Chapter 2. The relations of demonstration and pantomime to causal reasoning and event cognition
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Peter Gärdenfors
Abstract
This article deals with the role of showing in the evolution of human communication and how it has developed into telling. When a communicator is showing, she is performing, not just doing. Demonstration is a combination of doing and showing, while pantomime is only showing. I make a distinction between pantomime used for teaching and pantomime for communication and argue that this is central for the transition from showing to telling. Telling involves describing an event or a series of events. The evolutionary question then becomes: Which selective forces made hominins extend their communication from doing to showing and then to telling? My answer is that showing and, to a larger degree, telling require advanced forms of causal cognition and event representation that are not found in other species. I analyze how event cognition is relevant for demonstration and pantomime and how this type of cognition influences the structure of language.
Abstract
This article deals with the role of showing in the evolution of human communication and how it has developed into telling. When a communicator is showing, she is performing, not just doing. Demonstration is a combination of doing and showing, while pantomime is only showing. I make a distinction between pantomime used for teaching and pantomime for communication and argue that this is central for the transition from showing to telling. Telling involves describing an event or a series of events. The evolutionary question then becomes: Which selective forces made hominins extend their communication from doing to showing and then to telling? My answer is that showing and, to a larger degree, telling require advanced forms of causal cognition and event representation that are not found in other species. I analyze how event cognition is relevant for demonstration and pantomime and how this type of cognition influences the structure of language.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction. Perspectives on pantomime 1
- Chapter 1. Pantomime within and beyond the evolution of language 16
- Chapter 2. The relations of demonstration and pantomime to causal reasoning and event cognition 58
- Chapter 3. Narrative and pantomime at the origin of language 78
- Chapter 4. Two types of bodily-mimetic communication 100
- Chapter 5. Can pantomime narrate? 115
- Chapter 6. The pantomimic origins of the narrative arts 139
- Chapter 7. The pantomime roots of Sao Tome and Principe Sign Language 159
- Chapter 8. Symbolic distancing in three-year-old children’s object-use pantomime 188
- Chapter 9. Gestural mimesis as “as-if” action 217
- Index 243
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Introduction. Perspectives on pantomime 1
- Chapter 1. Pantomime within and beyond the evolution of language 16
- Chapter 2. The relations of demonstration and pantomime to causal reasoning and event cognition 58
- Chapter 3. Narrative and pantomime at the origin of language 78
- Chapter 4. Two types of bodily-mimetic communication 100
- Chapter 5. Can pantomime narrate? 115
- Chapter 6. The pantomimic origins of the narrative arts 139
- Chapter 7. The pantomime roots of Sao Tome and Principe Sign Language 159
- Chapter 8. Symbolic distancing in three-year-old children’s object-use pantomime 188
- Chapter 9. Gestural mimesis as “as-if” action 217
- Index 243
