Language and Human Behavior
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
“What this book proposes to do,” writes Derek Bickerton, “is to stand the conventional wisdom of the behavioral sciences on its head: instead of the human species growing clever enough to invent language, it will view that species as blundering into language and, as a direct result of that, becoming clever.” According to Bickerton, the behavioral sciences have failed to give an adequate account of human nature at least partly because of the conjunction and mutual reinforcement of two widespread beliefs: that language is simply a means of communication and that human intelligence is the result of the rapid growth and unusual size of human brains.
Bickerton argues that each of the properties distinguishing human intelligence and consciousness from that of other animals can be shown to derive straightforwardly from properties of language. In essence, language arose as a representational system, not a means of communication or a skill, and not a product of culture but an evolutionary adaptation.
The author stresses the necessity of viewing intelligence in evolutionary terms, seeing it not as problem solving but as a way of maintaining homeostasis—the preservation of those conditions most favorable to an organism, the optimal achievable conditions for survival and well-being. Nonhumans practice what he calls “on-line thinking” to maintain homeostasis, but only humans can employ off-line thinking: “only humans can assemble fragments of information to form a pattern that they can later act upon without having to wait on that great but unpunctual teacher, experience.”
The term protolanguage is used to describe the stringing together of symbols that prehuman hominids employed. “It did not allow them to turn today’s imagination into tomorrow’s fact. But it is just this power to transform imagination into fact that distinguishes human behavior from that of our ancestral species, and indeed from that of all other species. It is exactly what enables us to change our behavior, or invent vast ranges of new behavior, practically overnight, with no concomitant genetic changes.”
Language and Human Behavior should be of interest to anyone in the behavioral and evolutionary sciences and to all those concerned with the role of language in human behavior.
Derek Bickerton
Derek Bickerton is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii. His book Bastard Tongues was published in 2008, and Adam’s Tongue in 2009.
Read more from Derek Bickerton
Adam's Tongue: How Humans Made Language, How Language Made Humans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Language and Species Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Language and Human Behavior
Related ebooks
Harness the Business Writing Process Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLinguistics and Philosophy: The Controversial Interface Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Sentence Diagramming Primer: The Reed & Kellogg System Step-By-Step Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Art of English Poetry (1708) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secret History of Emotion: From Aristotle's Rhetoric to Modern Brain Science Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMetaphors Dead and Alive, Sleeping and Waking: A Dynamic View Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Principles of Psychology - Part II. Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Developmental Psychology: A Guide to Developmental and Child Psychology: An Introductory Series, #25 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAfter Plato: Rhetoric, Ethics, and the Teaching of Writing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBiology of Perceptual Systems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsConsciousness and Cognition: Fragments of Mind and Brain Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Humanism and Behaviorism: Dialogue and Growth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHandbook of Psychology, History of Psychology Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWords, Meaning, and Messages: Theory and Experiments in Psycholinguistics Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Truth about Language: What It Is and Where It Came From Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Moral Meaning of Nature: Nietzsche’s Darwinian Religion and Its Critics Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPerception and Communication Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Critical Neuroscience: A Handbook of the Social and Cultural Contexts of Neuroscience Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLanguage and the Brain: Representation and Processing Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRhetorical Minds: Meditations on the Cognitive Science of Persuasion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJohn Dewey's logical theory Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe craft of writing in sociology: Developing the argument in undergraduate essays and dissertations Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRethinking Language, Mind, and Meaning Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Boundaries of Humanity: Humans, Animals, Machines Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Nature of Diversity: An Evolutionary Voyage of Discovery Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCosmosapiens: Human Evolution from the Origin of the Universe Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Yanantin and Masintin in the Andean World: Complementary Dualism in Modern Peru Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Anthropology For You
Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dark Matter of the Mind: The Culturally Articulated Unconscious Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bullshit Jobs: A Theory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Trouble With Testosterone: And Other Essays On The Biology Of The Human Predi Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White Album: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Folk Medicine in Southern Appalachia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWorking: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Psychology of Totalitarianism Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The WEIRDest People in the World: How the West Became Psychologically Peculiar and Particularly Prosperous Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Regarding the Pain of Others Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bright-sided: How Positive Thinking is Undermined America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Collected Essays: Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album, and After Henry Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Bruce Lee Wisdom for the Way Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stories of Rootworkers & Hoodoo in the Mid-South Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A History of the American People Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Survive in Ancient Egypt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It All Up Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Songlines Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Language and Human Behavior
0 ratings0 reviews