The Bilingual Brain: Human Evolution and Second Language Acquisition

Abstract

For the past half-century, psycholinguistic research has concerned itself with two mysteries of human cognition: (1) that children universally acquire a highly abstract, computationally complex set of linguistic rules rapidly and effortlessly, and (2) that second language acquisition (SLA) among adults is, conversely, slow, laborious, highly variable, and virtually never results in native fluency. We now have a decent, if approximate, understanding of the biological foundations of first language acquisition, thanks in large part to Lenneberg's (1964Lenneberg's ( , 1984 seminal work on the critical period hypothesis. More recently, the elements of a promising theory of language and evolution have emerged as well (see e.g. Bickerton, 1981Bickerton, , 1990 Leiberman, 1984 Leiberman, , 1987. I argue here that the empirical foundations of an evolutionary theory of language are now solid enough to support an account of bilingualism and adult SLA as well. Specifically, I will show that evidence from the environment of evolutionary adaptation of paleolithic humans suggests that for our nomadic ancestors, the ability to master a language early in life was an eminently useful adaptation. However, the ability to acquire another language in adulthood was not, and consequently was not selected for propagation.

An introduction to evolutionary psychology and its application to suicide terrorism

“…Although some aspects of our modern environments do differ from features of our ancestral environments, most of the adaptations we possess are likely to be operating as they were designed to operate. If they did not, and were our environments to have changed dramatically and rapidly from our ancestors, Hagen (2008) points out that we would probably be headed towards extinction:…”

“…Several evolutionary psychologists (e.g. Pinker, 2002) have described modern humans as being stuck with a Stone Age mind which underwent much of its evolution in huntergatherer tribes under conditions that persisted over many millions of years, but which in many respects differ from our modern environment (Hagen, 2008). However, despite the slow pace of natural selection, we should not jump to the conclusion that the EEA for most human adaptations differs dramatically from the contemporary environment (Hagen, 2005).…”

Why are males inclined to use strong swear words more than females? An evolutionary explanation based on male intergroup aggressiveness

“…However, this aggressive violence has generally been in the form of intergroup violence. Studies on intergroup aggression have provided solid findings that show intergroup conflict and aggression have been common across human societies throughout our evolutionary history (McDonald et al, 2012;Pinker, 2011;Hagen, 2008;Bowles, 2012;Walker, 2001;Lambert, 1997). As McDonald et al (2012, p. 670) put it ''conflicts among human groups have occurred throughout our modern history and range from large-scale conflicts, such as wars between countries, terrorism, racial and ethnic discrimination, and conflict among political parties, to relatively small-scale conflicts involving competition, antagonism and aggression among rival sport teams, gangs and high school cliques.''…”

“Our Modern Skulls House a Stone Age Brain”: An Overview and Annotated Bibliography of Evolutionary Psychology, Part I

“…It tells us why we are good at learning our first language, but not so much the second (Hagen 2008). It explains how, around the world, children quickly recognize male hierarchies within extended families and societies but still forge extensive mutual aid networks along matrilineal lines (Kanazawa and Savage 2009).…”