Social conditions for the evolutionary emergence of language

Knight, Chris; Power, Camilla

doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199541119.013.0037

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…The evidence for cognition extends further and further into our hominin past, while tool-use, especially Levallois tool-use, and the increasing communicative and structural complexity of larger-scale hunter-gatherer societies insistently suggests that the emergence of ALC from proto-language is relatively recent, dating from around 100,000 years ago, or even much later (Dunbar 1996; Wynn 2012; Dor et al 2014). Perhaps, in fact, it is only at the end of the Paleolithic, in the gregarious townships of the Neolithic with their first full representations of the human face (Kuijt 2008), when territorialization and conflict are on the rise and writing is already on the horizon, that we unequivocally feel that we can see our own linguistic image (Knight and Power 2012; Bickerton 2009; Suzuki et al 2012). While for ALC language is self-evidently linked with our evolved social cognition, our visceral and mimetic social bonding which underlies HC may not in fact depend upon language.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Niche construction, social cognition, and language: hypothesizing the human as the production of place

Davies

2016

Cult. Brain

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New data is emerging from evolutionary anthropology and the neuroscience of social cognition on our species-specific hyper-cooperation (HC). This paper attempts an integration of third-person archaeological and second-person, neuroscientific perspectives on the structure of HC, through a post-Ricoeurian development in hermeneutical phenomenology. We argue for the relatively late evolution of advanced linguistic consciousness (ALC) (Hiscock in Biological Theory 9:27–41, 2014), as a reflexive system based on the ‘in-between’ or ‘cognitive system’ as reported by Vogeley et al. (in: Interdisziplinäre anthropologie, Heidelberg, Springer, 2014) of face-to-face social cognition, as well as tool use. The possibility of a positive or negative tension between the more recent ALC and the more ancient, pre-thematic, self-organizing ‘in-between’ frames an ‘internal’ niche construction. This indexes the internal structure of HC as ‘convergence’, where complex, engaged, social reasoning in ALC mirrors the cognitive structure of the pre-thematic ‘in-between’, extending the bio-energy of our social cognition, through reflexive amplification, in the production of ‘social place’ as ‘humanized space’. If individual word/phrase acquisition, in contextual actuality, is the distinctive feature of human language (Hurford in European Reviews 12:551–565, 2004), then human language is a hyperbolic, species-wide training in particularized co-location, developing consciousness of a shared world. The humanization of space and production of HC, through co-location, requires the ‘disarming’ of language as a medium of control, and a foregrounding of the materiality of the sign. The production of ‘hyper-place’ as solidarity beyond the face-to-face, typical of world religions, becomes possible where internal niche construction as convergence with the ‘in-between’ (world in us) combines with religious cosmologies reflecting an external ‘cosmic’ niche construction (world outside us).

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Niche construction, social cognition, and language: hypothesizing the human as the production of place

Davies

2016

Cult. Brain

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“…These are precisely the conditions that existed in pre-human and early human hunter-gatherer societies, the context in which humans and our hominid precursors spent some 95% of our evolutionary history. The description of the prototypical hunter-gatherer society that follows is based on information from a number of sources (including Boehm, 1999 ; Bowles, 2006 ; Hrdy, 2009 ; Hill K. et al, 2011 ; Knight and Power, 2011 ; Lee, 2018 ).…”

Section: Why Are There No Natural Language Systems In Animals?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Are No Animal Communication Systems Simple Languages?

Beecher

2021

Front. Psychol.

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Individuals of some animal species have been taught simple versions of human language despite their natural communication systems failing to rise to the level of a simple language. How is it, then, that some animals can master a version of language, yet none of them deploy this capacity in their own communication system? I first examine the key design features that are often used to evaluate language-like properties of natural animal communication systems. I then consider one candidate animal system, bird song, because it has several of the key design features or their precursors, including social learning and cultural transmission of their vocal signals. I conclude that although bird song communication is nuanced and complex, and has the acoustic potential for productivity, it is not productive – it cannot be used to say many different things. Finally, I discuss the debate over whether animal communication should be viewed as a cooperative information transmission process, as we typically view human language, or as a competitive process where signaler and receiver vie for control. The debate points to a necessary condition for the evolution of a simple language that has generally been overlooked: the degree of to which the interests of the signaler and receiver align. While strong cognitive and signal production mechanisms are necessary pre-adaptations for a simple language, they are not sufficient. Also necessary is the existence of identical or near-identical interests of signaler and receiver and a socio-ecology that requires high-level cooperation across a range of contexts. In the case of our hominid ancestors, these contexts included hunting, gathering, child care and, perhaps, warfare. I argue that the key condition for the evolution of human language was the extreme interdependency that existed among unrelated individuals in the hunter-gatherer societies of our hominid ancestors. This extreme interdependency produced multiple prosocial adaptations for effective intragroup cooperation, which in partnership with advanced cognitive abilities, set the stage for the evolution of language.

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“…Pour communiquer, nous avons besoin, dans un premier temps, d'établir un code commun (Knight & Power, 2011). Tout discours reflète les spécificités de la communauté socioculturelle ou professionnelle qui le produit (Halliday, 1975).…”

Section: Agir Avec Le Langageunclassified

Comment La Réflexion Sur Le Transculturing Conduit À Repenser La Compétence Interculturelle

Narcy‐Combes

2019

Neofilolog

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This article deals with the link between transculturing and translanguag-ing and what this link reveals. The ensuing transdisciplinary analysis shows that so-called intercultural competence results from the same emotional and cognitive processes as the theory of mind (social compre-hension) that we all develop to relate to others. Turning to social psychol-ogy may then lead to more effective pedagogical approaches to “inter-cultural competence”.

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Social conditions for the evolutionary emergence of language

Cited by 6 publications

References 3 publications

Niche construction, social cognition, and language: hypothesizing the human as the production of place

Niche construction, social cognition, and language: hypothesizing the human as the production of place

Why Are No Animal Communication Systems Simple Languages?

Comment La Réflexion Sur Le Transculturing Conduit À Repenser La Compétence Interculturelle

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