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The Evolution of Language (Approaches to the Evolution of Language), by W. Tecumseh Fitch
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Language, more than anything else, is what makes us human. It appears that no communication system of equivalent power exists elsewhere in the animal kingdom. Any normal human child will learn a language based on rather sparse data in the surrounding world, while even the brightest chimpanzee, exposed to the same environment, will not. Why not? How, and why, did language evolve in our species and not in others? Since Darwin's theory of evolution, questions about the origin of language have generated a rapidly-growing scientific literature, stretched across a number of disciplines, much of it directed at specialist audiences. The diversity of perspectives - from linguistics, anthropology, speech science, genetics, neuroscience and evolutionary biology - can be bewildering. Tecumseh Fitch cuts through this vast literature, bringing together its most important insights to explore one of the biggest unsolved puzzles of human history.
- Sales Rank: #688711 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Cambridge University Press
- Published on: 2010-05-17
- Released on: 2010-04-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.72" h x 1.26" w x 6.85" l, 2.65 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 624 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
Review
"Reconstructing the evolution of language is a daunting task but Tecumseh Fitch brings it off with style. An impressive synthesis." --Robert Seyfarth, Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
"The evolution of language has been described as the hardest problem in science, fraught with conflict, entrenched views, and misunderstandings between the multifarious disciplines involved. Fitch guides us through this tangled and often treacherous domain with clarity, equanimity, and encyclopedic reach. No other book so completely, fairly, and eloquently presents contemporary notions as to how language evolved." --Michael Corballis, University of Auckland
About the Author
W. Tecumseh Fitch is a Reader in Psychology at the University of St Andrews. He studies the evolution of cognition and communication in animals and man, focusing on the evolution of speech, music and language. He is interested in all aspects of vocal communication in terrestrial vertebrates, particularly vertebrate vocal production in relation to the evolution of speech and music in our own species.
Most helpful customer reviews
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
More than a book - many all-you-need-to-know books setting up a research program
By Jake Keenan
This book kept surprising me by being more than I expected. It is not another book on the evolution of language. The author states a clear purpose to avoid offering a particular theory but to instead show how the field is a very broad endeavor that needs to respect what many researchers are doing and that needs to value a wealth of testable hypotheses. That made sense but sounded vaguely tedious. But then I kept getting hooked on each chapter. Each one is a gem that could be a small book on its own that quickly, clearly, and thoroughly covers some element of the puzzle. Chapter 2 on evolution could seem like unnecessary backtracking, but the coverage makes evolutionary theory in all its latest theoretical twists seem alive again while showing how these issues about general evolution relate to language evo. Chapter 6 on everything that is known about the last common ancestor to chimps and humans really brought all the evidence together to get a sense of the issues and the researchers so that this all important starting point for language evo could be approached. It was so well done that I was shocked to realize that the whole chapter was only 15 pages. The whole book is like that even at 500 pages. It feels succinct and absorbing throughout. The wide coverage and the, no doubt, years in the making all contribute to this sense that it might be "encyclopedic" as one of the back cover reviews has it, but it is all very well crafted from the to-the-point style to the page layouts.
The author admits to being both a biologist and a linguist professionally, and this too shows. He makes a continual effort to include vocal and communicative evidence from a wide range of species to show how convergence issues and novel possibilities to test for particular facets offer important leads in the study of human language origins. He also respects and finds lessons from seemingly all linguistic traditions which felt refreshing. In the end of this broad excursion he uses the last three chapters to treat three types of theories on the evolution of language in a way where each of these theory types gets full treatment as subjects like the other chapters. Within these the contributors and the issues were examined for strengths, weaknesses, prospects, and testability possibilities. He gave his own evaluations at the level of issues within each theory type without committing to any particular theory of his own. On the one hand instead of ending up with another particular theory after reading the book, the long immersion in so many aspects and facets of language and human evolution left more an impression that the evolution of language too was a similarly multi-faceted and sweeping event. On the other hand the last chapter/book on musical protolanguage really makes this old hypothesis appealing. [This review assumes or suggests that you use Amazon's Look Inside feature to see the 14 chapters that are in themselves worthy of being basic, all-you-need-to-know books on each of these subjects.]
The book is comprehensive, well thought out at every level, easy to read, a reference point for the subject, and a future research direction for the field. Its near perfection is marred by one small, odd blemish at the very end. Even though the glossary and reference sections match well the comprehensive standards of the book itself, the index and the thoughtfully added species index are tiny - the species index laughably so given the species richness throughout.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
The Evolution of Language - An experimental science
By Average Reader
The Evolution of Language by W. Tecumseh Fitch is quite a tome. If you like science and you are not already an expert at language evolution, you are in for a treat. Dr. Fitch is a scientist's scientist, constantly concerned with testability, evidence and direct experimentation. He shares his critical scientific eye, separating speculation from evidence and carefully weighing the logic of each argument. The Evolution of Language is a survey of the scientific approaches to language evolution. Fitch admits from the outset that little has been nailed down and the progress since Darwin is often more apparent than real. He has identified the source of each new idea in the field, carefully crediting the originator without chastising those who rediscover it. Despite being realistic about the total lack of a defensible theory for something that leaves no fossil evidence, Fitch emphasizes what is understood, what is possible, what is probably impossible and what can be tested. His optimism about the future of understanding is almost as strong as his passion for the topic itself. The book is a delightful journey for those who have come to enjoy the ride.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Extremely well researched and documented. Beyond the lay reader
By Graham H. Seibert
I have read many of the authors Fitch cites, enough to appreciate that he has pulled together a remarkable synthesis of thinking in the field of language evolution. His message is that the field is vastly complex. Language doesn't fossilize. Neither do the soft organs that produce it. What researchers have to work with are hard fossils - bones - and what they can deduce from observing modern populations and languages.
The book does not deal with events since the dawn of civilization, the agricultural revolution. After a concise but very well done recapitulation of evolution from the emergence of life, 3.5 billion or so years ago, through the time of our Last Common Ancestor (LCA) with the chimpanzees, it builds on theories of how we as a species evolved, and especially, how we came to acquire language.
Some of the authors he draws on - Philip Lieberman and Stephen Pinker, to name two, have written books on language evolution for popular consumption that are more compelling reads. Fitch's gift is to summarize the major thesis of each of these, and opposing theories proposed by others, and leave the reader to understand that for a majority of the major issues there is no overwhelming consensus. What role did music play in language development? Did language evolve via gesture? From animal calls? Fitch outlines arguments on both sides.
There are some positions he favors, if ever so slightly. Great apes have a fertility problem: given the attention and nourishment that a baby takes, they go six years between children. Language may have helped Homo sapiens over that hump. Men (and other relatives) support a human mother in ways that allow her to bear every two years or so. Language is useful to coordinate social arrangements. Our use of tools and weapons may have afforded us enough protection that we could afford to be noisy. He repeatedly uses the German Mitteilingsbedurfniss (need to inform) to describe how we relate to one another. He writes on the social benefits of gossip.
His bibliography is incredibly broad: anthropology, sociology, evolutionary psychology, linguistics, anatomy, and of course, evolution. He gives the reader a great appreciation for the genius of Charles Darwin, citing many, many ways in which Darwin anticipated not only research, but conclusions that would not come for more than a century.
I have only two reservations about the book. First is political correctness. Fitch has no need even to address the relative intelligences of modern populations - it is peripheral to his theme. Nonetheless, although he surely knows better, he writes at some length on the subject and pretends that Stephen J. Gould's "Mismeasure of Man" and Gardner's "Multiple Intelligences" are the last word on intelligence research. Wrong. Arthur Jensen was the premier researcher of the last century, with Gottfredson, Lynn, Vanhanen and others. Problem is, the latter authors' work, though it represents a widespread consensus among psychometricians, does not pass PC muster and is therefore ignored as often as possible. I would hope that a scholar such as Fitch would be above that. Observe, for instance, how deftly Pinker dodged the issue in "The Blank Slate." An author doesn't have to tell the truth, but he doesn't have to break his back kowtowing to the poobahs and plenipotentiaries of political correctness by publishing things he probably knows not to be true.
Second reservation is simply that this book is too daunting for anybody outside the field. Fitch must have written it thinking of graduate students within the above-named disciplines. They will find it extremely valuable, both for the overview and the extensive bibliography. A five-star effort.
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