Die Ursprünge der menschlichen Kommunikation

Unlike all other known living beings on this planet, humans speak. Generations of scientists have grappled with this remarkable fact. There are many speculations about the origins of human language, but to this day, no convincing explanation has emerged. In "The Origins of Human Communication," Michael Tomasello takes a crucial step toward solving this puzzle.

Drawing on rich empirical material from primate and infant research, as well as the most influential theories of the philosophy of language, and using a variety of examples from everyday human communication, he presents a sophisticated multi-level model of language development from both an individual and a species perspective. The central pivot in this model is gestures, pointing, and pantomime, which have evolved during the development of social cooperation among primates. In these gestures, Tomasello identifies the primal forms of human language.

However, to transition from these gestural precursors to a complex linguistic communication that can then be culturally encoded, transmitted, and refined, there is still a further biologically anchored but exclusively human prerequisite: a psychological infrastructure of shared intentionality. This ensures that humans can align their perceptions and intentions and make them the reference point for their joint actions. One could say that humans speak because they are genuinely social beings.