The Social Origins of Language

by Dor, Daniel; Knight, Chris; Lewis, Jerome

• ISBN13: 9780199665327
• ISBN10: 019966532X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-08-19
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Author Biography

Daniel Dor has a PhD in Linguistics from Stanford University, and is Senior Lecturer in Communication at Tel Aviv University. His main interest lies in the development of a theory of language as a communication technology. Together with Eva Jablonka, he has written extensively on the evolution of language. In a different (but related) domain, Dor has published books and articles on the role of the media, and its language, in the construction of political hegemony. His Intifada Hits the Headlines was chosen as book of the year 2004 in communication by Choice Magazine.


Chris Knight was for many years Professor of Anthropology at the University of East London, although he is now retired. Best known for his 1991 book, Blood Relations: Menstruation and the Origins of Culture, he co-founded the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG) series of international conferences and has published widely on the evolutionary emergence of language and symbolic culture.


Jerome Lewis lectures in Social Anthropology at University College London and co-directs the Hunter-Gatherer Resilience Project, the Extreme Citizen Science Research Group and UCL's Environment Institute. His research focuses on Pygmy hunter-gatherers and former hunter-gatherers in Central Africa. Current research focuses on communication and cultural transmission in egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: A social perspective on how language began, Daniel Dor, Chris Knight, and Jerome Lewis
PART 1 Theoretical Foundations
2. Why we need to move from gene-culture co-evolution to culturally-driven co-evolution, Daniel Dor and Eva Jablonka
3. Niche construction and semiosis: Biocultural and social dynamics, Chris Sinha
4. Signal evolution and the social brain, Camilla Power
5. How can a social theory of language evolution be grounded in evidence?, Sverker Johansson
PART 2 Language as a Collective Object
6. The 'poly-modalic' nature of utterances and its relevance for inquiring into language origins, Adam Kendon
7. BaYaka Pygmy multi-modal and mimetic communication traditions, Jerome Lewis
8. Language presupposes an enchronic infrastructure for social interaction, Nick J. Enfield and Jack Sidnell
9. The instruction of imagination: Language and its evolution as a communication technology, Daniel Dor
PART 3 Apes and People, Past and Present
10. Chimpanzee grooming gestures and sounds: What might they tell us about how language evolved?, Simone Pika
11. Vocal communication and social awareness in chimpanzees and bonobos, Zanna Clay and Klaus Zuberbuhler
12. Why humans and not apes: The social preconditions for the emergence of language, Charles Whitehead
13. Language and collective fiction: From children's pretence to social institutions, Emily Wyman
14. The time frame of the emergence of modern language and its implications, Dan Dediu and Stephen C. Levinson
15. The evolution of ritual as a process of sexual selection, Camilla Power
16. The red thread: Pigment use and the evolution of collective ritual, Ian Watts
17. Language and symbolic culture: An outcome of hunter-gatherer reverse dominance, Chris Knight
PART 4 The Social Origins of Language
18. The co-evolution of human intersubjectivity, morality, and language, Jordan Zlatev
19. Forever united: The co-evolution of language and normativity, Ehud Lamm
20. Why talk?, Jean-Louis Dessalles
21. Vocal deception, laughter, and the linguistic significance of reverse dominance, Chris Knight and Jerome Lewis
PART 5 The Journey Thereafter
22. Memory, imagination, and the evolution of modern language, Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka
23. Transmission biases in the cultural evolution of language: Towards an explanatory framework, Nick J. Enfield
24. Breaking down false barriers to understanding, Luc Steels