One of the most uniquely human abilities is the capacity for creating and understanding language. This lecture introduces students to the major topics within the study of language: phonology, morphology, syntax and recursion. This lecture also describes theories of language acquisition, arguments for the specialization of language, and the commonalities observed in different languages across cultures.

1. Introduction
2. Foundations: This Is Your Brain
3. Foundations: Freud
4. Foundations: Skinner
5. What Is It Like to Be a Baby: The Development of Thought
6. How Do We Communicate?: Language in the Brain, Mouth and the Hands
7. Conscious of the Present; Conscious of the Past: Language (cont.); Vision and Memory
8. Conscious of the Present; Conscious of the Past: Vision and Memory (cont.)
9. Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Love (Guest Lecture by Professor Peter Salovey)
10. Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Evolution and Rationality
11. Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Emotions, Part I
12. Evolution, Emotion, and Reason: Emotions, Part II
13. Why Are People Different?: Differences
14. What Motivates Us: Sex
15. A Person in the World of People: Morality
16. A Person in the World of People: Self and Other, Part I
17. A Person in the World of People: Self and Other, Part II; Some Mysteries: Sleep, Dreams, and Laughte
18. What Happens When Things Go Wrong: Mental Illness, Part I (Guest Lecture by Professor Susan Nolen-Ho
19. What Happens When Things Go Wrong: Mental Illness, Part II
20. The Good Life: Happiness

What do your dreams mean? Do men and women differ in the nature and intensity of their sexual desires? Can apes learn sign language? Why canâ