Music in the Brain BONUS Seminar
15th January 2015, 2-3pm
4th-floor meeting room, DNC building 10G, Aarhus University Hospital, Nørrebrogade, 8000 Aarhus C

Morten H. Christiansen (Cornell, Haskins, SDU)
“Language as Shaped by the Brain”

Abstract:
Why is language the way it is, and how did it come to be that way? In this talk, I argue that traditional notions of universal grammar as a biological endowment of abstract linguistic constraints can be ruled out on evolutionary grounds. Instead, the fit between the mechanisms employed for language and the way in which language is acquired and used can be explained by processes of cultural evolution shaped by the human brain. On this account, language evolved by 'piggybacking' on pre-existing neural mechanisms, constrained by socio-pragmatic considerations, the nature of our thought processes, perceptuo-motor factors, and cognitive limitations on learning, memory and processing. Using computational, behavioral, neuropsychological, and neuroimaging methods, I then explore how one of these constraints -- the ability to learn and process sequentially presented information -— may have played an important role in shaping language through cultural evolution. I conclude by drawing out the implications of this viewpoint for understanding the problem of language acquisition, which is cast in a new, and much more tractable, form.

Sponsored by Interacting Minds Center, Aarhus University

ALL ARE WELCOME