would show a distinct discrepancy between the values of the two reference points. The tampered section will exhibit a different pattern from the rest of the text. Contents General Linguistics 1 Applied Linguistics 10 Computational Linguistics 18 Anthropological Linguistics 25 Evolutionary Linguistics 33 Sociolinguistics 59 Psycholinguistics 77 Neurolinguistics 87 Forensic Linguistics 105 Internet Linguistics 119 Cognitive Linguistic 145 Quantitative Linguistics 156 Second Language Teaching 164 Translation Theory 193 Machine Translation in India: Now-a-days 248 Science and Technology of Machine Translation 264 Clinical Linguistics 281 Language Planning 301 Index 327

Linguistics: The Study of Language is an insightful exploration into the world of language and its intricate structure. This book offers a comprehensive guide through the various branches of linguistics, providing readers with an in-depth understanding of how language is formed, used, and evolves over time. From the basics of phonetics and phonology to the complexities of syntax and semantics, this book covers every aspect of language study. It delves into the cognitive processes behind language acquisition, the social factors influencing language use, and the neural mechanisms that enable language processing in the brain. Each chapter is meticulously structured to guide the reader through the foundational concepts and advanced topics, making it an essential resource for both beginners and seasoned linguists. The book also touches on the practical applications of linguistics in the real world, including language teaching, translation, computational linguistics, and forensic analysis. By examining the role of language in society and the impact of technology on communication, this book equips readers with the knowledge to understand the ever-evolving nature of human language. Whether you’re a student of linguistics, a language enthusiast, or someone interested in understanding the nuances of human communication, Linguistics: The Study of Language provides a clear and engaging overview of one of humanity’s most fundamental tools.

An entirely new follow-up volume providing a detailed account of numerous additional issues, methods, and results that characterize current work in historical linguistics. This brand-new, second volume of The Handbook of Historical Linguistics is a complement to the well-established first volume first published in 2003. It includes extended content allowing uniquely comprehensive coverage of the study of language(s) over time. Though it adds fresh perspectives on several topics previously treated in the first volume, this Handbook focuses on extensions of diachronic linguistics beyond those key issues. This Handbook provides readers with studies of language change whose perspectives range from comparisons of large open vs. small closed corpora, via creolistics and linguistic contact in general, to obsolescence and endangerment of languages. Written by leading scholars in their respective fields, new chapters are offered on matters such as the origin of language, evidence from language for reconstructing human prehistory, invocations of language present in studies of language past, benefits of linguistic fieldwork for historical investigation, ways in which not only biological evolution but also field biology can serve as heuristics for research into the rise and spread of linguistic innovations, and more. Moreover, it: offers novel and broadened content complementing the earlier volume so as to provide the fullest available overview of a wholly engrossing field includes 23 all-new contributed chapters, treating some familiar themes from fresh perspectives but mostly covering entirely new topics features expanded discussion of material from language families other than Indo-European provides a multiplicity of views from numerous specialists in linguistic diachrony. The Handbook of Historical Linguistics, Volume II is an ideal book for undergraduate and graduate students in linguistics, researchers and professional linguists, as well as all those interested in the history of particular languages and the history of language more generally.

This volume comprises refereed papers and abstracts from the 7th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG7), held in Barcelona in March 2008. As the leading international conference in the field, the biennial EVOLANG meeting is characterized by an invigorating, multidisciplinary approach to the origins and evolution of human language, and brings together researchers from many fields including anthropology, archeology, artificial life, biology, cognitive science, computer science, ethology, genetics, linguistics, neuroscience, paleontology, primatology, psychology and statistical physics.The latest theoretical, experimental and modeling research on language evolution is presented in this collection. It includes contributions from leading scientists such as Derek Bickerton, Rudolf Botha, Camilo Cela Conde, Francesco d'Erico, Susan Goldin-Meadow, Simon Kirby, Gary Marcus, Friedemann Pulvermüller and Juan Uriagereka./a

This volume comprises refereed papers and abstracts of the 10th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANGX), held in Vienna on 14-17th April 2014. As the leading international conference in the field, the biennial EVOLANG meeting is characterised by an invigorating, multidisciplinary approach to the origins and evolution of human language, and brings together researchers from many subject areas, including anthropology, archaeology, biology, cognitive science, computer science, genetics, linguistics, neuroscience, palaeontology, primatology and psychology.For this 10th conference, the proceedings will include a special perspectives section featuring prominent researchers reflecting on the history of the conference and its impact on the field of language evolution since the inaugural EVOLANG conference in 1996.

English has long been suspected to be a vowel-shifting language. This hypothesis, often only adumbrated in previous work, is closely investigated in this book. Framed within a novel framework combining evolutionary linguistics and Optimality Theory, the account proposed here argues that the replacement of duration by quality as the primary cue to signaling vowel oppositions has resulted in the ‘shiftiness’ of many post-medieval English varieties.