Course Description In this course, we will explore the question of the actual and potential connections between democracy and education. Our focus of attention will be placed on a critical examination of democratic theory and its implications for the civic education roles and contributions of teachers, adult educators, community development practitioners, and community organizers. We will survey and deal critically with a range of competing conceptions of democracy, variously described as classical, republican, liberal, radical, marxist, neomarxist, pragmatist, feminist, populist, pluralist, postmodern, and/or participatory. Using narrative inquiry as a means for illuminating and interpreting contemporary practice, we will analyze the implications of different conceptions of democracy for the practical work of civic education.

Democracy and education.

� Abstract A category of stimuli of great importance for primates, humans in particular, is that formed by actions done by other individuals. If we want to survive, we must understand the actions of others. Furthermore, without action understanding, social organization is impossible. In the case of humans, there is another faculty that depends on the observation of others’ actions: imitation learning. Unlike most species, we are able to learn by imitation, and this faculty is at the basis of human culture. In this review we present data on a neurophysiological mechanism—the mirror-neuron mechanism—that appears to play a fundamental role in both action understanding and imitation. We describe first the functional properties of mirror neurons in monkeys. We review next the characteristics of the mirror-neuron system in humans. We stress, in particular, those properties specific to the human mirror-neuron system that might explain the human capacity to learn by imitation. We conclude by discussing the relationship between the mirror-neuron system and language.

/pdf/the-mirror-neuron-system-4coc36y6dq.pdf

The mirror neuron system.

https://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~nunez/COGS160/Rizzolatti_Arbib_PS.pdf

Language within our grasp

Group size is a function of relative neocortical volume in nonhuman primates. Extrapolation from this regression equation yields a predicted group size for modern humans very similar to that of certain hunter-gatherer and traditional horticulturalist societies. Groups of similar size are also found in other large-scale forms of contemporary and historical society. Among primates, the cohesion of groups is maintained by social grooming; the time devoted to social grooming is linearly related to group size among the Old World monkeys and apes. To maintain the stability of the large groups characteristic of humans by grooming alone would place intolerable demands on time budgets. It is suggested that (1) the evolution of large groups in the human lineage depended on the development of a more efficient method for time-sharing the processes of social bonding and that (2) language uniquely fulfills this requirement. Data on the size of conversational and other small interacting groups of humans are in line with the predictions for the relative efficiency of conversation compared to grooming as a bonding process. Analysis of a sample of human conversations shows that about 60% of time is spent gossiping about relationships and personal experiences. It is suggested that language evolved to allow individuals to learn about the behavioural characteristics of other group members more rapidly than is possible by direct observation alone.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0140525X00032325

Coevolution of neocortical size, group size and language in humans

An overview of the basic ideas of articulatory phonology is presented, along with selected examples of phonological patterning for which the approach seems to provide a particularly insightful account. In articulatory phonology, the basic units of phonological contrast are gestures, which are also abstract characterizations of articulatory events, each with an intrinsic time or duration. Utterances are modeled as organized patterns (constellations) of gestures, in which gestural units may overlap in time. The phonological structures defined in this way provide a set of articulatorily based natural classes. Moreover, the patterns of overlapping organization can be used to specify important aspects of the phonological structure of particular languages, and to account, in a coherent and general way, for a variety of different types of phonological variation. Such variation includes allophonic variation and fluent speech alternations, as well as ‘coarticulation’ and speech errors. Finally, it is suggested that the gestural approach clarifies our understanding of phonological development, by positing that prelinguistic units of action are harnessed into (gestural) phonological structures through differentiation and coordination.

https://www.haskins.yale.edu/sr/SR111/SR111_03.pdf

Articulatory phonology: an overview.

This book proposes a radical alternative to dominant views of the evolution of language, and in particular the origins of syntax. The authors argue that manual and vocal communication developed in parallel, and that the basic elements of syntax are intrinsic to gesture. They draw on evidence from areas such as primatology, anthropology, and linguistics, to present a groundbreaking account of the notion that language emerged through visible bodily action. They go on to examine the implications of their findings for linguistic theory and theories of the biological evolution of the capacity for language. Written in a clear and accessible style, Gesture and the Nature of Language will be indispensable reading for all those interested in the origins of language.

Gesture and the Nature of Language

Etude des deux formes de communication utilisee par les humains : le langage et la communication non verbale ; cette derniere forme etant utilisee par les primates pour communiquer. Commentaires, reponse de l'auteur.

Primate calls, human language, and nonverbal communication. Comments. Author's reply

1. Grasping Language: Sign and the Evolution of Language 2. Language in the Wild: Paleontological and Primatological Evidence for Gestural Origins 3. Gesture, Sign, and Speech 4. Gesture, Sign, and Grammar: The Ritualization of Language 5. Conceptual Spaces and Embodied Actions 6. The Gesture-Language Interface 7. Invention of Visual Languages

The Gestural Origin of Language

Adopting the framework of cognitive grammar, I define cognitive iconicity as a special case in which the phonological and the semantic poles of a symbolic structure reside in the same region of conceptual space. One reason for the richness of iconic representation present in signed languages is that the phonological pole of signs involves objects moving in space as viewed from a certain vantage point: hands moving in space as viewed by the signer and the observer. The study reports cross-linguistic data which provide evidence for how cognitive iconicity is extensively manifest in signed languages, not just lexically but also in morphology, grammatical classes, and autonomous–dependent relations in hand–face constructions. I also propose that cognitive iconicity illuminates the relation between gesture and language, and the process by which linguistic structures arise from gestural sources. A re-examination of arbitrariness and iconicity from a cognitive iconicity perspective suggests that the two can coexist, since both are reflections of a deeper, underlying cognitive basis of language.

/pdf/cognitive-iconicity-conceptual-spaces-meaning-and-gesture-in-4l0dvzzfwz.pdf

Cognitive iconicity: Conceptual spaces, meaning, and gesture in signed language

In this paper I explore the role of gesture in the development of signed languages. Using data from American Sign Language, Catalan Sign Language, French Sign Language, and Italian Sign Language, as well as historical sources describing gesture in the Mediterranean region, I demonstrate that gesture enters the linguistic system via two distinct routes. In one, gesture serves as a source of lexical and grammatical morphemes in signed languages. In the second, elements become directly incorporated into signed language morphology, bypassing the lexical stage. Finally, I propose a unifying framework for understanding the gesture-language interface in signed and spoken languages.

Sherman Wilcox

Papers

Gesture and the Nature of Language

Primate calls, human language, and nonverbal communication. Comments. Author's reply

The Gestural Origin of Language

Cognitive iconicity: Conceptual spaces, meaning, and gesture in signed language

Gesture and language: Cross-linguistic and historical data from signed languages