Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4rdrl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-28T21:54:15.535Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

No unleashed expression without language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2023

Robyn Carston Open the ORCID record for Robyn Carston [Opens in a new window]
Robyn Carston*
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, UCL, London WC1N 1PF, UK. [email protected] https://www.ucl.ac.uk/pals/people/robyn-carston
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While the metarepresentational structure of ostensive communication may explain the unleashing of human expression, it neither explains the open-endedness of the thoughts expressed/communicated, nor how the multiply embedded nature of the metarepresentational structure invoked arose. These both require the recursivity of human language, a capacity which must be distinguished from external (public) languages and their use in communication.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 46 , 2023 , e6
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boeckx, C. (2013). Biolinguistics: Forays into human cognitive biology. Journal of Anthropological Sciences, 91, 63–89.Google ScholarPubMed
Carston, R. (2015). Pragmatics and semantics. In Huang, Y. (Ed.) Oxford handbook of pragmatics (pp. 453–472). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (2010). Some simple evo devo theses: How true might they be for language? In Larson, R., Déprez, V. & Yamakido, H. (Eds.), The evolution of human language: Biolinguistic perspectives (pp. 45–62). Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fitch, W. T. (2010). Three meanings of “recursion”: Key distinctions for biolinguistics. In Larson, R., Déprez, V. & Yamakido, H. (Eds.), The evolution of human language: Biolinguistic perspectives (pp. 73–90). Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hauser, M., Chomsky, N., & Fitch, W. T. (2002). The language faculty: What is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science (New York, N.Y.), 298, 1569–1579.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
O'Grady, C., Kliesch, C., Smith, K., & Scott-Phillips, T. (2015). The ease and extent of recursive mindreading, across implicit and explicit tasks. Evolution and Human Behavior, 36, 313–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reboul, A. (2017). Cognition and communication in the evolution of language. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scott-Phillips, T. (2015). Speaking our minds. Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D. (2000). Metarepresentations in an evolutionary perspective. In Sperber, D. (Ed.), Metarepresentations: A multidisciplinary perspective (pp. 117–137). Oxford University Press.Google Scholar