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From Signal to Symbol: The Evolution of Language
A novel account of the evolution of language and the cognitive capacities on which language depends.
In From Signal to Symbol, Ronald Planer and Kim Sterelny propose a novel theory of language: that modern language is the product of a long series of increasingly rich protolanguages evolving over the last two million years. Arguing that language and cognition coevolved, they give a central role to archaeological evidence and attempt to infer cognitive capacities on the basis of that evidence, which they link in turn to communicative capacities.
Countering other accounts, which move directly from archaeological traces to language, Planer and Sterelny show that rudimentary forms of many of the elements on which language depends can be found in the great apes and were part of the equipment of the earliest species in our lineage. After outlining the constraints a theory of the evolution of language should satisfy and filling in the details of their model, they take up the evolution of words, composite utterances, and hierarchical structure. They consider the transition from a predominantly gestural to a predominantly vocal form of language and discuss the economic and social factors that led to language. Finally, they evaluate their theory in terms of the constraints previously laid out.
In From Signal to Symbol, Ronald Planer and Kim Sterelny propose a novel theory of language: that modern language is the product of a long series of increasingly rich protolanguages evolving over the last two million years. Arguing that language and cognition coevolved, they give a central role to archaeological evidence and attempt to infer cognitive capacities on the basis of that evidence, which they link in turn to communicative capacities.
Countering other accounts, which move directly from archaeological traces to language, Planer and Sterelny show that rudimentary forms of many of the elements on which language depends can be found in the great apes and were part of the equipment of the earliest species in our lineage. After outlining the constraints a theory of the evolution of language should satisfy and filling in the details of their model, they take up the evolution of words, composite utterances, and hierarchical structure. They consider the transition from a predominantly gestural to a predominantly vocal form of language and discuss the economic and social factors that led to language. Finally, they evaluate their theory in terms of the constraints previously laid out.
281 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 12, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 17, 2024
Just. WOW.
We take language for granted. This book shares to us some lights of what we call “language”, again, through the evolutionary lenses. This book is amazing, when it comes to explanations, and the basis that helped create the way we communicate. Before anything, I’m just going to say that this review is nothing, but a drop of water compared to the ocean of knowledge the book encompasses.
A signal is something that a living being does advising an action or something to do. This “signal” does not mean anything more than the signal itself: “down”, “up”, “come”, “go”; is has the action just stated in the present, and that is it.
A symbol is a complex thing. To understand a symbol, you must understand beyond place and time; to understand symbol you have to own a different and more complex cerebral wiring, and thus, cognition. Signal is related to mimicking activities, but symbol, goes beyond that.
The book takes several arguments that are found in evolutionary biology, evolutionary archaeology and evolutionary psychology, such as: proactive and reactive aggression, “the bonfire hypothesis”, jaw reduction, gut reduction, fire control, self-domestication hypothesis, sexual selection, ultrasociality, group selection, morality, reciprocal altruism, and shared intentionality, and many more concepts first coined by Pinker, Boehm, Dumbar, Wrangham, Currier, Miller, Hrdy and Tomasello.
This is a book that really makes you think a lot about language, what you are saying, and paints a picture about human evolution and what was like to explain something 50 kya or even 100 kya.
Today, we are living in a place in which we are hijacking information, we are ultra informed, and social media is creating problems in our neural procedures. This is the reason why psychologists such as Jonathan Haidt explain what is going on with today’s youth.
We take language for granted. This book shares to us some lights of what we call “language”, again, through the evolutionary lenses. This book is amazing, when it comes to explanations, and the basis that helped create the way we communicate. Before anything, I’m just going to say that this review is nothing, but a drop of water compared to the ocean of knowledge the book encompasses.
A signal is something that a living being does advising an action or something to do. This “signal” does not mean anything more than the signal itself: “down”, “up”, “come”, “go”; is has the action just stated in the present, and that is it.
A symbol is a complex thing. To understand a symbol, you must understand beyond place and time; to understand symbol you have to own a different and more complex cerebral wiring, and thus, cognition. Signal is related to mimicking activities, but symbol, goes beyond that.
The book takes several arguments that are found in evolutionary biology, evolutionary archaeology and evolutionary psychology, such as: proactive and reactive aggression, “the bonfire hypothesis”, jaw reduction, gut reduction, fire control, self-domestication hypothesis, sexual selection, ultrasociality, group selection, morality, reciprocal altruism, and shared intentionality, and many more concepts first coined by Pinker, Boehm, Dumbar, Wrangham, Currier, Miller, Hrdy and Tomasello.
This is a book that really makes you think a lot about language, what you are saying, and paints a picture about human evolution and what was like to explain something 50 kya or even 100 kya.
Today, we are living in a place in which we are hijacking information, we are ultra informed, and social media is creating problems in our neural procedures. This is the reason why psychologists such as Jonathan Haidt explain what is going on with today’s youth.
October 12, 2022
This work is an ambitious attempt at discovering the lineage of language from a multidisciplinary approach. The authors use of a variety of sources, and manage to construct a firm developmental account of language capacities of hominids. Unfortunately, language is the big absent in this work. The book seems to pay much attention to the context development in which language could arise, but how language really developped (especially from gestures to vocals) is rather unclear. Nevertheless, this is probably the most difficult part about the question of the evolution of language. Its history is difficult to trace, and any study about the exact development of protolanguage and language is even more a minefield.
The book could have been better structured--although I can see why that was so difficult to do, given the many different disciplines that are incorporated. Furthermore, the authors could have expanded a lot more on the sociological dimension of language, rather than mostly about the psychological elements.
The writing itself is worth three stars, but inasmuch interdisciplinary work is usually quite underappreciated to my sorrow, I will give an extra star for the much-needed attempt to transverge academic borders.
The book could have been better structured--although I can see why that was so difficult to do, given the many different disciplines that are incorporated. Furthermore, the authors could have expanded a lot more on the sociological dimension of language, rather than mostly about the psychological elements.
The writing itself is worth three stars, but inasmuch interdisciplinary work is usually quite underappreciated to my sorrow, I will give an extra star for the much-needed attempt to transverge academic borders.
January 31, 2023
This is a well thought out exploration of the origins of language in Homo Sapiens. The book reads like a post-doc dissertation and demands a lot of the reader. While it is science for the non-scientist, it is very deeply thought out and goes into much detail with many references to the theories of other anthropologists who have explored this area.
They are in general in the camp of Daniel Leverett ("The Origins of Language").
The authors are careful to not overstep the reach of their ideas, suggesting areas of further exploration and limits to their theories.
They make an effort to create a path from Great Ape communication through human ancestor communication to current language. They suggest that gestural communication preceded and evolved into spoken language. Proto-language is suggested as an intermediate stage to modern language, though the details of such proto-language were not well drawn out.
This is an excellent addition to the world of thought regarding how we came to be a vocal species.
Well worth the read for those seriously interested and willing to put in the effort.
They are in general in the camp of Daniel Leverett ("The Origins of Language").
The authors are careful to not overstep the reach of their ideas, suggesting areas of further exploration and limits to their theories.
They make an effort to create a path from Great Ape communication through human ancestor communication to current language. They suggest that gestural communication preceded and evolved into spoken language. Proto-language is suggested as an intermediate stage to modern language, though the details of such proto-language were not well drawn out.
This is an excellent addition to the world of thought regarding how we came to be a vocal species.
Well worth the read for those seriously interested and willing to put in the effort.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews