Terrence Deacon is an American anthropologist (Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology, Harvard University 1984). He taught at Harvard for eight years, relocated to Boston University in 1992, and is currently Professor of Biological Anthropology and Linguistics at Berkeley. See Anthropology. ... Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and a member of the Ivy League. ... 1984 is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Boston University is a non-sectarian private university located in Boston, Massachusetts. ... 1992 is a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Main article: Life There are many universal units and common processes that are fundamental to the known forms of life. ... Broadly conceived, linguistics is the scientific study of human language, and a linguist is someone who engages in this study. ... University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (also known as Cal, UC Berkeley, UCB, or simply Berkeley) is a public coeducational university situated in the foothills of Berkeley, California, USA to the east of San Francisco Bay, overlooking the Golden Gate. ...

Prof. Deacon's theoretical interests include the study of evolution-like processes at multiple levels, including their role in embryonic development, neural signal processing, language change, and social processes, and focusing especially on how these different processes interact and depend on each other. He has long stated an interest in developing a scientific semiotics that would contribute to both linguistic theory and cognitive neuroscience. Embryogenesis is the process by which the embryo is formed and develops. ... Language change is the manner in which the phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and other features of a language are modified over time, it is the topic addressed by historical linguistics which looks at the past states of a language and seek to explain how the present state came about. ... Semiotics (also spelled Semeiotics) is the study of signs and sign systems. ... Cognitive neuroscience is a branch of neuroscience and biological psychology involving the study of the neural mechanisms of cognition, but sometimes is seen as part of a wider interdisciplinary study of cognition, cognitive science. ...

Deacon's research combines human evolutionary biology and neuroscience, with the aim of investigating the evolution of human cognition. His work extends from laboratory-based cellular-molecular neurobiology to the study of semiotic processes underlying animal and human communication, especially language and language origins. His neurobiological research is focused on determining the nature of the human divergence from typical primate brain anatomy, the cellular-molecular mechanisms producing this difference, and the correlations between these anatomical differences and special human cognitive abilities, again, particularly language. Communication is the process of exchanging information usually via a common system of symbols. ... The origin of language is a topic that has been written about for centuries, but the ephemeral nature of speech means that there is almost no data on which to base conclusions on the subject. ... Anatomical drawing of the human muscles from the Encyclopédie. ...

He plans to focus his future research on isolating elements of the developmental genetic mechanisms that distinguish the human brains from other primate brains, and attempting to study the cognitive consequences of human brain differences using in vivo brain imaging. Morphogenesis (from the Greek morphê shape and genesis creation) is one of three fundamental aspects of developmental biology along with the control of cell growth and cellular differentiation. ... Picture of a human brain generated from MRI data Sagittal slice from a fMRI scan of a human brain. ... Families 13, See classification A primate is any member of the biological order Primates (Latin primus first), the group that contains all lemurs, monkeys, apes, and humans. ... In the anatomy of animals, the brain, or encephalon, is the supervisory center of the nervous system. ... In vivo (Latin for (with)in the living). ... Medical imaging is the process by which physicians evaluate an area of the subjects body that is not normally visible. ...

His 1997 book, The Symbolic Species: The Coevolution of Language and the Brain (ISBN 0-393-03838-6) is widely considered a seminal work in the subject of evolutionary cognition. His approach to semiotics, throughly described in the book, is fueled by a career-long interest in the ideas of the late 19th-century American philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce. Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce (September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American logician, philosopher, scientist, and mathematician. ...