Speaking Our Minds: Why human communication is different, and how language evolved to make it special, by Thom Scott-Phillips
Speaking Our Minds: Why human communication is different, and how language evolved to make it special, by Thom Scott-Phillips
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说出我们的想法：为什么人类交流是不同的，以及语言如何进化使其变得特殊，作者：Thom Scott-Phillips
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发表时间：
2016
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Catriona Silvey
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作者：
Catriona Silvey
说出我们的想法：为什么人类的交流是不同的，以及语言是如何进化的，使之特别，由汤姆斯科特-菲利普斯，帕尔格雷夫麦克米伦（2014年），212页，24.99英镑。
语言进化是一个众所周知的复杂问题。因此，语言如何以及为什么进化的中心话题往往被分成许多问题，这些问题往往被单独处理。为什么人类是唯一拥有如此复杂的交流系统的物种？最初的交际惯例是如何建立的，它们又是如何发展成我们所观察到的语言形式的？什么解释了我们交流的动机，什么样的压力使语言保持进化稳定？
在《说出我们的想法》一书中，汤姆·斯科特-菲利普斯提供了一个旨在解决所有这些问题的叙述。其核心论点是，语言是由一种进化上新颖的人类特有的交流形式：明示-推理交流。在这种形式的通信中，信号发送者为他们的意图提供证据，而接收者则解释这些证据以推断信号发送者想要传达的含义。这种能力依赖于复杂的社会认知形式，而这种社会认知反过来又是随着社会群体的规模和复杂性的增加，为了更好地跟踪他人的意图而产生的选择压力的结果。斯科特-菲利普斯收集了广泛的证据来支持这一观点，从非人类灵长类动物的交流到人类参与者在实验室中创造、学习和使用人工语言。
主流语言学和进化语言学中一个未言明的假设是，语言从根本上来说是一种代码，通过我们的推理能力而丰富和灵活。支撑本书的关键见解是，这种主流观点是错误的。具体来说，它是倒退的。明示-推理交流使语言成为可能，而我们因此能够创造的常规代码使语言变得灵活和富有成效。这不仅仅是术语上的狡辩。这意味着传统的观点建立在一个机械错误的帐户上. casilvey{at}uchicago.edu
Speaking Our Minds: Why human communication is different, and how language evolved to make it special , by Thom Scott-Phillips, Palgrave MacMillan (2014), 212 pp, £24.99.
Language evolution is a notoriously complex problem. As such, the central topic of how and why language evolved tends to split into a number of questions that are often tackled separately. Why are humans the only species to have such a complex communication system? How were the first communicative conventions established, and how did they develop into languages that take on the forms we observe? What explains our motivation to communicate, and what pressures allow language to remain evolutionarily stable?
In Speaking Our Minds , Thom Scott-Phillips offers an account that aims to address all of these questions. The central argument is that language is made possible by an evolutionarily novel form of communication that is uniquely human: ostensive-inferential communication. In this form of communication, signallers provide evidence for their intentions, and receivers interpret this evidence to infer the meaning the signaller intends to convey. This ability relies on sophisticated forms of social cognition which, in turn, arose in our species as a consequence of selection pressure for the ability to better track others’ intentions, as the size and complexity of social groups increased. Scott-Phillips marshals a broad range of evidence in support of this view, from non-human primate communication to the creation, learning and use of artificial languages by human participants in the lab.
An unstated assumption in both mainstream and evolutionary linguistics is that language is fundamentally a code, enriched and made flexible by our inferential abilities. The key insight underpinning the book is that this mainstream view is wrong. Specifically, it is backwards. Ostensive-inferential communication makes language possible, and the conventional codes we are able to create as a result make it flexible and productive. This is not just a terminological quibble. The implication is that the traditional view rests on a mechanistically wrong account … casilvey{at}uchicago.edu