Language and life history: a new perspective on the development and evolution of human language
journal contribution
posted on 2007-02-08, 16:26authored byJohn L. Locke, Barry Bogin
It has long been claimed that Homo sapiens is the only species that has language, but only recently has it been recognized that
humans also have an unusual pattern of growth and development. Social mammals have two stages of pre-adult development: infancy
and juvenility. Humans have two additional prolonged and pronounced life history stages: childhood, an interval of four years extending
between infancy and the juvenile period that follows, and adolescence, a stage of about eight years that stretches from juvenility to
adulthood. We begin by reviewing the primary biological and linguistic changes occurring in each of the four pre-adult ontogenetic
stages in human life history. Then we attempt to trace the evolution of childhood and juvenility in our hominin ancestors. We
propose that several different forms of selection applied in infancy and childhood; and that, in adolescence, elaborated vocal
behaviors played a role in courtship and intrasexual competition, enhancing fitness and ultimately integrating performative and
pragmatic skills with linguistic knowledge in a broad faculty of language. A theoretical consequence of our proposal is that fossil
evidence of the uniquely human stages may be used, with other findings, to date the emergence of language. If important aspects
of language cannot appear until sexual maturity, as we propose, then a second consequence is that the development of language
requires the whole of modern human ontogeny. Our life history model thus offers new ways of investigating, and thinking about,
the evolution, development, and ultimately the nature of human language.
History
School
Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences
Pages
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Citation
LOCKE, J.L. and BOGIN, B., 2006. Language and life history: a new perspective on the development and evolution of human language. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 29, pp. 259-325.