biolinguistics reading list

Biolinguistics reading list

Animal communication

Cheney, D. L., and Seyfarth, R. M. (1998). Why animals don't have language. In G. Petersen

(Ed.), The Tanner lectures on human values (Vol. 19). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

Language evolution

Pinker, S., and Bloom, P. (1990). Natural-language and natural-selection. Behavioral and Brain

Sciences, 13, 707-726.

Dunbar, Robin. 1998. Of Brains and Groups and Evolution. In Grooming, Gossip and the

Evolution of Language. Harvard University Press.

Pinker, S. 2003. Language as an adaptation to the cognitive niche. In M. Christiansen and S. Kirby

(Eds.), Language evolution: States of the art. New York: Oxford University Press.

Agger, William A., Timothy L McAndrews, John A Hlaudy. 2004. On Toothpicking in Early

Hominids. Current Anthropology 45:33, 403-404.

Aaron, P. G., R. Malatesha Joshi. 2006. Written Language is as Natural as Spoken Language: A

Biolinguistic Perspective. Reading Psychology, 27:263–311.

Lieberman, P. 2006. Toward an evolutionary biology of language. London: Belknap Press.

Hagen, L. Kirk. 2008. The Bilingual Brain: Human Evolution and Second Language

Acquisition. Evolutionary Psychology 6(1): 43-63.

Rosenberg, Jeremy. Richard J. Tunney. 2008. Human vocabulary use as display. Evolutionary

Psychology 6(3): 538-549.

Chang, Rosemarie Sokol, Nicholas S. Thompson. 2010. The Attention-Getting Capacity of

Whines and Child-Directed Speech. Evolutionary Psychology 8(2): 260-274.

Biolinguistics and structural linguistics

Chomsky, Noam. 2007. Biolinguistic Explorations: Design, Development, Evolution.

International Journal of Philosophical Studies Vol. 15(1), 1–21

Cognitive/neurolinguistics

Zhou, Xiaolin, Zheng Ye, Him Cheung and Hsuan-Chih Chen. 2009. Processing the Chinese

language: An ntroduction. LANGUAGE AND COGNITIVE PROCESSES 24 (7/8), 929_946.

Kovelman, Ioulia, Stephanie A. Baker, and Laura-Ann Petitto. 2008. Bilingual and Monolingual

Brains Compared: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Investigation of Syntactic Processing and a Possible ‘‘Neural Signature’’ of Bilingualism. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience vol. 20 no. 1.

Kovelman, I, Shalinsky, M.H., Berens, M.S. and Petitto, L-A. 2008. Shining new light on the

brain’s “Bilingual Signature:” A functional Near Infrared Spectroscopy investigation of semantic processing. Neuroimage, 39(3): 1457–1471.

Kovelman, I., Shalinsky, M.H., White, K.S., Schmitt S.N., Berens, M.S., Paymer, N., and Petitto,

L-A. 2009. Dual Language Use in Sign-Speech Bimodal Bilinguals: fNIRS Brain-Imaging Evidence. Brain Lang. 109(2-3): 112–123.

Language and genetics

Stromswold, K. 2001. The heritability of language: A review and meta-analysis of twin, adoption,

and linkage studies. Language, 77, 647-723.

paper proposals

Proposal 3 - neurolinguistics

Proposal 2 - comparison of 2 translations


Proposal 1 - cognitive linguistics

list of locations of resources

All resources below are referenced in the second half of Chapter 1 of Studies on the
History of Behavior.
1. Bühler C. ( 1930). The first year of life. New York: Day.
人生第一年 : 缩微品 [（奥）夏绿蒂·布莱]（C.Buhler）原著
发行拷贝片
北京 全国图书馆文献缩微中心 2006
1盘卷片(5米127拍) : 正像, 1:16, 2B; 16mm
chi eng ger
Reproduction of: 人生第一年, 专著 重庆: 商务印书馆[发行],民国
33[1944] 216页: 图: 表,20cm 书名原文：The first year of life 综述
对69个正常儿童出生后第1年的行为发展进行观察的结果。全书
共两编，上编描述并分析正常儿童的行为的发展；下编探讨了对
1、2岁儿童心理测验的内容、方法与测验的可靠性等
人生第一年, 专著. 重庆, 商务印书馆[发行] 民国
33[1944] 216页, 图 表 20cm 书名原文：The first year of life, 综述
对69个正常儿童出生后第1年的行为发展进行观察的结果。全书
共两编，上编描述并分析正常儿童的行为的发展；下编探讨了对
1、2岁儿童心理测验的内容、方法与测验的可靠性等,
The first year of life eng
婴幼儿-行为
行为-婴幼儿
布莱 ,bu lai, 夏绿蒂.
Buhler, C..
李芳经 ,li fang jing.
Item
Microforms Reading Room

2. Bühler K. ( 1927). Dukhovnoe razvitie rebenka [Mental development of the
child]. Moscow.

3. Bühler K. ( 1930). The mental development of the child. New York: Harcourt,
Brace. (Russian ed., 1927, original and complete version published in 1919)
Available at: Universitätsbibliothek der LMU München, Germany
¬The mental development of the child
a summary of modern psychological theory
Autor/Hrsg.: Bühler, Karl
Verl.-Ort, Verlag, Jahr: London, Routledge, 1999
Umfang: XI, 170 S. : Ill., graph. Darst.
ISBN/ISSN/ISMN: 0-415-20986-2
On Amazon for $30.95
http://www.amazon.com/Mental-Development-Child-Classics-development/dp/
040506456X%3FSubscriptionId%3D0JRA4J6WAV0R
TAZVS6R2%26tag%3Dworldcat-
20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativ
eASIN%3D040506456X

4. Engels F. ( 1960). The dialects of nature. New York: International Publishers.
On Amazon for $18.00
http://www.amazon.com/Dialects-Nature-Frederick-Engels/dp/B000KRGD40/
ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291778011&sr=1-1

5. Groos K. ( 1907). The play of animals. New York: Harper. (Original work
published 1898)
Available in English at National Library of Singapore
http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/1286723?
page=frame&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbiblink.nlb.gov.sg%2Fcgi-
bin%2Fcw_cgi%3F10100%2BREDIRX%2BuseDatabase_3002_v_%28OCoLC%
29221169468%26checksum%3D691e97a98e732371ae91e7fb9375f0f5&title=Nat
ional+Library+Board%2C+Singapore&linktype=opac&detail=SINLB%3ANation
al+Library+Board%2C+Singapore%3AState+or+National+Library
Available in French at the Bibliotheque Central du Museum National d’Histoire
Naturelle:
:
Les jeux des animaux - par K. Groos,... ; traduit de l'allemand par A. Dirr et
A. Van Gennep
Auteur(s):
Groos , Karl - 1861-1946
Auteur(s) secondaire(s): Dirr , Adolf - 1867-1930. Traducteur
Van Gennep , Arnold - 1873-1957.
Traducteur
Editeur:
Paris - F.
Alcan
Parution:
1902
Format:
1 vol. (VIII-375 p.) ; 23 cm
Collection:
Bibliothèque de philosophie contemporaine
Notes:
Reproduction de:
Absorbé en partie par:
Traduit de:
Sujets en français:
Sujets en anglais:
Notes bibliogr. Bibliogr. p. 347-349.
Index
Reproduction sur microfiche. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale,
1988. 5 mf.
Reproduction sur microfiche. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale,
1988. 5 mf.
Die Spiele der
Tiere
Animaux -- Psychologie
Animal psychology

6. Groos K. ( 1916). Dushevnaia zhizn' rebenka (The mental life of a child). Kiev.

7. Koffka K. ( 1928). The growth of the mind ( R. M. Ogden, Trans; 2nd. rev. ed.).New York: Harcourt Brace. (Original work published 1925)
Available in Fu Jen University Library:
The growth of the mind : an introduction to child-psychology / Kurt Koffka
索書號: 136.7 K78
條碼: W070612S

8. Köhler W. ( 1926). The mentality of the apes ( E. Winter, Trans.). New York:
Harcourt Brace. (Original work published 1921)
Available in Fu Jen University Library:
人猿的智慧 / (德)沃尔夫冈.苛勒著; 陈汝懋译; 周令本校
索書號: 171.54 4444
條碼: E419916A
Available in German at University of Windsor, Canada
Intelligenzprüfungen an Menschenaffen / Köhler, Wolfgang
http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/2907709?
page=frame&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwebvoy.uwindsor.ca%2Fcgi-
bin%2FPwebrecon.cgi%3FDB%3Dlocal%26PAGE%3DFirst%26checksum%3D4c
be2979ab013b6f85e39f6438a4d17f&title=Univ+of+Windsor%2C+Leddy+Library
&linktype=opac&detail=CWI%3AUniv+of+Windsor%2C+Leddy+Library%3AAc
ademic+Library
Available in English at Concordia University Irvine Library, US.
The mentality of apes
Köhler, Wolfgang, 1887-1967.
Publisher: R.& K. Paul
Pub date: 1956
Pages: viii, 336 p.
Item info: 1 copy available in Main
reading room.
1 copy total in all locations.
http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/221736195?
page=frame&url=http%3A%2F%2Fconu.sirsi.net%2Fuhtbin%2Fcgisirsi%2Fx%2F0
%2F0%2F49%2F%3Fsearchdata1%3Docm221736195%26checksum%3D664f83823
b81c8ee6573d7ef99232d4a&title=Concordia+University%2C+Library&linktype=opa
c&detail=C5U%3AConcordia+University%2C+Library%3AAcademic+Library
Also, McMaster University, Canada
http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/oclc/219704281?
page=frame&url=http%3A%2F%2Fmorris.mcmaster.ca%2Fipac20%2Fipac.jsp%3Fi
ndex%3DISBN%26profile%3Dlib%26term%3Disbnbegin0871401088isbnend%26ch
ecksum%3D5ff58ceb108c134e73f3ab536a28624b&title=McMaster+University&link
type=opac&detail=MUX%3AMcMaster+University%3AARL+Library

9. Lipps T. ( 1907). Rukovodstvo k psikhologii [Manual for psychology]. St.
Petersburg: O. N. Popov.
Available in Fu Jen University Library:
Leiffaden der psychologie / Theodor Lipps
索書號: 150 L765
條碼: W010159A

response to Tan & Perfetti 1997

Tan, L. H., & Perfetti, C. A. (1997). Visual Chinese character recognition: Does phonological information mediate access to meaning? Journal of Memory and Language 37, 41-57.

The authors introduce research done in the past on English reading that provided evidence of phonological information mediating access to meaning. What does this mean?

Prime		Pattern mask
1	beach	sand
2	beech	sand

So, taking the words used in the above example, in one instance the word “beach” would be used to “prime” for the word “sand”, meaning that it would be shown first in an effort to measure whether any effect is had on the reaction to the second word, “sand.” This effect, if there is one, is called a “priming effect”, or just “priming.” In a study done by Lesch and Pollatsek, phonologically mediated priming (in terms of the above example, that would mean priming by “beech”) was found to have an effect when the prime word was exposed for 50ms, followed by a pattern mask of 200 ms, but was absent when the prime was exposed for 200ms, followed by a pattern mask of 50ms. When the prime was shown for 50ms, the priming effect was the same for the word actually having semantic association to the target and a homonym of that word.

This tells us that, in English, phonology does provide access to meaning, and that this process is extremely rapid. It also tells us that there is a point (some time before 200ms) at which the reader does a kind of “spell check” on a word, at which point homonyms with different orthography are no longer confused for each other.

That’s the background given to us on what has been found for English reading. The authors’ experiments concern Chinese reading.

In their study, the authors used three types of primes: “(a) A prime was synonymous but neither visually nor phonologically similar to a target; (b) a prime was homophonic with the synonym prime but had no graphic, phonological, or semantic similarity to the target; (c) a prime had no graphic, phonological, or semantic similarity to the target” (44). Here’s an example of what that would look like:

target	synonym	Homophone of synonym	control
年	岁	碎	抗
宽	阔	括	卡

They offer several possible predictions based on their model of the mental representation of Chinese lexical items. These are: “First, if only the visual-orthographic route controls access to character meaning, synonym primes but not homophones of synonym primes will accelerate target recognition. If the phonology connection mediates access to the meanings of all characters, both synonym primes and homophones of synonym primes should facilitate character processing, and their facilitation effects should not be different. …homophone density should control whether phonological information can be successfully used to access meaning” (44-45).

In their first experiment, they use a stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) of 129ms. They note three significant results: “First, there was significant priming by homophones of synonyms, but, as predicted, this effect was dependent on homophone density. Second, synonym priming was more effective than priming by homophones of synonyms across all conditions of homophone density. Third, the effect of synonym priming was less when primes had many homophones than when they had few homophones” (47).

This is all quite exciting, really. The logic of their predictions seemed totally sound, yet the results don’t quite fit into any of them. Phonological priming is found, but, unlike with English, priming is stronger for synonyms than for homophones of synonyms. On top of this, homophone density actually affects the priming of synonym primes! This, as the authors point out, “suggests that semantic priming itself is partly mediated by phonological forms” (49. An interesting and exciting finding, as far as I’m concerned.

On to experiment 2. As I already discussed, the research on English showed that homophone-to-synonym priming disappeared after the prime was shown for 220 ms. So, for experiment 2A, the SOA was set to 243 ms. The findings were the same as those in experiment 1.

In experiment 2B, the SOA was upped to 500ms. The results of this experiment showed that the “spell check” or “verification stage” has been completed so that not only is there no priming for homophones of synonyms, but homophone density also had no effect on synonym priming.

So, this study has shed some light on Chinese character recognition and has also brought up a few questions. It is still, for example, unclear how the relationship between the phonologic, orthographic and semantic aspects of a character should best be represented. The authors suggest:

“What will work in Chinese is what works in alphabetic systems: Not ‘look up’ of semantics from phonology, but rather convergence of word identity from the combination of orthographic and phonological identities. Mediation is not moving from orthography to phonology in order to carry out some other operation. It is the convergence of information from an orthographic form with its associated phonological forms such that a unique identity, with associated meanings, is established” (54).

They also mention in their conclusion that the difference of priming for synonyms and homophones of synonyms “suggests (but does not prove) that there are direct links from orthography to semantics as well” (54). This certainly seems to be different than the findings of the studies on English reading, and more research is needed (and may very well have already been done – this article is from 1997) to get at what this really looks like for Chinese.

Translation - "man"

Translation question:

It struck me from my first glance at the title of Rossiter’s translation that, as a woman, I’m hardly implicated in his version of Vygotsky’s theories. After a quick look at Golod and Knox’s version, it seems clear that the same is true of their translation. The kind of male-centred language used in both translations was well out-of-fashion - in academic circles at least - by 1992, which begs the question why both used blatantly male-centred language throughout the book, presumably in reference to humans in general. Does the original Russian use male-centred language? If so, is this reflective of the language in general or a style particular to Vygotsky? Either way, is it worth reproducing in a translation?

Ex:

поведении примитивного человек – is this simply “primitive behaviour of the human/person” or is "человек" the male version of a word with both male and female forms?

примитивный человек и его поведение –  (translated by Rossiter as “primitive man and his behavior”) This might be something like “the primitive person and his behaviour”, его being the male form where её is the female 3^rd person possessive pronoun. Его is also the neuter form, but I’m not sure whether the neuter form can be used with humans. What’s the protocol in Russian for generic personal pronouns? Feminine, masculine, or neuter? Whatever the answer, should this affect English translations?

English translations of Этюды по истории поведения: Обезьяна. Примитив. Ребенок:

English translations of  Этюды по истории поведения: Обезьяна. Примитив. Ребенок:

Vygotsky, L. S., and A. R. Luria. Ape, Primitive Man and Child: Essays in the History of Behavior. Trans. Evelyn Rossiter. Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992.

Vygotsky, L. S., and A. R. Luria. Studies on the History of Behavior: Ape, Primitive, and Child. Trans. Victor I. Golod and Jane E. Knox. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1993.