The Interaction Engine: Language in Social Life and Human Evolution

by Stephen C. Levinson

Communicative interaction forms the core of human experience. In this fascinating book Levinson, one of the world's leading scholars in the field, explores how human communicative interaction is structured, the demands it puts on our cognitive processing, and how its system evolved out of continuities with other primate systems. It celebrates the role of the 'interaction engine' which drives our social interaction, not only in human life, but also in the evolution of our species – showing how exchanges such as words, glances, laughter and face-to-face encounters bring us our greatest and most difficult experiences, and have come to define what it means to be human. It draws extensively on the author's fieldwork with speakers across multiple cultures and communities, and was inspired by his own experiences during the Covid lockdown, when humans were starved of the very social interaction that shapes our lives. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Genres: Linguistics, Language

216 pages, Hardcover

Published August 21, 2025

Reviews

[Ellie J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/5 stars
Recommended if you like: psychology, evolution, language

There is so much scientific inaccuracy in this book I don't even know where to start. I would love it if Levinson could pick up a psychology or biology book published at any point this century. Luckily for everyone here, I have to write a critical analysis on this book for class, so readers of this review will not be subjected to me fact-checking (with citations) every little thing Levinson got wrong.