>>Interesting that Rosa should mention Lamarckianism in this context, as I have argued that culture and language give humans a Lamarckian-like adaptive mechanism. Culture and language , symboling, allow inheritance of acquired, extra-somatic , characteristics.<<
I think that would be a genetic mutation, except a genetic mutation really only seems to transcend soma, and doesn't actually (Lamarck and Lysenko weren't completely wrong). The ability to gesture complexly emerged from our biology and brain capacity, and this ability to systematize, embed meaning and communicate symbolically then colonized our well-developed phonetic abilities (we could chatter like the birds and then we learned to communicate). Instead of asking what separates us from the apes, we ought to ask what separates us from a mockingbird or parrot? Corballis's fascinating book could have been made better had he collaborated with an articulatory phonologist, like someone at Haskins Laboratory. I am somewhat skeptical about there ever being an isolated, unitary 'language acquisition device' in humans (such as what Chomsky theorized without really ever elaborating on or ever pursuing in any empirical way). In which case, we would possibly be led down the path of saying individual development of the language recapitulates the species development without really saying what we meant by that. It's just another theoretical black box in linguistics. Rather, I see it as reflecting the plasticity of the brain and the specialization of 'general learning' before puberty (in fact, from the time of development in the womb to about the age of 6). http://books.google.co.jp/books?id=yEd_FchjDDMC&dq=hand+to+mouth+corballis&hl=en&source=gbs_summary_s&cad=0 It is often said that speech is what distinguishes us from other animals. But are we all talk? What if language was bequeathed to us not by word of mouth, but as a hand-me-down? The notion that language evolved not from animal cries but from manual and facial gestures--that, for most of human history, actions have spoken louder than words--has been around since Condillac. But never before has anyone developed a full-fledged theory of how, why, and with what effects language evolved from a gestural system to the spoken word. Marshaling far-flung evidence from anthropology, animal behavior, neurology, molecular biology, anatomy, linguistics, and evolutionary psychology, Michael Corballis makes the case that language developed, with the emergence of Homo sapiens, from primate gestures to a true signed language, complete with grammar and syntax and at best punctuated with grunts and other vocalizations. While vocal utterance played an increasingly important complementary role, autonomous speech did not appear until about 50,000 years ago--much later than generally believed. Bringing in significant new evidence to bolster what has been a minority view, Corballis goes beyond earlier supporters of a gestural theory by suggesting why speech eventually (but not completely!) supplanted gesture. He then uses this milestone to account for the artistic explosion and demographic triumph of the particular group of Homo sapiens from whom we are descended. And he asserts that speech, like written language, was a cultural invention and not a biological fait accompli. Writing with wit and eloquence, Corballis makes nimble reference to literature, mythology, natural history, sports, and contemporary politics as he explains in fascinating detail what we now know about such varied subjects as early hominid evolution, modern signed languages, and the causes of left-handedness.From Hand to Mouthwill have scholars and laymen alike talking--and sometimes gesturing--for years to come. http://ling.ed.ac.uk/~jim/corballisrevu.html Michael Corballis is a psychologist with a strong interest in lateralization, handedness, and the origins of language. In this book, he puts these interests together with a solid and comprehensive survey of other background material relevant to the origins of language. The book also pushes Corballis' own specific hypothesis, that human languages were implemented mainly in manual gestures until about 50,000 years ago, at which point largely vocal language took over as an invented cultural innovation. This is an argument about the medium in which linguistic messages were expressed. Corballis believes that the human capacity for generative syntactic language may possibly be as old as one million years. The argument is much less about when true linguistic generativity arose than about the hypothesized relatively recent switch to the vocal medium. While conceding that Corballis succeeds in showing that this late switch to vocal language was possible, it still seems to me to be very unlikely. Corballis claims that the hominins of 150,000 years ago communicated mainly by manual gestures, but were (and here he agrees with the dominant view) biologically essentially the same as modern humans. Thus, they would have had all the potential of modern babies for acquiring skilled vocal articulation and control of complex phonological systems. Vocal language comes very naturally to modern humans. What took our ancestors so long (about 100,000 years!) to `discover' the advantages of vocal language? Corballis believes that vocal language does have advantages over manual language, and this, he argues, accounts for the displacement of the earlier waves of Homo sapiens by later waves of the same species, technologically superior due to possession of the better medium for language. Corballis' argument is a revamping of a position that used to be common among archeologists, especially those concentrating on the European Upper Paleolithic, that truly generative language itself did not emerge until some 45,000 years ago. At least he does not repeat that implausible suggestion. Instead, he has pushed the beginning of generative language back to around the beginning of Homo sapiens, which does seem plausible, while idiosyncratically sticking with a much later switch into the modern preferred vocal medium. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
