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25 - Acquiring Language

from Part V - Language, Our Greatest Gift

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2023

Raymond Hickey
Affiliation:
University of Limerick
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Summary

You have already performed the greatest feat of your life, although you most likely are unaware of it. This is the acquisition of your native language. Within the first few years of your life, you went from nothing to a fully competent speaker of the language(s) you were exposed to. That happens unconsciously, without any instruction,1 in a very short time, with native-speaker competence as the result.

Would the same hold for exobeings? Indeed, would it be valid to assume that exobeings have a division of their lifespans into childhood and adulthood as with humans? Recall that for Darwinian evolution to occur there must be some way for an organism to reproduce and be gradually subject to natural selection. If sexual reproduction applied in the animal world of an exoplanet, reaching sexual maturity would be a feature of animal life.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Acquiring Language
  • Raymond Hickey, University of Limerick
  • Book: Life and Language Beyond Earth
  • Online publication: 16 September 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009229272.026
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  • Acquiring Language
  • Raymond Hickey, University of Limerick
  • Book: Life and Language Beyond Earth
  • Online publication: 16 September 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009229272.026
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Acquiring Language
  • Raymond Hickey, University of Limerick
  • Book: Life and Language Beyond Earth
  • Online publication: 16 September 2023
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009229272.026
Available formats
×