Born Talking: A Personal Inquiry Into Language

Most parents remember the moment when their baby produced its first recognisable word. From then on, language growth is astonishingly rapid and, apparently, effortless.Why is acquiring a first language so easy, when learning a second is so difficult? Jonathan Miller argues that it's almost as if humans are born knowing something about language, long before knowing which particular one will be spoken.

When the brain is damaged through accident or injury, language can go tragically wrong. Through meeting and talking to stroke victims, Miller shows how such cases have thrown new light on the way our brains shape and process language.

Jonathan Miller examines how the sign language of the deaf is not only as complex as any spoken language, but how it has revealed something essential about language.

In this last programme, Jonathan Miller explores those elements that make language more than just mere strings of words, such as tone of voice, inflexion, facial expressions, turn-taking - the things which help give language meaning.