Language and the Mind

Explore the five components of language (pragmatics, syntax, semantics, morphology, and phonetics) and how they each contribute to the meaning of language. Learn the ways in which language is, and is not, similar to other systems in the body, and the specific reasons why learning a second language can be so challenging.

Learn about the fascinating aspects of language we take for granted every day: our ability to use symbols, understand rules, generate novel utterances, speak about the past and future, and even purposefully lie. All of these universals, and more, have allowed language to become our greatest tool.

Could language be considered an organism whose only natural habitat is the human mind? Explore the fascinating results of our efforts to analyze and influence animal communication. What have we learned about our own relationship with language as we have studied honeybees, songbirds, vervet monkeys, chimpanzees, and dolphins?

While there is no single gene for language or any other complex human system, specific aspects of the human genome and our biology create the perfect biological environment for the development of language. Explore the important relationship between the brain's Broca's and Wernicke's areas and the significance of the gene FOXP2. Could language be "a new machine built out of old parts"?

Did the human brain evolve a specialized "mental organ" designed for language? Or was language a product of cultural evolution? Examine our relationship to the human microbiome as an analogy. We aren't born with the bacteria in our microbiome, but our biology is extraordinarily receptive to them. And once combined, the relationship transforms us and our abilities, very similar to language.