Oller D Kimbrough, Griebel Ulrike
School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, United States.
Institute for Intelligent Systems, The University of Memphis, Memphis, TN, United States.
Front Psychol. 2021 Jan 26;11:626138. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.626138. eCollection 2020.
At the earliest break of ancient hominins from their primate relatives in vocal communication, we propose a selection pressure on vocal fitness signaling by hominin infants. Exploratory vocalizations, not tied to expression of distress or immediate need, could have helped persuade parents of the wellness and viability of the infants who produced them. We hypothesize that hominin parents invested more in infants who produced such signals of fitness plentifully, neglecting or abandoning them less often than infants who produced the sounds less frequently. Selection for such exploratory vocalization provided a critically important inclination and capability relevant to language, we reason, because the system that encouraged spontaneous vocalization also made vocalization functionally flexible to an extent that has not been observed in any other animal. Although this vocal flexibility did not by itself create language, it provided an essential foundation upon which language would evolve through a variety of additional steps. In evaluating this speculation, we consider presumable barriers to evolving language that are thought to be implications of Darwinian Theory. It has been claimed that communication always involves sender self-interest and that self-interest leads to deceit, which is countered through clever detection by receivers. The constant battle of senders and receivers has been thought to pose an insuperable challenge to honest communication, which has been viewed as a requirement of language. To make communication honest, it has been proposed that stable signaling requires costly handicaps for the sender, and since language cannot entail high cost, the reasoning has suggested an insurmountable obstacle to the evolution of language. We think this presumed honesty barrier is an illusion that can be revealed by recognition of the fact that language is not inherently honest and in light of the distinction between illocutionary force and semantics. Our paper also considers barriers to the evolution of language (not having to do with honesty) that we think may have actually played important roles in preventing species other than humans from evolving language.
在古人类最早从其灵长类亲属中分化出来进行声音交流时，我们提出人类婴儿对声音健康信号存在选择压力。探索性发声并非与痛苦表达或即时需求相关，它可能有助于让父母相信发出这些声音的婴儿身体健康且具备生存能力。我们假设，人类父母会对频繁发出此类健康信号的婴儿投入更多，相较于发出此类声音较少的婴儿，对前者的忽视或遗弃频率更低。我们推断，对这种探索性发声的选择提供了一种与语言相关的至关重要的倾向和能力，因为鼓励自发发声的系统也使发声在功能上具有一定灵活性，这在其他任何动物身上都未被观察到。尽管这种发声灵活性本身并未创造语言，但它提供了一个重要基础，语言将通过各种额外步骤在此基础上进化。在评估这一推测时，我们考虑了被认为是达尔文理论影响的语言进化可能存在的障碍。有人声称，交流总是涉及发送者的自身利益，而自身利益会导致欺骗，接收者通过巧妙察觉来应对这种欺骗。发送者和接收者之间的持续较量被认为对诚实交流构成了不可逾越的挑战，而诚实交流被视为语言的一项要求。为了使交流变得诚实，有人提出稳定的信号传递要求发送者付出高昂代价，由于语言不可能代价高昂，这种推理表明语言进化存在不可逾越的障碍。我们认为这种假定的诚实障碍是一种错觉，通过认识到语言并非天生诚实这一事实以及考虑言外之力和语义之间 的区别可以揭示这一点。我们的论文还考虑了语言进化的其他障碍（与诚实无关），我们认为这些障碍实际上可能在阻止人类以外的物种进化出语言方面发挥了重要作用。
