Saturday, 19 September 2015

Horizon Documentary

Why do we talk?



Language defines you as being human
We barely notice we do it
From birth, language is in our lives

Deb Roy – Massachusetts Institute Of Technology

Turned his home into a lab and used his own son
Had to be observed and heard 24 hours a day
‘The Speech Home Project’ highlights that semantic awareness outstrips phonological ability
Babbling turns to words to single words which turns to the two word stage to more complex grammatical structures
At 5 years old we know 5000 words, as adults we speak 15000 words a day

Noam Chomsky

Believed we have an unconscious innate understanding
But we also need to be exposed to language at an early age
Is it NATURE or NURTURE?
‘Forbidden Experiment’ – isolating a child in silence


Ofer Tchernichovski

Found a way to do the experiment
He used birds that imitate their parents like babies and isolated the chicks

Faraneh Vargha-Khadem

Studied genes in a family with speech difficulties
Found chromosome 7 found in each family member
Found that it was broken
Named it FOX-P-2 

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