LING 449E
Biology of Language Course
Fall 2015
Biology of Language Course
Fall 2015
TTH 2:00 pm-3:15 pm
Instructor: Chris Heffner
What defines human language? Are other animals capable of using language in the same ways that humans can? These questions and more will be discussed in the interdisciplinary seminar “Biology of Language” (LING 449E), which will be held from 2pm-3:15pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays in Marie Mount Hall. This will be a small interdisciplinary seminar, bringing together insights both from linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, and animal behavior. The course is intended to bring together students from many different fields, so no specific background is required. Instead, interested students should be willing to go outside their comfort zone and learn about topics they might not have heard much about, topics like the definition of language, animal studies of human language learning, mirror neurons and theories of speech perception, and category learning are all potential topics. There will be opportunities to try out experimental design and construction.
Instructor: Chris Heffner
What defines human language? Are other animals capable of using language in the same ways that humans can? These questions and more will be discussed in the interdisciplinary seminar “Biology of Language” (LING 449E), which will be held from 2pm-3:15pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays in Marie Mount Hall. This will be a small interdisciplinary seminar, bringing together insights both from linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, and animal behavior. The course is intended to bring together students from many different fields, so no specific background is required. Instead, interested students should be willing to go outside their comfort zone and learn about topics they might not have heard much about, topics like the definition of language, animal studies of human language learning, mirror neurons and theories of speech perception, and category learning are all potential topics. There will be opportunities to try out experimental design and construction.
