palaeolinguistics

[ambyers]

There appear to be no topics initiated in this area. I thought that I would make some comments. I am exploring the topic of hominid communication and I am convinced that the current approaches to this topic are profooundly mistaken. It is largely assumed that communication can be exhaustively characterized in referential information conveyancing terms. While I can certainly agree that  the speech component of human communication has a strong referential/information conveying dimension, I have argued in several articles that we must go to a more basic level of communication in order to construct and empirically (yes-empirically) ground the evolution of hominid communication. This is to treat communication as a mode of action distinguished from other action modes by the use of signs -- whether these are natural or non-natural signs. My generic terms for referring to communicative actions is to speak of them as cues. I have considered action cues as the most fundamental. But I am modifying my view a bit. Action cues are, e.g., orders and promises. I am exploring with a more basic cue which, for the moment, I am calling a phatic cue -- a communicative action that simply recognizes the other as a participant in the community. Action cues are then modifications of phatic cues by which active subjects can express wishes so as to direct the action of others and/or express intentions so as to allow others to anticipate one's subsequent (non-communicative) actions. And all this can be done without any reference, per se. In fact, I am exploring treating monkey and ape communication as occurring at this level.

Any thoughts?

Best regards,

Martin Byers

[Chris Roberts]

I have argued in several articles that we must go to a more basic level of communication in order to construct and empirically (yes-empirically) ground the evolution of hominid communication.

Where might I find these articles?
Chris

[ambyers]

Hi Chris.

My first article on this topic was 1994 Symboling and the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic Transition. Current Anthropology 35(4):369-399. I then followed up with another in 1999 Communication and Material Culture. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 9(1):23-41. My most recent publication in this area is 2001 A Pragmatic View of the Emergence of Paleolithic Symbol Using. In In the Mind's Eye: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Evolution of Human Cognition, edited by April Nowell, International Monographs in Prehistory. Archaeological series 13, pp.50-62.
   I am currently expanding this topic to explore the evolution of hominid communication. Although my central notions of speech or, more properly, communicative actions, fused and integrated action cues, and so on, are being retained, I am in the process of elaborating a more comprehensive model that can more effectively correlate tool technology, communication and mind -- at least that is what I am aiming at.

Best regards,

Martin Byers

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

I have argued in several articles that we must go to a more basic level of communication in order to construct and empirically (yes-empirically) ground the evolution of hominid communication.

Sorry to intrude, here, but I am very curious about what your definition of "empirical" might be. Put another way, how do you intend  to ground empirically, as you say, the evolution of hominid communication when, to my knowledge, this particular facet of our evolutionary history does not precisely lend itsel, to say the least, to the gathering of direct evidence and derived observation and, by extension, does not allow for controlled experimentation?

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[ambyers]

Hi Jacques,
   I think I understand empirical in the way most people understand it, this being that which our perceptual experiences are about and, therefore, science as an empirical study, grounds its claims on the objects of our perceptual experiences. You are right to point out that, as prehistoric archaeologists, the immediate facts of our experiences are simply "sticks and stones" and all the transformations in the world that we can attribute to hominid activity and, of course, since hominid communicative practices would, apparently, make only ephemeral transformations, it would seem that these could not possibly be part of tangible transformations that make up the palaeolithic archaeological record. However, what I am questioning is the assumption that communication makes only ephemeral changes -- at least until the advent of durable produced signs, e.g., parietal "art." I attribute this view, ie., "ephemerality" of communication, as arising from the view that it is not a "real" action in the way that subsistence practices are. The material component of pre-"literate"communication merely stirs up the air a bit and dissipates.
  This view, I think, hinges on the assumption that communication is pretty well exhaustively characterized in terms of referencing, i.e., information conveyancing. I take a pragmatic approach, however, and emphasize that communication is the exercise of social power through the medium of signs and that this power translates into tangible material changes. This draws on the Speech Act Theory approach which argues that, as important as referencing and semantics are in speech, all speech is intentional action that makes a real change in the social world of the speakers. Indeed, proposing an explanation of a phenomenon becomes an exercise of power that can stimulate counter models and great debates - on which huge sums of money (another communicative action medium) hinge. Probably the best examples of speech acts as making real and tangible changes are declarations (e.g., of war, peace, criminal guilt), promises, orders, and so on. True, the immediate changes that count are intangible in that they transform the cognitive, moral and affective intersubjective posture and understanding of the participating communicators. But this transformation translates into objective changes. More direct material connection to communication, however, is the range of material items that we find necessary in order to constitute both our speech utterances and our material behavioral utterances (e.g., hunting) so that they count as the types of social actions we intend them to be. I call this my Warranting Model of material cultural style. This hinges on what can be termed the behaviour/action duality. Both criminal assault and legal arrest as actions can entail the same type of objective behavioral interventions. What makes the difference in modern human society -- at least those with formal legal systems -- is the presence of a warrant or an equivalent symbol, e.g., police badges, etc. Spin this out and you can easily start talking about how a non-literate people make the difference between hunting and poaching, again two types of action that require the same type of objective material intervention. The difference, I contend, is warrantive (licensing) in nature and, in non-lliterate social systems, this is mediated by stylistics of the material gear typically used by someone who perceives himself and wishes to be perceived by relevant others as a hunter (not a poacher -- like those people over the mountain that do not know how to treat the animals they kill or carry out the distribution of the kill appropriately, and this absence of appropriate know how is clearly indicated by their "barbaric" tools).
   Therefore, tools become communicative as well as instrumental media. This is certainly the case for modern human communities that have a full-fledged language as the core of their communicative media. Now I am exploring how this warranting perspective, properly developed in terms of a pragmatic theory of communication, can be used to account for "anomalies" in the plaeolithic record, e.g., the Acheulean hand axe. I see the attributes that we use to define this type as manifesting real stylistics that the users produced for both communicative and instrumental purposes. But I also think that the form of communication that the Acheulean hand axe implicates differs significantly from the form we are familiar with -- i.e., our own. I also think that it marks possibly the first step in language, the "Rubicon" that initiated hominid communication on the linguistic road.

I hope that this partially answers the very important question that you raised, Jacques.

Best regards,

Martin Byers

[ambyers]

  Is there no one interested in paleolinguistics on this list? I was hoping to stimulate some discussion by showing that there is a different way of approaching the topic that not only may have more validity in characterizing communication, in general, but opens possibilities for empirically demonstrating the claims being made. What if I suggest that we can think of primate, possibly all communication as emerging out of the survival benfit arising out of the ability to control the broadcasting effect that animal behaviour necessarily produces. The classic case of the mouse that rustles leaves while foraging and thereby unwittingly gives away its presence to the foraging owl -- so long mouse Among social animals, such as monkeys, chimpanzees and, of course, Homo erectines, communication may have developed as the result of the selective advantage of those who developed effecitive means of  controlling the broadcasting effect of everyday living. This would minimize misunderstanding of intentions by others as these are being manifested in the behaviour by which one pursues immediate goals. Control of vocal, bodily postures, behavioural kinesics, and so on, so as to avoid startle effect, e.g., one's behaviour or stare is taken as a threat by others, may be complemented by developing routine methods of interaction, e.g., grooming, and so on. The capacity to control natural inclinations, emotive responses, and forging behaviours should be selected for as enhancing sociality and, furthermore, this control can unwittingly allow for the transformation of natural emotive cries into action cues that specify to others "Take to the tree tops" and so on.

Martin

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

 Is there no one interested in paleolinguistics on this list?

No offence intented, but it may well be that the rather personalized style you have chosen to use for presenting your ideas is, in part, the cause of the "silence" you have encountered so far. I, for one, have found your earlier post on this topic rather difficult to decipher and I honestly see no reason why your views (correct or not) cannot be presented in a language that is readily accessible (i.e., less hermetic and more understandable) to as broad an audience as possible (and not only by what I presume to be a restricted number or circle of individuals). This, after all, is what this Forum is all about.

In this regard, I hasten to note...

I was hoping to stimulate some discussion by showing that there is a different way of approaching the topic that not only may have more validity in characterizing communication, in general, but opens possibilities for empirically demonstrating the claims being made. What if I suggest that we can think of primate, possibly all communication as emerging out of the survival benfit arising out of the ability to control the broadcasting effect that animal behaviour necessarily produces. The classic case of the mouse that rustles leaves while foraging and thereby unwittingly gives away its presence to the foraging owl -- so long mouse Among social animals, such as monkeys, chimpanzees and, of course, Homo erectines, communication may have developed as the result of the selective advantage of those who developed effecitive means of  controlling the broadcasting effect of everyday living. This would minimize misunderstanding of intentions by others as these are being manifested in the behaviour by which one pursues immediate goals. Control of vocal, bodily postures, behavioural kinesics, and so on, so as to avoid startle effect, e.g., one's behaviour or stare is taken as a threat by others, may be complemented by developing routine methods of interaction, e.g., grooming, and so on. The capacity to control natural inclinations, emotive responses, and forging behaviours should be selected for as enhancing sociality and, furthermore, this control can unwittingly allow for the transformation of natural emotive cries into action cues that specify to others "Take to the tree tops" and so on.

Martin

... that this last post of yours is (at least to me) much more understandable and provides me with the opportunity to feel a bit more secure in asking, once again, about the exact nature of the empirical evidence you insist is the foundation of what I read to be an interesting (and possibly reasonable and valid) but, nonetheless, highly speculative exercise regarding the origin and evolution of language.

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[ambyers]

    Sorry about the "esoteric" terminology, although it does not seem to me to be that way. Possibly the problem is that I am taking a different approach that requires a bit of cognitive reorientation. However, linguists that have addressed the pragmatic dimension would be familiar with what I am saying. They argue, in general, that communication is a means of acting and interacting through signing and when language is used, an important part of that signing articulates and expresses intentional states that are critical to constructing the action nature of the speech utterance. Pragmatic linguists, however, focus on human communication practices. I am pushing the envelope, in a sense, and asking how we can understand non-human primate communication in pragmatic terms and, from this base, and assuming that our early pre-language hominid ancestors had a pragmatic communicative capacity and set of practices at least equal to or more developed than current chimpanzees, how would this evolve and how would tools figure in the process?
   The empirical aspect hinges on a theoretical linking of material culture and communication -- a task that I have pursued in the papers I mentioned earlier. If a credible pragmatic theory of material culture as a communicative as well as an instrumental medium can be developed, then it can be used to assess and empirically test models of hominid communicative evolution -- "written" in the form and the distribution of lithics!! That is what I am in the midst of doing. More later.

Best regards

Martin