Niche construction, too, unifies praxis and symbolization
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Chris Sinha
Abstract
Arbib hypothesizes that evolutionary modern language significantly postdates human speciation. Why should this be so? I propose an account based on niche construction theory, in which Arbib's language-ready brain is primarily a consequence of epigenetically-driven adaptation to the biocultural niche of protolanguage and (subsequently) early language. The evolutionary adaptations grounding language evolution were initially to proto-linguistic sociocommunicative and symbolic processes, later capturing and re-canalizing behavioural adaptations (such as serial and hierarchical constructive praxis) initially “targeted” to other developmental and cognitive domains. The intimate link between praxic action and symbolic action is present not only in the human brain, but also in the human biocultural complex. The confluence of praxis and symbolization has, in the time scale of sociogenesis, potentiated the invention of domain- constituting and cognition-altering symbolic cognitive artefacts that continue to transform human socio-cultural ecologies. I cite in support of this account, which differs only in some emphases from Arbib's account, my colleagues' and my research on cultural and linguistic conceptions of time in an indigenous Amazonian community.
©[2013] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Introduction
- Précis of How the brain got language: The Mirror System Hypothesis
- Acquired mirroring and intentional communication in primates
- The extended features of mirror neurons and the voluntary control of vocalization in the pathway to language
- A research program in neuroimaging for an evolutionary theory of syntax
- How did vocal behavior “take over” the gestural communication system?
- The tip of the language iceberg
- Vive la différence: Sign language and spoken language in language evolution
- The neurobiology of sign language and the mirror system hypothesis
- Action and language grounding in the sensorimotor cortex
- What happens to the motor theory of perception when the motor system is damaged?
- Where does language come from? Some reflections on the role of deictic gesture and demonstratives in the evolution of language
- Archeology and the language-ready brain
- Niche construction, too, unifies praxis and symbolization
- Complex imitation and the language-ready brain
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Introduction
- Précis of How the brain got language: The Mirror System Hypothesis
- Acquired mirroring and intentional communication in primates
- The extended features of mirror neurons and the voluntary control of vocalization in the pathway to language
- A research program in neuroimaging for an evolutionary theory of syntax
- How did vocal behavior “take over” the gestural communication system?
- The tip of the language iceberg
- Vive la différence: Sign language and spoken language in language evolution
- The neurobiology of sign language and the mirror system hypothesis
- Action and language grounding in the sensorimotor cortex
- What happens to the motor theory of perception when the motor system is damaged?
- Where does language come from? Some reflections on the role of deictic gesture and demonstratives in the evolution of language
- Archeology and the language-ready brain
- Niche construction, too, unifies praxis and symbolization
- Complex imitation and the language-ready brain
