CIDRAL Key Ideas Seminar with Daniel Everett:'‘A Survey of the Semiotic Progression Towards Language in the Archaeological and Physiological Records'
| Dates: | 7 November 2018 |
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| Times: | 13:00 - 15:00 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures |
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| Who is it for: | University staff, Adults, Current University students |
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This event is part of CIDRAL's Autumn 2018 programme.
Daniel Everett (Professor of Global Studies and Sociology, Bentley University) will lead a CIDRAL Key Ideas seminar entitled 'A Survey of the Semiotic Progression Towards Language in the Archaeological and Physiological Records'.
In this seminar I will discuss the semiotics of American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce and how inadvertently Peirce predicted the course of language evolution that we observe in the archaeological record. I will argue that Australopithecus africanus had already discovered icons and indexes and that Homo erectus shows strong evidence of having invented symbols. From symbols erectus progressed easily to three different kinds of phenomenological grammars, G1 (slot:filler and linearity), G2 (slot:filler, linearity, and hierarchy), and G3 (slot:filler, linearity, hierarchy, and recursion). I make it clear that though each of these grammars could be in principle generated by formal grammars of the same complexity, they are experientially and empirically quite different. We will explore together the evidence that Homo erectus sailed by building sea-worthy vessels and how this in turn required fully human languages. Other evidence from recent archaeological work in Africa will also be discussed
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A201
Samuel Alexander Building
Manchester
