From the Mouths of Babes?

Is it really so hard to figure out how and why language began?   On the one hand the first example of communication; the initial connecting of one mind to another must have been, literally, a mind blowing experience. This first push into the realm of language tore open the egocentric cocoon that encased the mind of early hominids and exposed them to the world of the great other.  There was no going back.  

On the other hand it may have been a natural, quiet revolution between mother and child; the intimate caring relationship that longs for and grasps the opportunity to connect on a level higher than mere necessity.  The soft babbling between a mother and suckling child that inadvertently promoted a copy-cat sound game that may have existed for centuries before the dawning of the realization that one mind was in contact with the other; the child fathering the language development of the adult.  

I favor the latter example for several reasons.  While it is possible that prehistoric adult minds were child-like it is more likely their concern for survival provided little opportunity for those care free activities so necessary for language development.  Also, while a few researchers hold a negative view, there is much evidence to suggest that a critical period exists in brain development (usually around puberty), before which, if a child has not been introduced to language it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible for a child to learn language with any degree of competency.  

If we can assume that what holds for modern humans equally held for prehistoric humans then the first word was not spoken by an adult.  Rather, language evolved with children.  How this could be so is provided by the example of Nicaraguan Sign Language.

In Nicaragua there was no formal education or sign language for the deaf community until mid-1980.  Prior to this period each family that supported a deaf child evolved rudimentary, idiosyncratic gestures as a means of communicating.  When schools were provided for these children and they were no longer isolated from their deaf peers they recognized and developed their own distinct and sophisticated communication system which is now known as Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL). 

NSL came about as a result of the initiative of the children and their recognition that they were a social group with a shared handicap which could only be overcome by their own efforts.  As they had a shared handicap they had a shared understanding which provided the basis for a common language.  The language the children created involved rules of grammar and syntax and a seeming inexhaustible vocabulary.  Interestingly, while the children became very adept at using this new sign language deaf adults seemed unable to duplicate the ability of the children which demonstrates another example the ‘critical period’ thesis.

So might it have been the case that the children of early Homo sapiens evolved a spoken language drawing on the idiosyncratic babbling game played with their mothers?  As children they spoke to one another and carried their new found ability into adulthood fostering another generation who introduced an added dimension to the babbling game of children.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Launt Thompson
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Something to Think About Part II: Escaping the Language Cauldron

                                  Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of                                          our intelligence by means of language.

L. Wittgenstein

Prologue

In 2008 the community of Linguistic scientists, Evolutionary Psychologists, and Biologists, concerned with trying to propose a theory of how language originated, were confronted with the publication of a small book that effectively trashed all their cherished publicized theories.   The title of the book is Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes, (Pantheon Books, 2008) and is the story of anthropological linguist Daniel Everett’s twenty seven year sojourn with the Pirahã (pee-da-HAN) in the state of Amazonas, Brazil.  The noted philosopher John Searle said of the work: “Everett has written an excellent book. A powerful autobiographical account…a brilliant piece of ethnographical description of life among the Pirahã and…if he is right he will permanently change our conception of human language.”

I submit this prologue as a way of informing the general reader that how language is to be described is very much in dispute among prominent language researchers.  Philosophers, however, are rarely at odds with the role and place of language in our lives.  Those who describe themselves as ‘ordinary language’ philosophers are concerned with how we say what we say about the world and use as their motto the axiom quoted at the beginning of this essay.  We ignore it at our linguistic peril.  

By way of example consider this comment by W. Tecumseh Fitch, Professor of Cognitive Biology at the University of Vienna.  While criticizing the theories of W.V.O. Quine (Word and Object, MIT Press, 1960) Fitch argues:                                            

***

 “The child doesn’t induce such wacky concepts, for the same reason a dog does not conceptualize a rabbit in these ways, but rather as a medium sized fleet-footed potential prey item.”  (The Evolution of Language, Cambridge University Press. pp.127)

In the first instance, Fitch believes animals hold concepts (I will discuss this later) and he gives us an idea of the type of concept that a dog holds about a rabbit.  In philosophy circles this would be described as a howler.  There is no way that a dog is going to think to itself, ‘Hmm, there goes a fleet-footed potential prey item.’  What Fitch wants to say about how a dog conceptualizes, he can’t say in any intelligible way. 

***

“The difficulty here in giving an account of what’s going is that if someone makes false assumptions about the way language works and tries to give an account of something with language conceived as functioning in this way, the result is not something false but nonsense.” (L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Remarks, Blackwell, Oxford, #22.)

To be fair, Fitch qualifies, somewhat, his understanding of the concepts animals are said to have:  “Animals possess concepts but do not express them as signals.”(Fitch, pp148)  I would venture a guess that they do not express them at all.  When we discover what it is that Fitch wishes to describe as the type of concepts animals have we are no more informed.

***

 “If by “concepts” we simply mean “mental representations, not necessarily conscious,” few scientists today question the notion that animals have concepts, at some level, and contemporary cognitive ethologists and comparative psychologists are providing an ever more impressive catalog of the types of concepts that non- linguistic creatures possess and manipulate.” (172)

Here it is, a concept held by an animal in Fitch’s terms is a mental representation, not necessarily conscious.  Fitch does not explain what he means by ‘mental representation’ and I suspect he would like us to translate it to mean ‘mental image’ without taking responsibility for such a translation else he would have used the term.  So what is a mental representation that is not necessarily conscious?  And how does he know?  Is this concept held by an animal merely neurons flashing away around an animal’s brain?  Is it because the animal solves some task that is not an instinctive solution?  Surely such an act would not demonstrate any more than the animal solves a task.  It is clear to me that Fitch is trying to twist language to support his theory.  But of course I have a bias and Fitch is determined to not let it go unnoticed:

***

“The widespread notion that concepts and thought require language is indefensible: it either conceals a definition of thought that is based on human language (and is therefore tautological), or implicitly singles out and privileges very small subset of human processes that are not shared with other animals as “thought”.” (172)

Mea culpa and I am sure there is no concealment here but let’s deal with the notion of a concept first.  Previously I pointed out a long held view: “The term [concept] is the modern replacement for the older term idea, stripped of the latter’s imagist associations and thought of as more intimately bound up with language.” (The Oxford Companion to Philosophy)  A concept is how we confirm to ourselves and show others that we can use a term correctly.  As Fitch well knows part of his concept of a rabbit is ‘a medium sized fleet-footed potential prey’ for dogs.  We don’t question his concept of a rabbit for what he gives us is correct as far as it goes.  And because he is so articulate we assume he could provide a further description should we ask for it.  Fitch wants to have one use of the term ‘concept’ for humans and a different use of the term concept for animals while at the same time extracting and profiteering the weight of the term as it is used for humans.  If it is true that animal concepts are so different from human concepts why doesn’t Fitch use a different term to describe what is taking place?                                  ***

“You learned the concept ‘pain’ when you learned language.” ( L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Basil Blackwell, #384)

                                    

Now let’s deal with the notion of a ‘thought’.  I contend that it is not tautological.  In the first instance a thought is what emerges from or during the process of thinking.  As I mentioned in Part I of this essay, thinking is concerned with such things a reasoning, believing, reflecting, calculating, deliberating, joking, analyzing, fantasizing, pondering, etc.  Surely we can expect that these activities can only take place by using language?  What do others believe to be the case?

***

 “All intelligible thought involves the use of symbols, and most frequently the use of words.” (Paul Hirst, Knowledge and the Curriculum (RKP 1974)

***

“Whether or not what we see is objectively there, whether or not there is any objective reality to see, what we say or think discursively about it must be said or thought in language.”  (Hanna Fenchel Pitkin, Wittgenstein and Justice University of California Press, 1972)

Pointedly, Pitkin only discusses discursive thinking for the other mode of thinking is intuitive.  Most often when we think intuitively we arrive at the right answer but we don’t know how we got it.  I doubt if anyone would suggest that animals think intuitively though we know they act on instinct.

***

 “When I think in language, there aren’t ‘meanings’ going through my mind in addition to the verbal expressions: the language is itself the vehicle of thought.” ( L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Basil Blackwell, #329)

Again, do animals think?  Why should we hold that animals need to think?  Why do we feel the need to cloak animals in our cognitive clothes?

The sentence you are now reading is what is known as a propositional symbol.  Indeed all languages are made up of such symbols; language is a system of symbols used in regular modes of combination in accordance with established rules (conventions).  All symbols work within a system.  Perhaps because they are so closely related, many people confuse symbols with signs.  For example, take the word ‘confuse’ from the previous sentence.  It is merely an impression on the virtual paper of my computer; it is a sign.  It has no meaning until it is used (meaning is use) in a sentence that makes sense.  We often think of isolated words as having meaning but this is a mistake.  We look up a word in the dictionary and we discover how it has been used previously.  We may discover several different uses.  This is what we call a definition; meanings others have used before us.  Definitions are not sacrosanct.  As metaphor is one of the most common aspects of our language we often find new uses, and consequently, new meanings for our words.  We can say, for example:  ‘The spices he has used confuse the taste of the tainted meat.’  We have created a new use and a new symbol.

I have tried to unpack the idea of symbols in language because many researchers misunderstand the role symbols play and we read such things as this comment:

***

“Symbols are things that stand for other things, much more (and less) than the signs of religion or political ideologies.” (Ian Davidson, Archaeological Evidence of Language Origins: States of Art in, Language Evolution, Oxford University Press 2003)

 I have mentioned that a symbol is a sign under the particular conditions that give it meaning.  Wittgenstein takes this further.

***

 “Explanation adds to the symbol, gives us more to get hold of.  The symbol is in some sense self-contained; you grasp it as a whole.  It does not point to something outside itself; it does not anticipate something else in a shadowy way.” (Wittgenstein’s Lectures Cambridge, 1930-1932, Blackwell,  1980, pg.43)

What other thing could a symbol mean but itself?

Launt Thompson 

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Something to Think About?

                        

When do you suppose humans first began to think?  Perhaps I’m jumping the gun here. We best first ask what is thinking?  Do we really know? I think we can safely say that our brain continues on its synaptic way while we try to sleep.  Is having a dream, thinking?  We seldom describe it as thinking.  When we have had a dream we don’t say we’ve had a thought.  Indeed, we distinguish a thought from a dream.  In our discussions we are never heard to say ‘Here’s a new dream.’ in place of ‘Here’s a new thought.’  Obviously something is going on in our brain when we dream but we try to distinguish it from thinking.  This seems odd.  When we daydream we are said to be thinking.  Is this because a daydream is voluntary whereas a sleep dream is not?  There is something in this that gives us a clue to understanding thinking.  

Thinking is a voluntary act.  Thinking doesn’t just happen because our neurons become excited.  We cannot think against our will.  Merely looking at something for the first time is not thinking about it.  Thinking is a process and a thought is an element of this process much as a sentence is an element of the process of writing.  If you have read my other posts you will recognize that I am convinced that we think in language but not all linguists hold this view.

Robbins Burling, in an otherwise very fine book, separates thinking from language.  Indeed, he holds that “Language so persistently floats through our minds that we often feel that we think in language…  Anyone who has had a word on the tip of his tongue but failed to dredge its pronunciation from memory knows that it is possible to think of a concept without having an accessible word for it. [I dealt with this problem in The Humpty Dumpty Effect]  We do not need all this apparatus in order to think…The specific features of language, its words, phonology and its syntax were all selected to let us communicate, not as a way to help us think.”  (The Talking Ape, Oxford University Press, 2007 .91)

Burling’s evidence is soft and he is overlooking a very hard indisputable fact. If we can’t put it into language then it is nothing to speak of.  It is indisputable because it cannot be spoken and it is hard because there is no evidence to show that it is more than nothing.

Burling is not clear on what constitutes a concept but from the above quote it seems that he thinks having a concept is like recognizing the face of an actor on television but being forced to rack our brain trying to remember his name.   We can discuss other things about the actor, who he is married to, other shows he has been in and with who but we just cannot put a name to him.   While this may show we have a concept of the actor it does not show that language is not necessary for thinking.  Indeed, quite the opposite.

“The term [concept] is the modern replacement for the older term idea, stripped of the latter’s imagist associations and thought of as more intimately bound up with language.” (The Oxford Companion to Philosophy) 

Here we must understand that merely having an image in our head is not holding a concept.  Having a concept is what enables us to use a word correctly.  A concept entails rules for its use which are determined by public criteria (See the Humpty Dumpty Effect) which have been accepted by members of our speech community.  

Thinking, of course, is concerned with such things a reasoning, believing, reflecting, calculating, deliberating, joking, analyzing, fantasizing, pondering, etc. which are all voluntary activities involving language and concepts.  As an experiment, try thinking of something for which you have no language. We must have a language even to describe those things that go bump in the night.

Though much of reality is based on shared concepts, many concepts are personal (but not private) to the individual, for reality is how we describe the world: it is how the world seems to us to be. Therefore the foundation of our reality also relies on language use.

We must resist the tendency to think of reality as a fixed state of affairs that language merely identifies or labels. Reality is the product of language. The impressions that flood our mind provide food for thinking, and the language we use provides us with the means to ‘cook up’ a reality. Peter Winch states it clearly: “Our idea of what belongs to the realm of reality is given for us in the language that we use. The concepts we have settle for us the form of the experience we have of the world.” (The Idea of Social Science, Humanities Press, p15.)

What we know of the world we can only know through language, and as our language is subject to change, so too is our reality. The world will not change in the sense that physical objects may come into existence as a result of language use, but our comprehension of our impressions of the world (our experiences) often change as a result of language. When Harvey discovered that blood circulates he did not discover red and white corpuscles or plasma. But though corpuscles and plasma existed as part of the perceived world they were not realized. They held no place as conceptual elements of reality. Realization is an act of discovery governed by language use. 

In this sense, cultural differences in language use often create cultural differences in realities. New Guinea mountain tribesmen who have only two basic colour words (light and dark) have a different prehension of reality to us. They live in the same world we do and they are capable of receiving the same impressions, but their reality is different from Europeans as their language use obliges them to divide the world into different categories.

But what about animals?  If they have no language, is it the case they have no reality?  Don’t animals think?  Animals remember things as anyone who has had a pet knows.  They must think and have concepts how else could they remember things?

Let’s see if I can answer this. First, animals have no reality and they don’t need a reality.  Reality is what is realized; thought about.  Animals confront the world directly whereas humans create many different realities.  When we go to the theatre and become involved in a play we are experiencing a different reality.  When we play with our children we conjure up a different reality.  Video games promote different realities.  We enter into a reality when our belief is captured by the events we participate in thereby making them real.  Our lives are full of different realities and we use them to advance our understanding.   

As I mentioned earlier, we create our realities with our language use; we distinguish between what is real and what is actual.  We are always aware that what we hold to be real today may be shown to be not actual tomorrow.  For a long time scientists believed that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light but recent experiments with the Hadron Collider at Cern have shown this belief to be not actually the case.

 

When I was a reckless teenager I foolishly drank a lot of straight Gin and was sick for two days.  That was over forty years ago but to this day a mere whiff of Gin makes me nauseous.  When I was in acting school we described this as sense memory recall.  Embedded in my sense of smell is the memory of the odour of gin that still promotes a nauseous reaction.  It has nothing to do with language, it has to do with the senses.  I imagine sounds have a similar effect on some people bringing on an uncomfortable or pleasant feeling.  Certain tastes have been known to repel persons as a result of previous experiences.  These are not examples of conscious memories, rather they are instinctive ones. 

Animals survive by their senses.  A fox or a deer that gets a whiff of a hunter is off in the other direction quick smart.  If a fox eats something which makes him sick he can tell by the smell that it is not to be eaten again.  Some animals can accommodate colour and most can accommodate shape.  Vision is a sense that has a memory just as taste, hearing and smell does.   We have all seen dogs that are hand shy as a result of being abused.  By the opposite token animals are trained by rewards relying on the sense of touch, taste, smell and comforting familiar  sounds which are pleasing experiences This is how animals confront and contend with the world.  Animals don’t need to think, their senses do the thinking for them.  (I will deal with this confusion by linguists and psychologist in part II of this essay.)

Launt Thompson

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In the Beginning was not the Word.

I’ve been thinking.  I realize that for someone as reckless as me it is a dangerous pastime but nevertheless I’ve taken the risk.  Sometime between 200,000 and 50,000 years ago Homo sapiens began to speak.  While paleoanthropologists can demonstrate that it did happen and evolutionary psychologists tell us why they think it had to happen and evolutionary biologists tell us why, given the makeup of the brain, it could not have been otherwise and evolutionary linguists tell us what was needed for it to happen there is not anyone to tell us what the first word was.  Part of the reason for this is that it is not at all clear why language was needed.  Animals survive very nicely without language so why not prehistoric and modern humans?  What possessed them to open their mouths and utter what we would now consider to be inanities?

I’m reminded of the story about the young lad who at seven years of age had not spoken a word.  Then one day out of the blue he proclaimed at breakfast “This porridge is too hot!”  His parents were gob smacked.  For seven years they had believed their son was a mute but now he had spoken his first words.  How could this be?  “Son,” his father said, “why now, why do you wait seven years to speak to us?”  The son looked up from his breakfast bowl and said, nonchalantly, “Up to now everything has been OK.”

Maybe the first humans spoke because everything was not ok. Many would insist that language is instinctive to the human species.  Unlike our primate cousins we acquired language because our brains are hard wired for the exercise.  While such a view held sway for a long time, lately it is being questioned.  (M. C. Corballis, The Recursive Mind ,Princeton University Press.)  While researchers are in agreement as to what constitutes speech, the way language should be characterized and the terms by which it should be defined tend to be divisive. For my part language is a system of symbols used in regular modes of combination in accordance with established rules (conventions) but what started it all?

An issue that is much debated is whether language began with manual gestures or evolved from the oral signaling of earlier primates.  A third possibility is that speech came about as a result of a ‘species unique biological adaptation’ for symbol making afforded early Homo sapiens. 

The manual gestures argument is the weakest of the three possibilities.  In the first instance the notion of manual gestures is somewhat vague and it is doubtful they could produce symbols either iconic or abstract.  As the philosopher Wittgenstein points out we cannot explain one gesture with another.  If gestures evolved at all they must have evolved with a spoken language.  Another argument against gestures being some form of a proto-language is why it didn’t evolve into a complete sign language?  ASL is an independent sign language that is able to express all a spoken or written language can express.  If manual gestures were a significant form of communication the evolution of spoken language would not be necessary.

The thesis that oral signaling of early primates may have evolved into a spoken language is also a shaky hypothesis.  Vervet monkeys have different signals to warn of an approaching Leopard or snake or eagle in the sky but they can’t help themselves.  Their signals are involuntary and the response of their kind that hears such calls and rush to escape are also involuntary.   Nevertheless researchers are single minded in their desire to show that one or all of the proposed possibilities for the evolution of language will yield a solution to the enigma.  All that is needed is to tweak or re-jig the favored thesis and the first word will come tumbling out.

It could be that we are looking in the wrong place to discover what prompted language to evolve.  Perhaps what is needed is to concentrate not on the speaker but on the listener.  Such is the approach of Robbins Burling.  His work is so enlightening it deserves repeating in his own words.

A puzzle has always hovered over the first appearance of language: If no one else was around with the skills to understand, what could the first speaker have hoped to accomplish with her first words?  The puzzle dissolves as soon as we recognize that communication does not begin when someone makes a meaningful vocalization or gesture but when someone interprets another’s behavior as meaningful.  (The Talking Ape, Oxford University Press, 2007)

Burling’s point is that comprehension comes before production.  The interpretation of our prehistoric inquisitor may be mistaken but that is not important.  It is the attempt to discover meaning that counts.  An infant or toddler has no way of knowing that its mother is making communicating sounds or gestures but it tries to comprehend in any case.  Our mind obliges us to try to make sense of our world.  Without this urge to understand, human communication would be at a standstill.  Language was not a spontaneous event; rather it was a hard won event through a constant desire to make contact with the mind of a fellow human being; a creative event that culminated in the shock of recognition.  All that was needed for the first word to come forth was a continuous plea that was something like “Huh?”

Launt Thompson
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