Communotion and the Evolution of Human Language

Authors

  • Zhongxin Dai Guangdong University of Science and Technology
  • Jun Liu Guangdong University of Science and Technology

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18533/journal.v8i9.1737

Keywords:

communotion, communication, language evolution, verbal notion

Abstract

The past two decades has witnessed the controversy revolving around the issue of human language evolution, leading to the emergence of two schools of thought: the biolinguistic school and the sociocultural school. The former maintains that the human faculty of language is characterized by the innate recursion which stems from the neurobiological foundation of language. The latter argues that it is the social communication that accounts for the evolution of human language. This article attempts to scrutinize the beginning point of language evolution and production (i.e. the “communicative notion”, blended as “communotion”) within social communication of humans, and explore therein human language faculty of recursion with respect to the infinite hierarchical structures of human language. Human language as a tool serving human expression and communication has evolved for what is to be expressed and communicated, and developed from and with the communotion. The crucial transition between the non-verbal communotion and verbal expression has long been ignored in linguistics. This article argues that human language has evolved for, from and with the communotion of humans. The communotion is what is targeted to get expressed and communicated. It is kindled in the mind of the speaker at the outset of social communication, impelling him to communicate with others. As the target to be expressed, the well-structured elements of the communotion eventually wed with vocal sounds and give birth to the “verbal notion” --- a binary code for human language. Human language develops with the development of the communotion in the course of serving the purpose of expressing it with the vocal sounds. The human faculty of language with respect to the innate and creative recursion of the infinite hierarchical structures is in reality the faculty of the verbal manifestation of the hierarchically structured elements of the communotion.

Author Biographies

  • Zhongxin Dai, Guangdong University of Science and Technology
    Professor in the School of Foreign Languages, Guagndong University of Science and Technoloty
  • Jun Liu, Guangdong University of Science and Technology
    Associate Professor in the School of Foreign Languages, Guangdong University of Science and Technology

References

Auersperg, A. M. I., Szabo, B., von Bayern, A. M. P., & Kacelnik, A. (2012). Spontaneous innovation in tool manufacture and use in a Goffin's cockatoo. Current Biology, 22, 903-904.

Behrens, H., & Pfänder, S. (eds). (2016). Experience Counts: Frequency Effects in Language. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, Inc.

Berwick, R. C., & Chomsky, N. (2016). Why only us: Language and evolution. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Berwick, R. C., & Chomsky, N. (2017). Why only us: Recent questions and answers. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 43, 166-177.

Chomsky, N. (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Sytax. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Chomsky, N. (2002). Syntactic Structures (Second Edition with an Introduction by David W. Lightfoot). Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Chomsky, N. (2017). Language architecture and its import for evolution. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 81, 295-300.

Corballis, M. C. (2017a). Language evolution: A changing perspective. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21 (4), 229-236.

Corballis, M. C. (2017b). Leaps of faith: A reply to Everaert et al. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21 (8), 571-572.

David-Barrett, T., & Dunbar, R. (2016). Language as a coordination tool evolves slowly. Royal Society Open Science, 3 (12), 160259. doi:10.1098/rsos.160259.

Engels, F. (1876). The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/

Evans, v. (2009). How Words Mean: Lexical Concepts, Cognitive Models, and Meaning Construction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Everaert, M. B. H., Huybregts, M. A. C., Berwick, R. C., Chomsky, N., Tattersall, I., Moro, A. & Bolhuis, J. J. (2017). What is language and how could it have evolved? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21 (8), 569-571.

Everaert, M. B. H., Huybregts, M. A. C., Chomsky, N.; Berwick, R. C., & Bolhuis, J. J. (2015). Structures, not strings: Linguistics as part of the cognitive sciences. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 19 (12), 729-743. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2015.09.008.

Frings, M. S. (2003). Lifetime: Max Scheler’s Philosophy of Time: A First Inquiry and Presentation. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer Science + Business Media B. V.

Hauser, M. D., Chomsky, N., & Fitch, W. T. (2002) The faculty of language: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science, 298, 1569-1579. doi: 10.1126/science.298.5598.

Oller, D. K., Buder, E. H., Ramsdell, H. L., Warlaumont, A. S., Chorna, L., & Bakeman, R. (2013). Functional flexibility of infant vocalization and the emergence of language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110(16), 6318-23.

Sanz, C., Call, J., & Morgan, D. (2009). Design complexity in the tool use of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) in the Congo basin. Biology Letters, 5, 293-296.

Saussure, F. de (1983). Course in General Linguistics, edited by Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye with the collaboration of Albert Riedlinger (Roy Harris, Trans.), London: Gerald Duckworth & Co. Ltd. (Original work published 1916).

Steels, L. (2017). Human language is a culturally evolving system. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 24 (1), 190-193. doi: 10.3758/s13423-016-1086-6.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and Language (newly revised and edited by Alex Kozulin). Cambridge, Mass. Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.

Yang, C., Crain., S., Berwick, R. C., Chomsky, N., & Bolhuis, J. J. (2017). The growth of language: Universal Grammar, experience, and principles of computation. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 81, 103–119.

Downloads

Published

2019-10-02

Issue

Section

Article

Similar Articles

1-10 of 275

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.