In The Gestural Origin of Language, Sherman Wilcox and David Armstrong use evidence from and about sign languages to explore the origins of language as we know it today. According to their model, it is sign, not spoken languages, that is the original mode of human communication. The authors demonstrate that modern language is derived from practical actions and gestures that were increasingly recognized as having the potential to
represent, and hence to communicate. In other words, the fundamental ability that allows us to use language is our ability to use pictures or icons, rather than linguistic symbols. Evidence from the human fossil
record supports the authors' claim by showing that we were anatomically able to produce gestures and signs before we were able to speak fluently. Although speech evolved later as a secondary linguistic communication device that eventually replaced sign language as the primary mode of communication, speech has never entirely replaced signs and gestures. As the first comprehensive attempt to trace the origin of grammar to gesture, this volume will be an invaluable resource
for students and professionals in psychology, linguistics, and philosophy.
In The Gestural Origin of Language, Sherman Wilcox and David Armstrong use evidence from and about sign languages to explore the origins of language as we know it today. According to their model, it is sign, not spoken languages, that is the original mode of human communication. The authors demonstrate that modern language is derived from practical actions and gestures that were increasingly recognized as having the potential to
represent, and hence to communicate. In other words, the fundamental ability that allows us to use language is our ability to use pictures or icons, rather than linguistic symbols. Evidence from the human fossil
record supports the authors' claim by showing that we were anatomically able to produce gestures and signs before we were able to speak fluently. Although speech evolved later as a secondary linguistic communication device that eventually replaced sign language as the primary mode of communication, speech has never entirely replaced signs and gestures. As the first comprehensive attempt to trace the origin of grammar to gesture, this volume will be an invaluable resource
for students and professionals in psychology, linguistics, and philosophy.
1. Grasping Language: Sign and the Evolution of Language ; 2. Language in the Wild: Paleontological and Primatological Evidence for Gestural Origins ; 3. Gesture, Sign, and Speech ; 4. Gesture, Sign, and Grammar: The Ritualization of Language ; 5. Conceptual Spaces and Embodied Actions ; 6. The Gesture-Language Interface ; 7. Invention of Visual Languages
David F. Armstrong received bachelor's and PhD degrees in
anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and has worked at
Gallaudet University since 1980. An Associate Professor, he
currently serves as the University's budget director. Since 1999,
he has edited the journal Sign Language Studies, and he has
published extensively in areas related to deafness and the origin
and evolution of language.
Sherman E. Wilcox is Professor and Chair of the Department of
Linguistics at the University of New Mexico. The author of several
books including Gesture and the Nature of Language with co-authors
David F. Armstrong and William C. Stokoe, Wilcox has lectured and
taught extensively on signed languages, gesture, and the evolution
of language, in Brazil, France, Italy, and Spain. His scholarly
research focuses on the nature of the gesture-language interface in
signed
languages.
"The gestural theory of language origins was once considered mere
speculation by philosophers. In the hands of Armstrong and Wilcox,
however, this theory gains greater force and clarity. After reading
their articulate and accessible book, I find the conclusion
inescapable: language could not have begun otherwise." --H-Dirksen
L. Bauman, Professor, Department of American Sign Language and Deaf
Studies, Gallaudet University
"Syntax is still the Holy Grail of language-origins research, and
it's exciting to read a detailed and plausible explanation of its
evolution as grounded in social processes of action, perception,
and change over time-- and most definitely not in innatism! This
book, in sum, is a beautifully realized synthesis of theory and
data; it will advance our understanding of language origins, and of
the intricacy and rightness of the view that ALL language is
ultimately
gestural." --Barbara J. King, Class of 2007 Professor of
Anthropology, College of William and Mary, and author of The
Dynamic Dance
"This volume is a stunning example of the insights that scientists
with close working familiarity of Deaf people and their natural
languages bring to the study of how language evolved and how
children develop language skills. Armstrong and Wilcox succeed
brilliantly in their efforts to present a 'genuine explanation' in
these perennial debates." --Stuart Shanker, Distinguished Research
Professor of Philosophy and Psychology, York University, and
President,
Council of Early Child Development
"David Armstrong and Sherman Wilcox are well known to a wide
community of linguists as imaginative and determined proponents of
a claim that the visually mediated languages of the deaf--sign
languages, in other words--offer critical clues to the hidden
origins of human symbolic communication. In The Gestural Origin of
Language they update this increasingly compelling thesis in terms
that are not merely rhetorical. Given the relevant advances in
linguistics plus a host of convergent insights from anthropology,
neuroscience, genetics, developmental and animal psychology, we
have a new game. From now on, linguists hoping to explain human
language will simply
have to learn how to chew on, and digest, more than one kind of
apple." --Frank R. Wilson, M.D., author of The Hand: How Its Use
Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture
"An important book. The authors, who have added solidity to the
gestural theory of how language first evolved, are part of a sea
change in the way we view language and indeed ourselves."--American
Scientist
"Once I read Armstrong and Wilcox's compelling account, it was easy
to have a 'How could language emerge any other way?' epiphany...I
urge anyone interested in language or any other aspect of human
behavior for that matter, to read the rich argument provided in the
book and come to their own conclusions."--Ruth Church, in Human
Development
"There are many aspects to Armstrong and Wilcox's book that deserve
attention...a comprehensive review of the data suggesting that sign
language is in most ways equal to spoken
language."--PsycCritiques
"The gestural theory of language origins was once considered mere
speculation by philosophers. In the hands of Armstrong and Wilcox,
however, this theory gains greater force and clarity. After reading
their articulate and accessible book, I find the conclusion
inescapable: language could not have begun otherwise." --H-Dirksen
L. Bauman, Professor, Department of American Sign Language and Deaf
Studies, Gallaudet University
"Syntax is still the Holy Grail of language-origins research, and
it's exciting to read a detailed and plausible explanation of its
evolution as grounded in social processes of action, perception,
and change over time-- and most definitely not in innatism! This
book, in sum, is a beautifully realized synthesis of theory and
data; it will advance our understanding of language origins, and of
the intricacy and rightness of the view that ALL language is
ultimately
gestural." --Barbara J. King, Class of 2007 Professor of
Anthropology, College of William and Mary, and author of The
Dynamic Dance
"This volume is a stunning example of the insights that scientists
with close working familiarity of Deaf people and their natural
languages bring to the study of how language evolved and how
children develop language skills. Armstrong and Wilcox succeed
brilliantly in their efforts to present a 'genuine explanation' in
these perennial debates." --Stuart Shanker, Distinguished Research
Professor of Philosophy and Psychology, York University, and
President,
Council of Early Child Development
"David Armstrong and Sherman Wilcox are well known to a wide
community of linguists as imaginative and determined proponents of
a claim that the visually mediated languages of the deaf - sign
languages, in other words - offer critical clues to the hidden
origins of human symbolic communication. In The Gestural Origin of
Language they update this increasingly compelling thesis in terms
that are not merely rhetorical. Given the relevant advances in
linguistics plus a host of convergent insights from anthropology,
neuroscience, genetics, developmental and animal psychology, we
have a new game. From now on, linguists hoping to explain human
language will
simply have to learn how to chew on, and digest, more than one kind
of apple." --Frank R. Wilson, M.D., author of The Hand: How Its Use
Shapes the Brain, Language, and Human Culture
"An important book. The authors, who have added solidity to the
gestural theory of how language first evolved, are part of a sea
change in the way we view language and indeed ourselves."--American
Scientist
"Once I read Armstrong and Wilcox's compelling account, it was easy
to have a 'How could language emerge any other way?' epiphany...I
urge anyone interested in language or any other aspect of human
behavior for that matter, to read the rich argument provided in the
book and come to their own conclusions."--Ruth Church, in Human
Development
"There are many aspects to Armstrong and Wilcox's book that deserve
attention...A comprehensive review of the data suggesting that sign
language is in most ways equal to spoken
language."--PsycCritiques
"Culling evidence from studies in paleontology, primatology,
neurology, signed languages, and writing, the authors presented the
gradual evolution of languages."--Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf
Education
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