Project

I'm going to add a new section. This is what I've got:

__Iconicity and the Evolution of Language__ Derek Bickerton has posited that iconic signs, both verbal and gestural, were crucial in the evolution of human language. Animal communication systems, Bickerton argues, are largely composed of indexical (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indexical) (and, occasionally, iconic) signs, yet in human language "most words are symbolic, and…without symbolic words we couldn't have language." (52) The distinction Bickerton draws between these categories is one of displacement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Displacement_(linguistics) ), with the indexical signs of animal communication systems having no capacity for displacement, and the symbolic signs of human language requiring it. I conic signs "may or may not have it depending on how they're used…Iconicity, therefore, is the most probable road that our ancestors took into language." (53) Using a niche-construction view of human evolution, Bickerton has hypothesized that human ancestors used iconic signs as recruitment signals in the scavenging of dead megafauna (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megafauna). (218-222) This process "would have created new words and deployed old words in new contexts, further weakening the uncoupling of words from situations, from current occurrence--even from fitness," and thus allowing for the creation of symbolic language. (221)

Sonja, you can add something in after this paragraph about Deacon's view on the hierarchy of signs.

Alright, my part is up. Citing books is really confusing! Let me know if you guys need any help with things. Probably easier to email me at katyadams416@gmail.com, as I don't know how likely I am to check this very frequently before Friday. (3/21) -Katy

I think it looks good Katy

I thought I would add a section too this is what I have:

Use of Iconicity to help teach foreign Languages

It has been suggested that iconicity can be used in the teaching of languages. There are two ways this has been suggested. The first being “Horizontal-Iconicity” and the second being vowel to magnitude relationships. Horizontal-Iconicity is the phenomenon of opposition of meaning and spelling. For example, in Egyptian mer, which means right hand and rem, which means left hand. Vowel magnitude relationships suggest that the larger the object the more likely it is to have open vowel sounds in it’s name, Ah, Eh, Oh, and the smaller the object the more likely it is to have a closed vowel sound, ee, i, a. Open vowel sounds are also more likely to be associated with round shapes and dark or gloomy moods, where closed vowel sounds are more likely to be associated with pointed shapes and happy moods. Because people are more likely to remember things they have more Mnemonic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnemonic) tags for, it is suggested that it may be helpful to point these things out in the teaching of language.

and I'll obviously bibliograph it on the page tell me what you think

Jennie

Jennie, If you have access to the Arabic writing, I'd suggest you put it in. intellaren.com has a really good Arabic keyboard you can use to copy paste from. I'm guessing it's مِر (mir) and رِم (rim), but there's really no telling without seeing the original source. Let me know if you want help - Katy

thanks Katy I will do that. well apparently it's hard to find egyption hyrogliph traslators are hard to find

Oh, I didn't realize you meant Egyptian Heiroglyphs, I thought you meant Cairene Arabic. Carry on :)

**I added my portion on Media Streams! I had a difficult time with the reference section personally. I hope I got it all up there!** **- Shelby Peddie**

Use this page to organize and post ideas about our group project to edit a wikipedia entry.

3/2/12

So, like half our group wasn't in class last week. Those of us who were there had to make some executive decisions about our final project without you, but I have a sneaking suspicion you won't really mind. We're going to go with editing the [|iconicity] page, adding in something about the link between indexical and symbolic language.

Before class next week, we all need to do some independent research -- look at what's already on the page, what are some wikipedia pages we can link to, and look for sources and quotes and the like to add. Rick suggested that we look at Terrence Deacon's work for more material.

We are planning on taking half an hour or an hour after next week's class to sit down and put all our work together. Does this work for everyone?

Also, there are only 7 people (not including Rick) on our wikispaces members list and I know there are 8 people in our reading group, so if anyone knows who I'm missing and can find a way to communicate this info to them, that would be wonderful. __

Ideas for articles/areas of interest discussed in class 2/23 were:
 * exaptation
 * homology
 * iconic language
 * (feel free to add ideas if you can identify a potential contribution)


 * BEFORE class next Thursday 3/1:** Take a look at the wikipeda entries for these areas and identify potential contributions our group could make. Please link the article you are referring to.


 * [|Iconic language]:** Iconic language was suggested by Bickerton as a bridge between indexical and symbolic language. The wikipedia page has no mention of language evolution, so this would be a contribution we could make. There also hasn't been really any activity on this page for ages, which suggests that any edits we might make would probably be accepted pretty easily.

I'm ok with this if other people are

Jennie