1st Edition
Consciousness and the Cultural Invention of Language
This book studies the origins of language. It presents language as the product of a unique non-linguistic cognitive feature (i.e. metacognition) that emerged late in human evolution. Within this framework, the author lays special emphasis on the tight links that exist between language and consciousness, with the conviction that the creation of language was ultimately made possible by the onset of a new type of awareness that enabled the invention of words.
The volume studies the parallels between human cultural behaviour and human language, discusses the motivational underpinnings that favoured the emergence of language, and offers a possible evolutionary timeline for the advent of language. It also addresses the question of whether artificial intelligence will ever develop the kind of thinking and language observable in humans.
A unique look into the beginnings of human language, this book will be indispensable for students and researchers of language and linguistics, language evolution, cultural studies, cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, and cognitive science.
Preface
1 Human behaviour and human language
2 Two opposing views on the origins of language
3 The flimsy foundations of linguistic nativism
4 Is there any evidence of spontaneously emergent languages?
5 Making the case for a conscious invention of language
6 Secondary consciousness and language
7 Seeing the invisible: the advent of conceptual thinking
8 The cooperative roots of language and the new social mind
9 When did language appear?
10 Constructing a language from scratch: a few issues
11 Some implications of the proposed picture
12 Will AI ever develop a human-like intelligence and language?
Index
Biography
Filippo-Enrico Cardini has a degree in English and German (Università di Genova, Italy), an MA in “Language, Society, and Culture” (University of East Anglia, UK), and a PhD in Linguistics (Lancaster University, UK). His doctoral work investigated the subject of Linguistic Relativity, and he is especially attracted to issues concerning language and cognition. This is reflected in some articles he wrote in the past on motion conceptualisation and on metaphors. Over recent years, he has developed a growing interest for the subject of language evolution, which has resulted in the publishing of an article on this subject in the Journal Lingua.
