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On Quantitative Comparative Research in Communication and Language Evolution

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Abstract

Quantitative comparison of human language and natural animal communication requires improved conceptualizations. We argue that an infrastructural approach to development and evolution incorporating an extended interpretation of the distinctions among illocution, perlocution, and meaning can help place the issues relevant to quantitative comparison in perspective. The approach can illuminate the controversy revolving around the notion of functional referentiality as applied to alarm calls, for example in the vervet monkey. We argue that referentiality offers a poor point of quantitative comparison across language and animal communication in the wild. Evidence shows that even the newborn human cry could be deemed to show functional referentiality according to the criteria typically invoked by advocates of referentiality in animal communication. Exploring the essence of the idea of illocution, we illustrate an important realm of commonality among animal communication systems and human language, a commonality that opens the door to more productive, quantifiable comparisons. Finally, we delineate two examples of infrastructural communicative capabilities that should be particularly amenable to direct quantitative comparison across humans and our closest relatives.

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Acknowledgments

The research for this paper was funded by Grants R01 DC006099 and DC011027 from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and by the Plough Foundation. Thanks go to Drew Rendall for helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA

    D. Kimbrough Oller

  2. Institute for Intelligent Systems, University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, USA

    D. Kimbrough Oller & Ulrike Griebel

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  1. D. Kimbrough Oller
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  2. Ulrike Griebel
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Correspondence to D. Kimbrough Oller.

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This article is dedicated to the memory of Michael Owren, with whom the work was jointly conceived. He died before contributing to the writing, but his numerous insights influenced this work deeply and will remain for us an enduring legacy of thoughtful interpretation and scientific integrity.

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Oller, D.K., Griebel, U. On Quantitative Comparative Research in Communication and Language Evolution. Biol Theory 9, 296–308 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13752-014-0186-7

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