How the brain got language : the mirror system hypothesis
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
How the brain got language : the mirror system hypothesis
(Studies in the evolution of language, 16)
Oxford University Press, c2012
Available at 38 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 359-386) and indexes
Description and Table of Contents
Description
This book explains how the human brain evolved to make language possible and how cultural evolution took over from biological evolution during the transition from basic forms of communication to fully fledged languages. Basing his argument on the latest research in neuroscience, linguistics, and primatology, Michael Arbib presents an up-to-the-minute version of a theory that offers insights into the evolutionary importance of the brain's mirror neurons that enable
monkeys, chimps, and humans to recognize the actions of others. Only in humans have these evolved to allow the "complex imitation" which supports the breakthrough to language. This theory, he shows, lights the path from the simple manual gesture we share with apes, to the imitation of manual skills
and pantomime, and to the development of sign language and speech. It also explains why we can learn sign languages as easily as we can learn to speak. The author looks at how the brain mechanisms that made the original emergence of fully-fledged languages possible are still active in the ways that children acquire language today and sign languages continue to emerge. He also shows their crucial role in the processes by which languages change on time scales from decades to centuries. This book
explains how the brain evolved to make language Michael Arbib provides nonspecialist readers with all the necessary background in primatology, neuroscience, and linguistics. His compelling account of this fascinating subject is fully accessible to a general audience.
Table of Contents
- Part I. Setting the Stage
- 1. Underneath the Lampposts
- 2. Perspectives on Human Languages
- 3. Vocalization and Gesture in Monkey and Ape
- 4. Human Brain, Monkey Brain, and Praxis
- 5. Mirror Neurons and Mirror Systems
- Part II. Developing the Hypothesis
- 6. Signposts: The Argument of the Book Revealed
- 7. Simple and Complex Imitation
- 8. Via Pantomime to Protosign
- 9. Protosign and Protospeech: An Expanding Spiral
- 10. How Languages Got Started
- 11. How the Child Acquires Language
- 12. How Languages Emerge
- 13. How Languages Keep Changing
by "Nielsen BookData"