The Behavior of Language
Spenser L. Dodson
University of Maryland University College
PSYC 301 7983 Biological Basis of Behavior (2188)
December 9, 2018
Abstract
Language is a basic fundamental characteristic of the human condition, and its most valuable invention. Without it we would literally be lost and nothing more than equal to the most intelligent of the Ape family—the chimpanzee. That is saying a lot considering how much humans are different from the rest of the Ape family in existence today. Language has become the cornerstone of human ingenuity, intellect, science, arts, mathematics, and so many other things. In Psychology, language has fallen under the definition of a human behavior such as breathing. The biological mechanisms for understanding language are just as fascinating. This research will try to illuminate what language is, what behavior, and how the two can be studied together under a biological mechanism.
What is Language?
Under the basic definition language is quite literally the utterance of sound in a way that others can understand (Nordquist, 2018). Language, in most cases, is natural meaning that is was invented over a long period of time. We also have artificial languages that we ourselves created a long with technology such as computer programming. The research will focus on the languages we speak today on a broad scale, such as English, Spanish, Russian, and Japanese.
The controversy of language is that psychologists do not believe we actually invented the thing. Congruently, we do not know the origin of language. This is problematic when it comes to linguistics and the attempts to quantify the phenomenon and understand the biological behavior of language. Understanding that language is what makes us ‘human’ is not equal to the why does language fit into the realm of biological human behavior. For surely language has made and defined what makes us human more than any other behavior we exhibit as a species.
The Development of Language
Language is adapted to be learned by humans by the same method. We begin as young babbling away, making incoherent noises, the sounds gradually begin to mimic our surrounding sounds such as innate objects making noise or the sounds of other people speaking around us. We begin to stay words that we recognize, gradually into structed short sentences, and untimely fluent in whatever mother tongue we are taught. Interestingly the brain functions exactly the same way in French as it does in Chinese—when we encounter danger, we think the same thing, ‘run!’ (Johnson, 2018). This begins to explain fundamentally that whatever mechanism drives the behavior of language is innate to our biological brains and therefor a behavior that can be scientifically studied and understood.
The Investigating of Biological Language
Humans have come a long way in the science and technology fields to back up the study and research of studying the human brain in all capacities. On such research field is the study of language and how the brain functionally and physically controls how we use language, and more fundamentally how we communicate in general in terms of non-verbal communication—eye contact, limb placement, hand movement, etc.
Technology has come so far that we can actually see inside a human in real time with equipment such as computed tomography scan or ‘CT Scan’, or Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan or ‘MRI Scan’. These approaches actually begin to unravel the puzzle box that is our brain and how it dictates our ability to learn, speak, and understand language. As far as the physical characteristics of language and the brain go, great strides have been accomplished in the radiological fields. We have learned from MRI that significant language operation is relegated to the supramarginal gyrus and angular gyrus of the brain. Speech processing is understood to be contained in the processing network called superior temporal sulcus—this performs phonetic and phonological analysis. Another process called the inferior parietal lobule detects differences between phoneme categories, which are distinct units of sounds (Beeson, 2010). On the whole it is the left side of the brain that produces the ability to produce language.
The studies have shown that the brain functions and relegates language the same way any other behavior we can study. It receives information, interprets the information, and forms an action to answer. This type of response is indicative of a human behavior that can be backed up and studied by radiological tests such as MRI and CT scans.
Genetics of Language
Speech, Language, Psychology, and Genetics sometimes not always play nice together when it comes to our brain and understanding how it functions. More importantly when it comes to genetics and language. Language is so diverse and intertwined in our brains capacity to understand and process that we have a hard to understanding when language is disrupted or does not function the way it is supposed to function. Speech delays are common among humans such as stuttering, dyslexia, etc. These issues arise in the brain and can be understood more under the microscope of genetics and how genes affect our development. It is basically understood that genes form the basic components of how humans are expressed. If a gene is turned on or off something is exhibited physically or not.
In a study done in October 2001, by the University of Oxford geneticists led by Anthony Monaco and Simon Fisher—found that a specific gene called FOXP2 is directly related to the speech and language research. This finding created a paradigm shift in the language field as it had yet to be discovered what singly-handedly gave the brain its wiring for language (Cohen, 2013).
The Behavior of Language
Like any other behavior we humans have evolved to use, Language is at the forefront in our ability to create the world around us. Language as a behavior arose as a means to an end, or a reaction to our environment around us. Along the way we developed the behavior of fear to keep us alive when something could have killed us otherwise, so as we did with language. We as a social species needed language just as much as we needed fear to survive. The behavior had to be developed to makes go along with our ability to socialize and create complex sociological structures. In a way it was the innate ability for us to create those structures that created the need to communicate in the first place. The behavior of language has granted us the most fascinating and profound societal developments far out pacing any other animal on the planet. We have created something that no other animal had the ability to create, even though we exhibit the same types of behaviors, the human brain was able to go steps further and create a component we alone can master.
Conclusion
Language as our basic fundamental characteristic of the human condition has grated us the most amazing and astounding of inventions and cultural standards. We have the ability to create works of art, mathematics that desire our world around us, social networks that make the world as a whole more accessible. The power of language has given us the world essentially. It has given us the ability to create and invent things that were never conceived of. It has given us the ability to create behaviors that were not present until language was created. The languages that we have today were either invented by us consciously such as computer programs and code or they were created naturally such as the main languages we use today. Language is adapted and learned beginning as babies, we begin to mimic the sounds and words around us until we eventually become fluent in the mother language we were immersed in from the beginning. When it comes to investigating of our use of language, we have made huge strides in the ability to physically understand what is happening in our brains at the very moment languages is being spoken. Computed Tomography and Magnetic Resonance Images scans have given humans a peak into our physical characteristics and defining the biological components of the act of speaking. Genetics also play the most fundamental role in the behavior of language in humans. Genes are the fundamental components of what makes a person, and language is one of those facets. in 2001 it was found by the University of Oxford that a gene called FOXP2 was at the forefront of speech and language and the specific mechanisms that drive the force of language.
Language is perhaps the most paradigm shifting inventions the race of humans has ever created. It binds us and makes the work around us understandable. We began this time on earth little more than chimpanzees or bonobos, but we developed language and began to become the dominate species on Earth. The behavior of language has granted us the culture, tradition, society, and law. It is the atom to our organ in a sense. It has made the species of human one of a kind and unique among all other animals on the planet. It has made us capable of conquering anything we set out minds to.