The human ability to learn language is a human cognitive specialization encoded (in some unknown way) in our genes. The evident adaptivity of linguistic communications suggests that this capacity arose through natural selection. It is therefore a challenge for linguistics to find a plausible route, using evidence from child and adult language acquisition, from aphasia, from pidgin and creole languages, from "language"-trained apes and from "fossils" of earlier forms of the language capacity still found in modern-day languages.

Hosted by: Department of Linguistics

In conjunction with: Beckman Institute, Center for African Studies, Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, Department of the Classics, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Department of English, Department of French, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, Department of Philosophy, Department of Psychology, Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, Division of English as an International Language, Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, International Programs and Studies, Language Learning Laboratory, Program in Comparative and World Literature, Program in South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Program for the Study of Religion, School of Music