The Outline of《Language and the Human Mind》

1.Basic Teaching Information

Course Code： 2010130012005		Course Title： Language and the Human Mind
Faculty：The School of Foreign Languages and Literature		Targeted Student：Wuhan University students, both undergraduates and graduates
Course Credit：2		Lecture Hours：32 （consisted of _20_ theoretical hours and _12_ practical hours）
Course Leader：	Name：Hunter Hatfield		E-mail：hunter.hatfield@otago.ac.nz
	Office：3049#, School of Foreign Languages and Literature		Mobile：
Course Staff：	Name：Yanyan Zhang		E-mail：lucyzhangyy@163.com
	Office：3042#, School of Foreign Languages and Literature		Mobile：
Course Type：一般通识课程General Course
Related Preview Courses：None

2.Course Introduction

Humans uniquely are the big-brained animals with language. Explore what language is, how your mind makes it happen, and thereby what it means to be human.

The premise behind thiscourseis that, if you understand a simple conversation – really understand it to its depths – then it is a window helping you understand the human brain, evolution, artificial intelligence, the law, economics, ethics, and even the meaning of life. The abilities that we exhibit when we have a simple-seeming chat with a mate about what to cook for dinner express our unique development as a species socially and neurologically.

Thecoursemoves back and forth between natural conversations and their biological underpinnings. All animals have some form of communication. The human form – language – reflects how our brains interact in our ecological niche.

This course focuses on the concept of story, as part of our psychology and our language.

3.The Allocation of Content and Lecture Hours

Content	Lecture Hours
Human and Language Evolution	5
Conversation, Meaning, and Pragmatics	10
Story Psychology and Literature	7
Ethics and Meaning	5
The Language of AI	5

4.Assessment Methods and Marking Criterion

Test:50%. Test to assess fundamental knowledge from the course.

Presentation:30%. A presentation to the class about a core narrative concept.

Project:20%. A reflective project where the student takes a key item and analyses it with course concepts.

5.Textbooks and References

Selections from:

Bergen, B. K. (2012). Louder than words: The new science of how the mind makes meaning. Basic Books.

Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge university press.

Graziano, M. S. (2013). Consciousness and the social brain. Oxford University Press.

Fuentes, A. (2017). The creative spark: How imagination made humans exceptional. Penguin.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2008). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago press.

May, T. (2020). A significant life: Human meaning in a silent universe. University of Chicago Press.

Mercier, H., & Sperber, D. (2017). The enigma of reason. Harvard university press.

Scott-Phillips, T. (2014). Speaking our minds: Why human communication is different, and how language evolved to make it special. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Yeshurun, Y., Nguyen, M., & Hasson, U. (2021). The default mode network: Where the idiosyncratic self meets the shared social world. Nature reviews neuroscience, 22(3), 181-192.