语言演化、古人类学和认知神经科学

Linguistic Evolution,Paleoanthropology and Cognitive Neuroscience

近年来若干学科快速发展,尤其是认知神经科学(脑成像)和古人类学(古DNA),文章简单概述了基于这些成果,在语言演化研究领域的相应发展。这几十年来,不仅出土了前所未知的人种的化石,也发明了从化石中萃取DNA的新方法。这些进步揭示了人类演化和语言演化的过程远比我们所想的还要复杂。我们现在得以用更多样化的观点看待语言,语言在许多方面的变异性极大,特别是那些人口总数少且外在接触少的语言。虽然语言神经科学的研究,始于试图为个别的语言功能在大脑里定位,如言语产生、理解、阅读等,但现在我们相信,要靠大脑里不同部位的海量神经回路共同运作,才能促成语言。在曙光初现的生命阶段语言是如何习得的,我们目前已经有了较透彻的理解,而另一方面,尽管起步较晚,但对于在人生的暮年,语言如何受损并消失,我们也已开始深入地获取相关的知识了。

Recent years have witnessed rapid advances in such disciplines as cognitive neuroscience(brain imaging)and paleoanthropology(ancient DNA).This article is a brief summary of the corresponding development in linguistic evolution based on the achievements in these fields.During the recent decades,fossils of human species unknown before have been unearthed and new methods of extracting DNA from these fossils have been invented.All these advances reveal that the human evolution process and linguistic evolution process are much more complicated than we think.Today,we can look at language from more diversified perspectives.Language,particularly those less-used ones,is extremely varied in many aspects.Although research in linguistic neuroscience attempts to position the functions of specific languages in human brains,such as the production,understanding,and reading of language,we now believe that language cannot be formed without the joint operation of numerous neural circuits in different parts of the brain.Today,we have already had a relatively thorough understanding of how language is acquired in the early stage of life,and though we are late-comers regarding how language is damaged and disappears in the late stage of life,we have started to learn about this field.