Mimesis Theory, Learning, and Polysemiotic Communication

Synonyms

Multimodal signification; Representational imitation; Resemblance-based representation

Introduction

Discussions on what makes human cognition and learning unique in the animal world often focus on language. But language could not have evolved in our species, and cannot be learned by children or adults without a more fundamental cognitive-semiotic capacity: mimesis. This thesis was first suggested by the ancient Greeks and was forcibly elaborated by Donald (2013), within a general theory of human cognitive evolution with considerable support in the literature (Nelson 1998; Zlatev 2008). This theory claims that mimesis constitutes a key adaptation in our hominine ancestors that greatly facilitated the rehearsal of complex skills and the ability to imitate and learn culture-specific behaviors from others. It allowed the creation of bodily representations that could themselves be imitated, leading to a shared representational culture, prior to the subsequent evolution of a...