Communications in Humanities Research
- The Open Access Proceedings Series for Conferences
Communications in Humanities Research
Vol. 7, 31 October 2023
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The First Nature of Language
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Abstract
The first nature of language function is often considered to be communication. But with the rise of cognitive linguistics, whether the primary function of language is externalized communication or internalized thinking has been re-examined. This paper focused on what is the first function of language, and argued that the thinking function should remain the top priority. Based on theories of generative grammar from Noam Chomsky, it redefines the key concepts of language, thinking, and communication, discusses the superiority of language for thinking and the shortcomings of language for communication, and reveals the direction of language evolution by natural selection, and compile a series of evidence to justify the top status of thinking function by comparing the common people’s thinking ability and the auditory disabled’s thinking ability. Besides, another possible communicative pattern, direct brain-to-brain communication (DBBC) was also introduced to prove there might emerge a better way for communication. It is hoped that this will paint a possible picture of the development of language function science and provide an organic extension for the subsequent discovery of language function. At the end the paper finds out the first nature of thinking is plausible and tangible, conforming to the evolutionary tendency of human language. More researches are expected to provide more direct proofs approving the arguments.
Keywords
language function, thinking, communication, natural selection
References
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Data Availability
The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.
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- Volume Title
- Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Educational Innovation and Philosophical Inquiries
- ISBN (Print)
- 978-1-83558-037-0
- ISBN (Online)
- 978-1-83558-038-7
- Published Date
- 31 October 2023
- Series
- Communications in Humanities Research
- ISSN (Print)
- 2753-7064
- ISSN (Online)
- 2753-7072
- DOI
- 10.54254/2753-7064/7/20230805
- Copyright
- 31 October 2023
- Open Access
- This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited