Linguistic Essay, Yule Theory
Compare and contrast any two theories of the origins of language (as discussed in chapter 1of Yule). Give reasons why you think that one but not the other theory is more likely to be true.
Since long, there are many hypotheses about the origin of language. Approximately, there are four rather famous one, that is, Divine theory, natural sound theory, oral-gesture theory and evolution. In this essay, I shall focus on the Divine theory and evolution theory for comparison. In my point of views, I take the evolution as a more likely true one than the god created theory.
Yet, according to Yule, the Divine theory means there appears to be a divine source that provides humans with language. That is, if a child grows up without hearing any language, they would spontaneously begin using the original God given language. On the other hand, evolution theory is mainly focus on the biological development, that is language originated from the changing of human gloss genetics and physical structure.
The Divine theory somehow related to religion, this theory states that language is given by god, the creator of the world. However, in my opinion, it is rather abstract and subjective, up till now, there is no scientific evidence can show to support the existence of God. When comparing to the evolution theory, which is back up by scientific statistic of the human development, Divine theory is more likely to be unreal. The evolutionary theory provides a more reasonable theory explaining the existence of language as the enhancement of the communication form and physical development of human. As the society in the past is rather simple, therefore the early human beings only using simple form of communication e.g in a conversation, only few words are spoken. With the development of society and increasing living standard of human, the living environment become much more complex, so language gradually developed from simple wordings into dialogue in order to
Since long, there are many hypotheses about the origin of language. Approximately, there are four rather famous one, that is, Divine theory, natural sound theory, oral-gesture theory and evolution. In this essay, I shall focus on the Divine theory and evolution theory for comparison. In my point of views, I take the evolution as a more likely true one than the god created theory.
Yet, according to Yule, the Divine theory means there appears to be a divine source that provides humans with language. That is, if a child grows up without hearing any language, they would spontaneously begin using the original God given language. On the other hand, evolution theory is mainly focus on the biological development, that is language originated from the changing of human gloss genetics and physical structure.
The Divine theory somehow related to religion, this theory states that language is given by god, the creator of the world. However, in my opinion, it is rather abstract and subjective, up till now, there is no scientific evidence can show to support the existence of God. When comparing to the evolution theory, which is back up by scientific statistic of the human development, Divine theory is more likely to be unreal. The evolutionary theory provides a more reasonable theory explaining the existence of language as the enhancement of the communication form and physical development of human. As the society in the past is rather simple, therefore the early human beings only using simple form of communication e.g in a conversation, only few words are spoken. With the development of society and increasing living standard of human, the living environment become much more complex, so language gradually developed from simple wordings into dialogue in order to