Language origins

Interaction Studies 19 (1-2):167-182 (2018)
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Abstract

In this paper, we complement proximate or ‘how’ explanations for the origins of language, broadening our perspective to include fitness-consequences explanations, i.e. ultimate, or ‘why’ explanations. We identify theplatform of trustas a fundamental prerequisite for the development of a language-like system of symbolic communication. The platform of trust is a social niche in which cheap but honest communication with non-kin is possible, because messages tend to be trusted as a default. We briefly consider the place of the platform of trust on the road map as laid out in the Mirror System Hypothesis. We then turn to recent research on turn-taking in primates, which has been proposed as a precursor of the cooperative structuring of conversation in humans. We suggest, instead, that human turn-taking, in its full richness that makes it an interesting explanatory target, may only appear in a communicative system that is already founded on a community-wide, cooperative platform of trust.

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References found in this work

Relevance.D. Sperber & Deirdre Wilson - 1986 - Communication and Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly Journal 2.
On the human ‘interactional engine.Stephen C. Levinson - 2006 - In N. J. Enfield and S. C. Levinson , Roots Of.
Pragmatics.S. C. Levinson - 1983 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 49 (3):531-532.

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