1. Language competence as human instinct.

• Signs vs. symbols
  • Language and thinking: Do we use a `language of thought'?
  • If so, is the language of thought essentially the same as our primary spoken language?
• Other instincts?: competition, power, group solidarity

2. Language to say `COMMUNITY!' We stick together.

• Humor
• Special or innovative vocabulary (slang) regional and social dialects
  • the pain of being different or rejected
  • -minorities: Apaches, Jews, African-Americans
• religious language: guilt, fear vs. community solidatiry
  • preaching (speaking and listening)
  • prayer, song, speaking in tongues (glossolalia)
• feminism and language vocabulary, grammar, conversational styles
  • Hofstadter and `guys' (`generic HE and MAN')
  • male complaints and female complaints

3. Language to influence others: propaganda and advertising

4. Instincts vs. `standard social science model' (SSSM)