Overview

Language evolution, sometimes called biolinguistics (Jenkins, 1999; Givón, 2002), is the study of the origins of human language, within the theoretical framework of evolutionary biology spearheaded by Charles Darwin’s seminal 1859 publication The Origin of Species.

As a field of academic inquiry, it is highly interdisciplinary, attracting researchers from as diverse backgrounds as: anthropology, computer science, evolutionary biology, linguistics, molecular biology and neuroscience. However, before surveying the possible pathways from which language first appeared among humans, a thorough appreciation of its uniqueness, as a system of communication, and the evolutionary descent of humans, as a species, is crucial.

This blog therefore aims to provide students of language evolution with a concise summary of the evolutionary backdrop for the emergence of language – as an distinctly human communication system – by first examining its nature (part 1), in terms of its particular features and components when compared to other animal communication systems, and then its evolution (part 2), in terms of the notable physical and cognitive evolutionary developments in humans which may have been crucial pre-requisites underlying our present linguistic ability.

A detailed breakdown of our blog’s contents is presented below. Click NEXT at the bottom of this page to enter the first section. Happy reading!

 

Contents

Part I: The Nature of Language

1. Design features

• 1.1 About human language
• 1.2 Hockett’s design features
  • 1.2.1 Vocal-Auditory Channel
  • 1.2.2 Broadcast Transmission and Directional Reception
  • 1.2.3 Transitoriness
  • 1.2.4 Interchangeability
  • 1.2.5 Total Feedback
  • 1.2.6 Specialization
  • 1.2.7 Semanticity
  • 1.2.8 Arbitariness
  • 1.2.9 Discreteness
  • 1.2.10 Displacement
  • 1.2.11 Productivity
  • 1.2.12 Cultural Transmission
  • 1.2.13 Duality of Patterning
• 1.3 Evaluation of Hockett’s design features

2. Systematic components

• 2.1 Language as a communication system
• 2.2 Language as a human cognitive faculty
  • 2.2.1 Signal imitation
  • 2.2.2 Structure generation and mapping
  • 2.2.3 Semiotic drive
• 2.3 Evaluation of Fitch’s components

3. A comparative approach

• 3.1 Re-cap of existing studies on the nature of language
• 3.2  System: Two basic rule sets – Duality of Patterning
  • 3.2.1 Linguistic signs – Arbitrariness
  • 3.2.2 Linguistic structure – Discreteness
  • 3.2.3 Linguistic semiotics – Displacement and Productivity
• 3.3 Environment: Cultural Transmission

 

Part II: The Evolution of Language

4. Phylogenesis of humans

• 4.1 The co-evolution of humans and language
• 4.2 Phylogenetic branching leading to homo sapiens
• 4.3 Adaptive stages leading to homo sapiens
  • 4.3.1 The fossil data record – three stages of hominid adaptations
  • 4.3.2 Adaptation stage 1: Bipedalism
  • 4.3.3 Adaptation stage 2: Basic tool making and Brain expansion
  • 4.3.4 Adaptation stage 3: Advanced tool making and Motor control

5. Physical adaptations

• 5.1 Descent of the larynx
  • 5.1.1 The human descended larynx
  • 5.1.2 The comparative method on the descent of the larynx
• 5.2 Nervous and muscular control – FOXP2

6. Cognitive adaptations

• 6.1 The cognitive niche hypothesis
• 6.2 Mirror neurons
• 6.3 Episodic memory

References

 

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