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Birdsong, Speech, And Language: Exploring the Evolution of Mind and Brain

Apr 02

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Title: Birdsong, Speech, And Language
Subtitle: Exploring the Evolution of Mind and Brain
Publication Year: 2013
Publisher: MIT Press
http://mitpress.mit.edu/

Book URL: http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/birdsong-speech-and-language-0

Editor: Johan J. Bolhuis
Editor: Martin Everaert

Hardback: ISBN:  9780262018609 Pages: 556 Price: U.S. $ 50.00

Abstract:

Scholars have long been captivated by the parallels between birdsong and human
speech and language. In this book, leading scholars draw on the latest
research to explore what birdsong can tell us about the biology of human
speech and language and the consequences for evolutionary biology. They
examine the cognitive and neural similarities between birdsong learning and
speech and language acquisition, considering vocal imitation, auditory
learning, an early vocalization phase (“babbling”), the structural properties
of birdsong and human language, and the striking similarities between the
neural organization of learning and vocal production in birdsong and human
speech.

After outlining the basic issues involved in the study of both language and
evolution, the contributors compare birdsong and language in terms of
acquisition, recursion, and core structural properties, and then examine the
neurobiology of song and speech, genomic factors, and the emergence and
evolution of language.

Contributors
Hermann Ackermann, Gabriël J. L. Beckers, Robert C. Berwick, Johan J. Bolhuis,
Noam Chomsky, Frank Eisner, Martin Everaert, Michale S. Fee, Olga Fehér, Simon
E. Fisher, W. Tecumseh Fitch, Jonathan B. Fritz, Sharon M. H. Gobes, Riny
Huijbregts, Erich Jarvis, Robert Lachlan, Ann Law, Michael A. Long, Gary F.
Marcus, Carolyn McGettigan, Daniel Mietchen, Richard Mooney, Sanne Moorman,
Kazuo Okanoya, Christophe Pallier, Irene M. Pepperberg, Jonathan F. Prather,
Franck Ramus, Eric Reuland, Constance Scharff, Sophie K. Scott, Neil Smith,
Ofer Tchernichovski, Carel ten Cate, Christopher K. Thompson, Frank Wijnen,
Moira Yip, Wolfram Ziegler, Willem Zuidema