THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE

BY: Group X
Ipung Jatikustanto Nabila Inaya J. Okky Syarah F. Udiana Puspa D. Anggila Briyan P. C0308041 C0308052 C0308056 C0308075 C0308079

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT SEBELAS MARET UNNIVERSITY 2010

The Origin of Language

Speculation about the prehistoric beginnings of language is not a respectable activity (Brown 1973, p.63) The Linguistic Society in Paris outlawed it in 1866 and reaffirmed its action in 1911 The interest grew since 1965 mostly from outside linguistics: notions of when human being started to speak and how they did it, by doing: Observations of young children Measurement of human skeleton Investigation of non-speech system The study of natural animal communication Experiments in teaching apes to communicate o Those experiments never proved anything about the primordial language, the first that was ever spoken. o Primordial language cannot be reconstructed the way we reconstruct much of Indo-European because according to one view, the rate of change observed in a languages, if it operated in the past as it does today, would have wiped out traces of any languages spoken 30,000 years ago Some theories about the origin of language a) A tacit belief in the existence of language as something separated from people. For the Bible it lies at the root of creation: In the beginning was the Word For the eighteen-century philosophers: man was there before hand, accoutered with all the powers that he has today except for speech. For speculative linguist: in a kind of how-to way Example: You can bark like a dog to represent dog The "bow-wow" hypothesis (Onomatopoetic or Echoic theory) (the most famous and therefore the most ridiculed hypothesis) holds that vocabulary developed from imitations of animal noises, such as: Moo, bark, hiss, meow, quackquack. (Alwasilah, 1985:3) You can say ding-dong to represent bell The "ding-dong" hypothesis. This theory was introduced by Max Mler (Alwasilah, 1985:3). Language began when humans started naming objects, actions and phenomena

after a recognizable sound associated with it in real life. For example: crash became the word for thunder and boom for explosion. (Vajda, 2010) You can say ta-ta on leaving friend The ta-ta theory. Sir Richard Paget, influenced by Darwin, believed that body movement preceded language. Language began as an unconscious vocal imitation of these movements. (Boeree, 2003) waving good-bye to your friend with your tongue The yo-he-ho theory. Language began as rhythmic chants, perhaps ultimately from the grunts of heavy work (heave-ho!). The linguist A. S. Diamond suggests that these were perhaps calls for assistance or cooperation accompanied by appropriate gestures. (Boeree, 2003) b) Theory of evolution (19th century) by Darwin The facial expressions that back up much of human language are an extension of those used by all the primates. But there must have emerged a succession of differences, important enough to select for survival only those human begins who possessed them to a higher and higher degree. The barrier in animal communication that had to be surmounted: 1) Fixity of reference Transferred meanings are the rule in human language. Form and meaning are detached from each other and to some extent go their own ways. Example: Animal : A growl is a warning to an enemy A dog does not come to his master and growl to indicate that there is an enemy approaching means that the growl is at what stimulates it. Human: The word steal can be used in someone steals a purse and also someone steals the limelight. It shows that form and meaning are detached from each other. 2) Holophrasis Holophrasis is the emitting of just one independent signaling until at a time. Animal communication appears to lack syntax. Human infants lack syntax up to about the age of two, but eventually get the hang of putting words together.

An experiment which was done to two chimpanzees shows that they have matched the language ability of a four-year-old child and have proved that creatures other than human had the intelligence to transfer meaning and to create syntax. But perhaps it is only the determination and diligence of human trainers could bring it off.

3) Lack of metalanguage It was not possible to turn syntax inward and enable it to build on itself. Syntax would be sterile if these inward-pointing elements-pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions, inflections of verbs, sentence adverbs-had not been added to the speakers repertory. Example: Do you know the man who wrote this? Compare it with: Do you know the wrote-this man? From the two examples above we can see that the word who facilitates the concatenation of two sentences of two sentences of which one defines an element in the other. Function word and function order show that one of two sentences is not in itself but part of a larger proposition.

CONCLUSION 1. Based on Darwins theory of evolution researchers did an experiment and found three barriers in animal communication, they are: a. Fixity of reference b. Holophrasis c. Lack of Metalanguage 2. There are three important things in communicating the language: a. Recursiveness, which has functions: In the power to limit the units at one level of language sufficiently to make them manageable. To use the units over and over in building larger units.

b. The breakaway from holophrasis to: make words available not just for single referents but for classes of them.

c. The attainment of syntax to: make words usable not just one at a time but in combination 3. Hearers can identify countless numbers of words not by following any particular guidelines but by recognizing their general impressions without digitizing them.

REFERENCES

Alwasilah, A.C. 1985. Linguistik Suatu Pengantar. Bandung: Angkasa Boeree, Gorge. 2003. The Origins of Language. http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/langorigins.html Bolinger, Dwight. 1975. Aspects of Language. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Vajda, Edward. 2010. The Origins of http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test1materials/origin_of_language.htm Language.