Development of Human Communication

Undergraduate

This course explores what human communication is, and how infants, children and adults take part in it. To understand this, we explore communication across the human lifespan but also across evolutionary time, looking at non-human animals or machines. Our focus is on human conversation, the development of communicative abilities that precede language, and various social dimensions of sharing information. Drawing on linguistic, philosophical, developmental and comparative research, we examine what is shared across various forms of communication, what functions it serves and where it might leave humans and human groups vulnerable. Prerequisites: Cognitive Science of Language or Developmental Psychology SO TTh 2:35pm-3:50pm