Evolution of Communicative Flexibility: Complexity, Creativity, and Adaptability in Human and Animal Communication
D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel
Abstract
The evolutionary roots of human communication are difficult to trace, but recent comparative research suggests that the first key step in that evolutionary history may have been the establishment of basic communicative flexibility—the ability to vocalize freely combined with the capability to coordinate vocalization with communicative intent. The contributors to this book investigate how some species (particularly ancient hominids) broke free of the constraints of “fixed signals,” actions that were evolved to communicate but lack the flexibility of language—a newborn infant’s cry, for example, ... More
The evolutionary roots of human communication are difficult to trace, but recent comparative research suggests that the first key step in that evolutionary history may have been the establishment of basic communicative flexibility—the ability to vocalize freely combined with the capability to coordinate vocalization with communicative intent. The contributors to this book investigate how some species (particularly ancient hominids) broke free of the constraints of “fixed signals,” actions that were evolved to communicate but lack the flexibility of language—a newborn infant’s cry, for example, always signals distress and has a stereotypical form not modifiable by the crying baby. Fundamentally, they ask what communicative flexibility is and what evolutionary conditions can produce it. The accounts offered in these chapters are notable for taking the question of language origins farther back in evolutionary time than much previous work. Many contributors address the very earliest communicative break of the hominid line from the primate background; others examine the evolutionary origins of flexibility in, for example, birds and marine mammals. The book’s interdisciplinary theoretical perspectives illuminate issues that are at the cutting edge of recent research on this topic.
Keywords:
human communication,
communicative flexibility,
vocalization,
communicative intent,
ancient hominids,
fixed signals,
language origins,
birds,
marine mammals,
evolutionary history
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2008 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780262151214 |
| Published to MIT Press Scholarship Online: August 2013 |
DOI:10.7551/mitpress/9780262151214.001.0001 |
