Prof. William S-Y. WANG, Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies

Biological foundations of language: since 1967. Chair Professor Distinguished Lecture Series. Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (online), 18 April 2023.

Abstract
Language emerged around the time when humans began making diverse stone tools; it served as the backbone of cultural evolution, which in turn propelled our species to the unique status of "masters of the planet". Extensive typological studies of the world's diverse languages provided background for Lenneberg's 1967 classic, a comprehensive synthesis of the knowledge available then on the biological bases of language. This classic was revisited recently from a multidisciplinary perspective, anthologized in Gong et al (2018). I will discuss the advances made in our understanding of the nature of language over the past half-century, including in the areas of language acquisition and cognitive decline.
Lenneberg, E. (1967). Biological Foundations of Language, Wiley.
Gong, T., et al. (2018). "Rethinking foundations of language from a multidisciplinary perspective." Physics of Life Reviews 26-27: 120-138.