Origins of Human Communication

Human Communication: A New Perspective on Our Origins. Michael Tomasello presents an original and provocative account of the evolutionary origins of human communication. He challenges the dominant view by arguing that human communication is grounded in fundamentally cooperative intentions, rather than innate abilities. This perspective connects the structure of human communication to the social interaction of humans, rather than other primates. Tomasello's theory posits that human cooperative communication rests on a psychological infrastructure of shared intentionality, evolved originally for collaboration and culture. The basic motives behind this infrastructure are helping and sharing, which created functional pressures for conventionalizing grammatical constructions. For example, requesting help in immediate situations required minimal grammar, while informing and sharing required increasingly complex devices. This book draws on empirical research into gestural and vocal communication by great apes and human infants to argue that humans' cooperative communication emerged first in natural gestures of pointing and pantomiming.