Events

Seminars

Language: its nature and origin

Professor Jean Aitchison

Human language is a bizarre communication system which has more in common with birdsong than the calls of other primates. This talk will explore where, when, how and why it all began and how it evolved its essential characteristics. Finally it will consider what might happen to human language in the future.

Jean Aitchison is Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow at Worcester College. In her research she is concerned with the mental lexicon, language change and the language of the media. She gave the 1996 BBC Reith Lectures on The Language Web. Her publications include: The Seeds of Speech: language origin and evolution (1996, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press); Words in the Mind: an introduction to the mental lexicon (1st edition, 1986; 2nd edition, 1994, Oxford and New York: Basil Blackwell); and The Articulate Mammal: an introduction to psycholinguistics (1st edition 1976; 4th edition 1998, London and New York: Routledge).

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