How Language Began : Gesture and Speech in Human Evolution Paperback / softback
by David (University of Chicago) McNeill
Part of the Approaches to the Evolution of Language series
Paperback / softback
Description
Human language is not the same as human speech. We use gestures and signs to communicate alongside, or instead of, speaking.
Yet gestures and speech are processed in the same areas of the human brain, and the study of how both have evolved is central to research on the origins of human communication.
Written by one of the pioneers of the field, this is the first book to explain how speech and gesture evolved together into a system that all humans possess.
Nearly all theorizing about the origins of language either ignores gesture, views it as an add-on or supposes that language began in gesture and was later replaced by speech.
David McNeill challenges the popular 'gesture-first' theory that language first emerged in a gesture-only form and proposes a groundbreaking theory of the evolution of language which explains how speech and gesture became unified.
Information
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Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Paperback / softback
- Pages:275 pages, 11 Tables, black and white; 156 Halftones, unspecified; 11 Line drawings, unspecified
- Publisher:Cambridge University Press
- Publication Date:30/08/2012
- Category:
- ISBN:9781107605497
Information
-
Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Paperback / softback
- Pages:275 pages, 11 Tables, black and white; 156 Halftones, unspecified; 11 Line drawings, unspecified
- Publisher:Cambridge University Press
- Publication Date:30/08/2012
- Category:
- ISBN:9781107605497
