Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Quellenstraße 51, 1100 Wien, Austria.
Institute for Logic, Cognition, Language & Information, Carlos Santamaria Zentroa 2, Plaza de Elhuyar, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastian,
Behav Brain Sci. 2022 Jan 5;46:e1. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X22000012.
Human expression is open-ended, versatile, and diverse, ranging from ordinary language use to painting, from exaggerated displays of affection to micro-movements that aid coordination. Here we present and defend the claim that this expressive diversity is united by an interrelated suite of cognitive capacities, the evolved functions of which are the expression and recognition of informative intentions. We describe how evolutionary dynamics normally leash communication to narrow domains of statistical mutual benefit, and how expression is unleashed in humans. The relevant cognitive capacities are cognitive adaptations to living in a partner choice social ecology; and they are, correspondingly, part of the ordinarily developing human cognitive phenotype, emerging early and reliably in ontogeny. In other words, we identify distinctive features of our species' social ecology to explain how and why humans, and only humans, evolved the cognitive capacities that, in turn, lead to massive diversity and open-endedness in means and modes of expression. Language use is but one of these modes of expression, albeit one of manifestly high importance. We make cross-species comparisons, describe how the relevant cognitive capacities can evolve in a gradual manner, and survey how unleashed expression facilitates not only language use, but also novel behaviour in many other domains too, focusing on the examples of joint action, teaching, punishment, and art, all of which are ubiquitous in human societies but relatively rare in other species. Much of this diversity derives from graded aspects of human expression, which can be used to satisfy informative intentions in creative and new ways. We aim to help reorient cognitive pragmatics, as a phenomenon that is not a supplement to linguistic communication and on the periphery of language science, but rather the foundation of the many of the most distinctive features of human behaviour, society, and culture.
人类的表达方式是开放的、多样的和多样化的，从普通的语言使用到绘画，从夸张的情感表达到帮助协调的微动作。在这里，我们提出并捍卫了这样一种观点，即这种表达的多样性是由一系列相互关联的认知能力统一起来的，这些认知能力的进化功能是表达和识别有意义的意图。我们描述了进化动态通常如何将交流限制在狭隘的统计互惠领域，以及人类如何释放表达。相关的认知能力是适应伴侣选择社会生态的认知能力；相应地，它们是人类通常发展的认知表型的一部分，在个体发生中早期和可靠地出现。换句话说，我们确定了我们物种社会生态的独特特征，以解释为什么只有人类进化出了认知能力，而这些认知能力反过来又导致了表达手段和方式的巨大多样性和开放性。语言使用只是这些表达模式之一，尽管它显然具有重要意义。我们进行了跨物种比较，描述了相关的认知能力如何以渐进的方式进化，并调查了释放表达如何不仅促进语言使用，而且还促进许多其他领域的新行为，重点是联合行动、教学、惩罚和艺术的例子，这些都是人类社会中普遍存在的，但在其他物种中相对较少。这种多样性的很大一部分来自人类表达的分级方面，这些方面可以以创造性和新颖的方式用于满足有意义的意图。我们的目标是帮助重新定位认知语用学，将其视为一种不仅仅是语言交流的补充，也不仅仅是语言科学的边缘现象，而是人类行为、社会和文化的许多最显著特征的基础。
