Language did not descend on earth from outer space like some stray asteroid nor, despite the views of some contemporary scholars such as Chomsky (1980), did it arise as some bizarre genetic mutation unrelated to other aspects of human cognition and social life.
In a rather dense and repetitive manner, Tomasello presents his theory of human cognition. He goes over his theory of intentionality and conspecifics (a word I had never heard before this book but which appears on just about every page at least once) perhaps a dozen times too many to make the book any sort of page turner.
Early in the book, Tomasello contrasts humans and other primates. He points out how other primates can develop some aspects of human social cognition and cultural learning by being raised in human cultures, but they are unable to create a similar culture on their own amongst their own. Unlike most of the books written by primatologists, Tomasello focuses on the differences between humans and other primates to make his case. Getting back to primates and culture, the description of the "ratchet effect" is very engaging. Simply stated, the ratchet effect is cumulative natural selection acting on culture i.e. memes, rather than a genotype/phenotype. As ideas, traditions, skills, and other such cultural artifacts diffuse within each generation and are passed down along the generation timeline, they tend to have novel enhancements made to them. In effect, each generation "ratchets up" specific items from the culture it received.
Much of Tomasello's theory is a refutation of the ideas of Chomsky and Pinker. Tomasello rarely comes out and says so much, but Pinker and Chomsky are occasionally referenced as those taking opposing views. Instead of a module in the human brain mutating in the relatively recent past to allow for language and a universal grammar as Pinker would have it, Tomasello has "human beings biologically inheriting a special ability to speech and language. Being biologically endowed with the capacity to learn something is a very different thing than possessing an innate universal grammar. Through this instinctive ability, humans are capable of joint attention, memory, foresight and projects making. Tomasello thinks other primates are not capable of this. Children with autism are the "control group" who aren't born with, or don't develop, such a capacity.
Tomasello covers much of the language learning area, paying particular attention to how and when children learn various linguistic methods. His focus and theory rest on the social dimensions of language acquisition. A person born on a desert island and left there to live alone would, of course, not learn, or have use of, any language at all. The more "joint attentional engagement" a child receives after about 9 months of age, the faster its comprehension and production of language becomes.
Although never mentioned explicitly, Tomasello's ideas, studies, and those he refers to provide evidence of humans, especially young humans, as "meme machines."
Young children's very strong tendency to imitate what others are doing occurs in their early cognitive development, leading to the conclusion that the early childhood period is largely concerned with children's entry into the world of culture through their mastery of the artifacts and conventions that predate their arrival on the scene, which they may then adapt for creative uses as their mastery progresses.
This makes sense from an evolutionary perspective hundreds of thousand of years ago when our ancestors lived in a wild and dangerous environment. Those that were good at meme copying at an early age (i.e., through their early and basic, innate instincts) would have had a much better chance of survival in such a hostile environment. They would have adapted better to the primitive society of the time, allowing themselves the protection of the group as they grew up and became older, and additional chances to reproduce and pass on their genes to next generations.
Created on ... septembre 14, 2004