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In this volume the author describes and systematically accounts for
language variation in a Creole-speaking community and assesses the
implications the study has on generally accepted notions of the
nature of language. Based on an extensive study of Guyana, South
America, the volume analyses the bewildering diversity found in the
syntax and underlying semantics of tense and aspect of the language
of that country and shows that data which at first sight appear
merely chaotic in fact represent different developmental stages of
the language existing side by side in the contemporary community.
The volume also offers strong support for theories of Creole
origins of 'Black English' in the United States. It should be of
interest not only to those linguists involved in Creole and pidgin
studies but also to anyone concerned with general linguistic
theory.
"Bastard Tongues "is an exciting, firsthand story of scientific
discovery in an area of research close to the heart of what it
means to be human--what language is, how it works, and how it
passes from generation to generation, even where historical
accidents have made normal transmission almost impossible. The
story focuses on languages so low in the pecking order that many
people don't regard them as languages at all--Creole languages
spoken by descendants of slaves and indentured laborers in
plantation colonies all over the world. The story is told by Derek
Bickerton, who has spent more than thirty years researching these
languages on four continents and developing a controversial theory
that explains why they are so similar to one another. A published
novelist, Bickerton (once described as "part scholar, part
swashbuckling man of action") does not present his findings in the
usual dry academic manner. Instead, you become a companion on his
journey of discovery. You learn things as he learned them, share
his disappointments and triumphs, explore the exotic locales where
he worked, and meet the colorful characters he encountered along
the way. The result is a unique blend of memoir, travelogue,
history, and linguistics primer, appealing to anyone who has ever
wondered how languages grow or what it's like to search the world
for new knowledge.
"What this book proposes to do," writes Derek Bickerton, "is to
stand the conventional wisdom of the behavioral sciences on its
head: instead of the human species growing clever enough to invent
language, it will view that species as blundering into language
and, as a direct result of that, becoming clever." According to
Bickerton, the behavioral sciences have failed to give an adequate
account of human nature at least partly because of the conjunction
and mutual reinforcement of two widespread beliefs: that language
is simply a means of communication and that human intelligence is
the result of the rapid growth and unusual size of human brains.
Bickerton argues that each of the properties distinguishing human
intelligence and consciousness from that of other animals can be
shown to derive straightforwardly from properties of language. In
essence, language arose as a representational system, not a means
of communication or a skill, and not a product of culture but an
evolutionary adaptation. The author stresses the necessity of
viewing intelligence in evolutionary terms, seeing it not as
problem solving but as a way of maintaining homeostasis-the
preservation of those conditions most favorable to an organism, the
optimal achievable conditions for survival and well-being.
Nonhumans practice what he calls "on-line thinking" to maintain
homeostasis, but only humans can employ off-line thinking: "only
humans can assemble fragments of information to form a pattern that
they can later act upon without having to wait on that great but
unpunctual teacher, experience." The term protolanguage is used to
describe the stringing together of symbols that prehuman hominids
employed. "It did not allow them to turn today's imagination into
tomorrow's fact. But it is just this power to transform imagination
into fact that distinguishes human behavior from that of our
ancestral species, and indeed from that of all other species. It is
exactly what enables us to change our behavior, or invent vast
ranges of new behavior, practically overnight, with no concomitant
genetic changes." Language and Human Behavior should be of interest
to anyone in the behavioral and evolutionary sciences and to all
those concerned with the role of language in human behavior.
How language evolved has been called 'the hardest problem in
science'. In "ADAM'S TONGUE", Derek Bickerton - long a leading
authority in this field - shows how and why previous attempts to
solve that problem have fallen short. Taking cues from topics as
diverse as the foraging strategies of ants, the distribution of
large prehistoric herbivores, and the construction of ecological
niches, Bickerton produces a dazzling new alternative to the
conventional wisdom. Language is unique to humans, but it isn't the
only thing that sets us apart from other species - our cognitive
powers are qualitatively different. So could there be two separate
discontinuities between humans and the rest of nature? No, says
Bickerton; he shows how the mere possession of symbolic units -
words - automatically opened a new and different cognitive
universe, one that yielded novel innovations ranging from barbed
arrowheads to the Apollo spacecraft. Written in Bickerton's lucid
and irreverent style, this book is the first to thoroughly
integrate the story of how language evolved with the story of how
humans evolved. Sure to be controversial, it will make
indispensable reading both for experts in the field and for every
reader who has ever wondered how a species as remarkable as ours
could have come into existence.
The human mind is an unlikely evolutionary adaptation. How did
humans acquire cognitive capacities far more powerful than anything
a hunting-and-gathering primate needed to survive? Alfred Russel
Wallace, co-founder with Darwin of evolutionary theory, saw humans
as "divine exceptions" to natural selection. Darwin thought use of
language might have shaped our sophisticated brains, but his
hypothesis remained an intriguing guess--until now. Combining
state-of-the-art research with forty years of writing and thinking
about language evolution, Derek Bickerton convincingly resolves a
crucial problem that both biology and the cognitive sciences have
hitherto ignored or evaded. What evolved first was neither language
nor intelligence--merely normal animal communication plus
displacement. That was enough to break restrictions on both thought
and communication that bound all other animals. The brain
self-organized to store and automatically process its new input,
words. But words, which are inextricably linked to the concepts
they represent, had to be accessible to consciousness. The
inevitable consequence was a cognitive engine able to voluntarily
merge both thoughts and words into meaningful combinations. Only in
a third phase could language emerge, as humans began to tinker with
a medium that, when used for communication, was adequate for
speakers but suboptimal for hearers. Starting from humankind's
remotest past, More than Nature Needs transcends nativist thesis
and empiricist antithesis by presenting a revolutionary
synthesis--one that instead of merely repeating "nature and
nurture" cliches shows specifically and in a principled manner how
and why the synthesis came about.
Language and Species presents the most detailed and well-
documented scenario to date of the origins of language. Drawing on
living linguistic fossils such as ape talk, the two-word stage of
small children, and pidgin languages, and on recent discoveries in
paleoanthropology, Bickerton shows how a primitive protolanguage
could have offered Homo erectus a novel ecological niche. He goes
on to demonstrate how this protolanguage could have developed into
the languages we speak today. You are drawn into Bickerton's]
appreciation of the dominant role language plays not only in what
we say, but in what we think and, therefore, what we are.--Robert
Wright, New York Times Book Review The evolution of language is a
fascinating topic, and Bickerton's Language and Species is the best
introduction we have.--John C. Marshall, Nature Derek Bickerton is
professor of linguistics at the University of Hawaii and is the
author of several books including Roots of Language.
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