LINGUIST List 17.1831
Mon Jun 19 2006
FYI: Linguists and the Journal SCIENCE
Editor for this issue: Svetlana Aksenova
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1. Lise
Menn,
Linguists and the Journal SCIENCE
Message 1: Linguists and the Journal SCIENCE
Date: 18-Jun-2006
From: Lise Menn <Lise.menncolorado.edu>
Subject: Linguists and the Journal SCIENCE
This is partly in response to private e-mails that followed some recentList postings. I want to point out that there have been recent substantialarticles in SCIENCE of interest to linguistic theory, in addition toimportant ones that can also be counted as anthropology, archaeology(emergence of writing, population spread), psychology, cognitive science(including animal cognition), and neuroscience (none of which are to besneezed at - in fact, I think more linguists should read articles on thesetopics!). On June 9, there was an amazing article by Crinion et al.,“Language Control in the Bilingual Brain”; here’s the abstract:
How does the bilingual brain distinguish and control which language is inuse? Previous functional imaging experiments have not been able to answerthis question because proficient bilinguals activate the same brain regionsirrespective of the language being tested. Here, we reveal that neuronalresponses within the left caudate are sensitive to changes in the languageor the meaning of words. By demonstrating this effect in populations ofGerman-English and Japanese-English bilinguals, we suggest that the leftcaudate plays a universal role in monitoring and controlling the languagein use. Science 9 June 2006: Vol. 312. no. 5779, pp. 1537 - 1540
The major paper on the emergence of signed language in Nicaragua (A.Senghas, S. Kita, and A. Özyürek, 305: 1779, 9/17/2004) is probably themost notable example of linguists' core interests, but I'm compiling anExcel file of articles of interest to linguists that I'll be posting whenSection Z gets its website set up. Others that I've noted are “Language andthe Origin of Numerical Concepts”, R. Gelman and C. R. Gallistel, 306: 441,10/15/2004; “Structural Phylogenetics and the Reconstruction of AncientLanguage History”, M. Dunn, A. Terrill, G. Reesink, R. A. Foley, and S. C.Levinson, 309: 2072, 9/23/05. Pat Kuhl drew my attention to many classics,and to Dehaene-Lambertz, G., Dehaene, S. & Hertz-Pannier, L. “Functionalneuroimaging of speech perception in infants”, Science 298, 2013 (2002).
There are lots of important recent items on, e.g., ape cognition, Mayanwriting, and brain modularity (primary visual cortical responses aremodifiable by reward information; primary visal cortex processing issupposed to be the prototypical case of cognitive impenetrability and itlooks like it just imploded?).
If you want Linguistics to have more clout in SCIENCE, the first step is tobecome an active member of AAAS (student membership $75). Go tohttp://www.aaas.org/membership, and/or read the note about AAAS in theforthcoming LSA Bulletin (http://www.lsadc.org) if you’re an LSA member.
Lise MennSecretary, AAAS Section Z – Linguistics and Language Sciences
Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable
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