RSA- Patricia Kuhl: Linguistic Genius of Babies
I. - Babies take statistics while they hear the words that are being said to them. - During the production of speech when babies listen, what they're doing is taking statistics on the language that they hear, and those distributions grow. What we've learned is that babies are sensitive to the statistics. - Babies absorb the statistics of the language and it changes their brains; it changes them from the citizens of the world to the culture-bound listeners that we are. A new machine, magneto encephalography that picks up the magnetic fields that changes as we do our thinking. - They used that machine on babies to see the change in their thinking while they are listening to two different type of language RSA- Steven Pinker: Language as a Window Into Human Nature
* Language is a window into social relations. Veil our intentions in innuendo hoping for our listeners to read between the lines and infer our real intent. Language does two things: it’s got to convey some content, and at the same time it had to negotiate a relationship type. The solution is to use language at two levels. * There are three major human relationship type across the world’s culture : 1) Each prescribes a distinct way of distributing resources 2) Each has a distinct evolutionary basis
3) Each applies most naturally to certain people but can be extended through negotiation to others and that’s where language comes in. * Dominance- inherited from the dominance hierarchies that are ubiquitous among primates * Communality- share and share alike; kin selection and mutualism * Reciprocity- business like tit for tat exchanges of goods or services that characterizes reciprocal altruism * The tribunal defines the battleground of sexual harassment * Explicit language is an excellent way of creating mutual knowledge * Innuendos even obvious ones...