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  1. Home
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  3. The Evolutionary Emergence of Language
  • Cited by 74
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
November 2009
Print publication year:
2000
Online ISBN:
9780511606441
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511606441
Subjects:
Linguistic Anthropology, Evolution of Language, Anthropology, Language and Linguistics
Information

Book description

Language has no counterpart in the animal world. Unique to Homo sapiens, it appears inseparable from human nature. But how, when and why did it emerge? The contributors to this volume - linguists, anthropologists, cognitive scientists, and others - adopt a modern Darwinian perspective which offers a bold synthesis of the human and natural sciences. As a feature of human social intelligence, language evolution is driven by biologically anomalous levels of social cooperation. Phonetic competence correspondingly reflects social pressures for vocal imitation, learning, and other forms of social transmission. Distinctively human social and cultural strategies gave rise to the complex syntactical structure of speech. This book, presenting language as a remarkable social adaptation, testifies to the growing influence of evolutionary thinking in contemporary linguistics. It will be welcomed by all those interested in human evolution, evolutionary psychology, linguistic anthropology, and general linguistics.

Reviews

' … a useful introduction to the social conditions of language evolution.'

Source: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research

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