Unit 1 Language

1 SPEAKING c Choose the best answer.

1 It is impossible that humans
a Work in groups. Discuss the questions. A are directly related to chimpanzees.
1 What advantages would these developments have given early B created language by themselves.
humans over other animals? C would confuse sounds and language.
• fire • social structures 2 The evolution of language must have
• tools • language A been a long process.
• art B started millions of years ago.
C been connected to chimpanzees.
2 Which development do you think was most important to 3 Why couldn’t we speak 100,000 years ago?
human survival? Why? A We could not produce as many sounds as we can today.
B Our brains were not large enough to process information
2 READING quickly.
C We were reliant on sign language.
a Read the text on page 2. According to the author, 4 What kind of language could early humans have had?
which development was most important? Why? A None was possible.
B one which was more emotional
C one with a smaller set of sounds
b Match the questions (1–8) with the answers (a–h). 5 What is one of the factors important in learning vocabulary?
1 What is not the main d a Real language was A being able to empathize with others
issue, according to the impossible more than B being able to copy what you hear
text? 100,000 years ago. C being able to form close relationships
2 What is a feasible c b There are key differences 6 What is most generally believed today?
explanation for the origins between them. A Communication is a way for animals to build relationships.
of speech? c Sounds of pain and other B The ability to cooperate is a recent human development.
3 What is a barrier to e emotions C Humans have better social skills than other primates.
research in this area? d The creation of the unique 7 What is the status of the ‘single leap’ theory?
4 What do fossil skulls not human nature of speech A It has the support of a number of scientists.
tell us? g e The lack of evidence B It is the only theory which explains the development of
5 What does study of the a f Humans had become language.
vocal tract show? more intelligent. C It has no scientific credibility.
6 What can we agree b g The way that different 8 What does the creation of works of art show?
on about the parallels languages developed A the importance of ritual to language
between humans and h The way that the mind B Language must have evolved after a process of
animals? processes information civilization.
7 What is meant by the f C Humans changed so language became possible.
‘single leap’?
8 What does the ability to tell h
stories signify?

BETTER READING:
USING REFERENCE DEVICES TO UNDERSTAND HOW
TEXT LINKS TOGETHER
Writers use linking words to help readers follow the flow of
information and understand inferences. Look at it in the first
paragraph. What does it refer to?

Work out what the underlined reference devices refer to.

Cambridge English Empower C1 © Cambridge University Press PHOTOCOPIABLE 1

 Unit 1

How Did
Language
Begin?
In asking about the origins of human to which precursors of human language ability are found
language, we first have to make clear what in animals. For instance, how similar are apes’ systems
the question is. The question is not how of thought to ours? A related question is what aspects of
languages gradually developed over time into language are unique to language and what aspects just draw
the languages of the world today. Rather, it is on other human abilities not shared with other primates. This
how the human species developed over time issue is particularly controversial. Some researchers claim that
so that we – and not our closest relatives, the everything in language is built out of other human abilities:
chimpanzees and bonobos – became capable of the ability for vocal imitation, the ability to memorize vast
using language. amounts of information (both needed for learning words),
the desire to communicate, the understanding of others’
The question, then, is how the properties of human intentions and beliefs, and the ability to cooperate. Current
language got their start. Obviously, it couldn’t have research seems to show that these human abilities are
been a bunch of cavemen sitting around and deciding absent or less highly developed in apes. Other researchers
to make up a language, since in order to do so, they acknowledge the importance of these factors but argue that
would have had to have a language to start with! hominid brains required additional changes that adapted
Intuitively, one might reasonably speculate that them specifically for language.
hominids (human ancestors) started by grunting or
hooting or crying out, and ‘gradually’ this ‘somehow’ How did these changes take place?
developed into the sort of language we have today. Some researchers claim that
The problem is in the ‘gradually’ and the ‘somehow’. they came in a single leap,
Chimps grunt and hoot and cry out, too. What creating through one
happened to humans in the 6 million years or so since mutation the complete
the hominid and chimpanzee lines diverged, and when system in the brain
and how did hominid communication begin to have by which humans
the properties of modern language? express complex
meanings through
The basic difficulty with studying the evolution of combinations of
language is that the evidence is so sparse. Spoken sounds. These people
languages don’t leave fossils, and fossil skulls only tell also tend to claim that
us the overall shape and size of hominid brains, not there are few aspects
what the brains could do. About the only definitive of language that are not
evidence we have is the shape of the vocal tract already present in animals.
(the mouth, tongue, and throat): Until anatomically
modern humans, about 100,000 years ago, the shape As for when this all happened,
of hominid vocal tracts didn’t permit the modern again, it’s very hard to tell. We do
range of speech sounds. But that doesn’t mean that know that something important
language necessarily began then. Earlier hominids happened in the human line between 100,000 and 50,000
could have had a sort of language that used a more years ago: this is when we start to find cultural artefacts such
restricted range of consonants and vowels, and the as art and ritual objects, evidence of what we would call
changes in the vocal tract may only have had the effect civilization. What was the nature of this transformation to the
of making speech faster and more expressive. Some species at that point? Did they just get smarter (even if their
researchers even propose that language began as sign brains didn’t suddenly get larger)? Did they develop language
language, then (gradually or suddenly) switched to the all of a sudden? Did they become smarter because of the
vocal modality. intellectual advantages that language affords (such as the
ability to maintain an oral history over generations)? At the
These issues and many others are undergoing lively moment, we don’t know, and, perhaps more intriguingly, we
investigation among linguists, psychologists, and cannot predict how language as a communication system will
biologists. One important question is the degree develop in the future.