Could language evolution have happened without
there being a Gricean intentions first?
Introduction
The discussion of this paper is generated from a triangle of viewpoints – Darwin, Grice, and Bar-On – that have attempted to respond to the questions that have risen from the gaps in the development of language, from its primeval form to its sophistication in the present human usage. Other skeptics have presented notions, pros and cons, on the ideas posited by mentioned theorists but this paper, for lack of space, will avoid the discussion these skeptical claims. Suffice to say that contentions, notions and theories brought forward to fill the gap have been brought to the attention of philosophy of language as Darwin's theory of evolution has begun to bring about a debate on the connection between modern man and his primitive ancestors. Much like the consequent hunt for the "missing link" between modern man and his primitive ancestors, language philosophers and cognitive scholars grappled with the idea of a "missing link" between primitive language (I have yet to argue if it is indeed a language) and the sophisticated language of the present. Though Darwin's account of the evolution of man included man's language sophistication, that part of the account has not been discursively argued as Darwin "downplayed the difference between the human and nonhuman minds".
It doesn't help either that the differentiation between human and nonhuman minds has been tackled by earlier philosophers: the rationalists who believes that the human mind is distinct from nonhumans as accounted by the former's ability to intellectualize, understand, rationalize, formulate discourse, or become apperceptive; and the empiricists who believe that the mental abilities of humans are elaborations of shared human and nonhuman abilities (e.g. sensation, emotion, perception, emotion) (Bar-On, 2013). There was a need to transcend from these contentions given the current advances in modern comparative psychology, and the cognitive, behavioral, computational, and language sciences. These are areas of inquiries that have contributed to new knowledge and discoveries in linguistic studies.
I shall endeavor to survey these viewpoints and pitch some additional insights of my own. At the end of the survey I shall answer the question using insights from certain parts of the viewpoint I find leaning towards my own beliefs on the subject. Briefly, I shall make a commentary in closing.
A Survey of the Viewpoints
Darwin came up with a sweeping analogy of how modern language developed by presenting the analogy of the ‘Wise Ape-Like' precursor (exemplifying the widely accepted beastly ancestor of man) to modern man's use of language instrumentation.
In this narrative, Darwin spoke of a nonhuman creature (obviously a primate) that imitates the growling sound of a predator in order to warn others of an impending danger. Though lacking the propositional structure and seemingly just a guttural vocalization, the wise ape-like's action is taken as a kind of language for two reasons: it was an overt expression intended to catch the attention of an audience (therefore, has the intent to communicate), and taken notice by the audience when a corresponding response is shown (interpretation).
Juxtaposed against Darwin's analogy is Grice's Myth of X (Meaning, 1957). In this scenario, a creature we can call X involuntary emits a shrieking sound indicating that it is in pain. At the other end of the line is Y who takes notice and attends to X. Later did X realize that Y overtly emitted the shrieking sound so as to catch its attention. Over time, X and Y negotiated the linguistic parameters in which shrieks have varying characteristic qualities that could spell the difference between pain, hunger, anger, or any other emotional reactions within a given range of mental state.
Further to the implications of this mythological scenario, Grice identified a necessary precondition for language to be communicative – that of meaning. In other words, for X and Y to further negotiate the parameters by which each can call the attention of each other and for each to correspond accordingly, meaning must be present in whatever impressionable vocalization they both have to produce. However, for Grice, there are two kinds of meaning: one that is natural (which I indicate hereon as Mn) and one that is unnatural (indicated in this paper as Mnn).
Natural meaning, the way I would put it, is an occurrence in the world (i.e. event) that could be described by human language. However, the palpability of such events is not dependent on what has been described within a linguistic structure. Example, the palpability of the autumn season being heralded by the discoloration of trees in mid-November does not depend on a sentence statement made by a speaker such as, "The yellowing of the trees is a sign that autumn is here." It is but a natural phenomenon for trees to change colors when autumn comes; thus, it goes without saying that the meaning of what has been said is just but natural, a Mn, whether one says it or not. However, the meaning of the statement may possess a non-natural character depending on the intentionality of the speaker in producing the statement. This non-natural character of meaning in the same statement is demonstrated when, after uttering the very same statement – to wit, "The yellowing of the trees is a sign that autumn is here." – with the same exact sentence and syntagmatic structure, the speaker is intentionally signaling the listener that it is time to get those thick clothes out of the storage. The Mnn in the statement can also be provisional, as the speaker might also mean that it is time for the listener to book a flight to a tropical country. The intentionality of the statement demands an action on the part of the listener. One thing is clear: the discoloration of trees as a sign of the autumn season as described in the statement is not meant to simply describe a natural occurrence in the world, an event that will happen independently of anyone saying it or not. It was uttered with an intention for the listener to make a response, one that may correspond to the speaker's intent: that the listener should either take flight or take necessary clothing preparations.
But how could the very same statement carry different meaning (if only Mnn)?
Language is not only constituted by the verbal sentence uttered by the speaker. There are other modes that supplement the verbal mode in order for meaning to be contextualized, such as gaze, gestures, facial expression, etc. These modes, I suspect, are the intricate enmeshing units in language that X and Y negotiated when they were on their way to establishing Mnn in their communicative negotiation. I will try to incorporate this insight in the ensuing discussion.
Bar-On (Expressive Communication and Continuity Skepticism, 2013), the third theorist in this triangulation on the question of the diachronic connectivity between non-human and human minds have taken a middle ground in critiquing the positions of Darwin and Grice by introducing the concept of what she calls expressive communication.
In her position, I have the impression that Bar-On was not in the premise to demolish Darwinian and Gricean accounts of language evolution. I believe that she was trying to merely respond to the perceived failure of Darwinian and Gricean narratives in connecting the gap between nonhuman and human mental evolution, a fundamental issue in the hunt for the "missing link" in language evolution. In fact, she was clever enough to recognize the merits in Darwinian and Gricean positions by fusing them in her conceptualization of expressive communication.
Bar-On makes it her fundamental starting point to recognize the linguistic capabilities of nonhumans by adhering to the Darwinian maxim that man came from beasts. As such, the elitist distinction given by the rationalists to humans as more mentally capable than nonhumans is irrelevant. Given the recently observed nuances in the modularity in animal expressions, whether instinctive or intentional, nonhumans possess certain linguistic powers that are good enough for their own communicative utility, life pursuits, and survival. Dolphins have distinctive vocal sounds to distinguish one communicative intent from another. Dogs have certain gestures relevant to play and another for defense; including telltale signs of signaling such as scratch marks made by tigers, vibrations from webs, the spectacles of peacock displays… Bar-On's examples continue (Bar-On, 2013). If I may add, Monkeys "smile" in instances of aggression.
In the case of humans, some of their non-verbal expressions carry meaning that could be as literal as when expressed verbally in syntactic construction, such as laughter that is commonly equivalent to saying "I am happy!", "You are funny!", or something to that effect. The statement "Welcome to my abode." can be unambiguously expressed by stretching the arms, palms pointing upwards, along with the walking path of a guest. Some nonverbal expressions, however, demand deeper cultural contextualization such as the movement of the head in responding yes or no without the accompaniment of a verbal statement (Albanians pan their heads sideways when saying yes in contrast to most of the rest of the world who does up and down).
The relevance of these non-verbal expressions in human communication is tied up to the compelling accounts that recognize the existence of expressive communication among nonhumans who, as naively perceived, seems to be incapable of sophisticated communication for performing a lack of syntactically constructed propositional language. In other words, Bar-On gave as her examples of non-verbal signs as expressed by both humans and nonhumans to indicate their state of emotion, whether for the purpose of influencing an audience or simply a reflexive reaction to a stimulus (no audience participation necessary). Thus, Bar-On contends that nonhumans are capable of expressive communication by providing some of the examples previously mentioned. They are taken from modern ethological discoveries, such as the birds of Peter Marler.
I am particularly partial to Marler's observation of birds as I previously mentioned the multimodality of language. In his observation, birdcalls coupled with other modalities such as head-pointing and gaze directions can serve as vehicles for expressive states of differentiated emotions.
Bar-On's accounts to support her theory of expressive communication do not merely serve to render irrelevance to the skeptical contentions towards the idea that nonhumans have the ability to produce semantically functional expressions. Among other purposes, these accounts were there to argue the point that nonhuman expressions can both (or either/or) have psychological, semantic, and pragmatic dimensions as a complex expressive signal (Bar-On, 2013). It can be psychological in a way that it can be a spontaneous reaction to a stimulus, resulting from pain, excitement, etc.
I am in the understanding that the psychological dimension does not necessarily possess intentionality, as it could simply be functional, being a sign of a stimulated reaction. It could be simply an expression that requires no audience reaction. I cannot say with absolute certainty that when a dying lion from a gunshot wound roars in the middle of the Safari, it is just merely expressing pain without the intentionality of warning its pack of the presence of trophy hunters. I cannot also definitely say that it intends to warn the pack. I am not in the position to make a definitive judgment in both cases since I am not an ethologist. But I can surmise that there are instances that such roar lacks intentionality since, being human myself, I have displayed instances of psychological (or physiological) reaction of such kind without the intent of warning others. A person would simply curl up in bed inside his room without letting anyone know that he is suffering from an excruciating stomach pain (curling up can be an expression of pain as gesture akin to the non-verbal languages previously mentioned). He may have to express some moaning but such vocalization does not necessarily possess the intention of being heard by an audience, thus, not a signal that demands to be acted upon. Considering the commonalities in human and nonhuman psychological (or physiological) reaction, I can infer that one of those roars overheard in the Safari was not intended to warn others in the pack.
As for having the semantic dimension, nonhuman expressions are endowed with meaning (either Mn or Mnn). In this regard, such expressive communication can be intentionally driven as nonhumans are normally known to make calls intended to warn others of an impending danger. Furthermore, such calls have semantic content, such as the ones made by the birds of Marler, which most probably intended for somebody else to react when it squawks and points its beak towards an object (otherwise, what's the point). It can be also inferred, that due to its intentionality, it has its pragmatic dimension. In other words, it was but practical for a creature to perform certain acts in order to achieve a certain outcome. Thus, for both latter dimensions, I surmise that intentionality is mostly present because of the existence of Mnn in its semantic content. There is no point of having expressions with Mnn if it was not for the intent to manipulate, influence, or call to action from a target audience.
Bar-On, Darwin, and Grice have some other detailed insights in their attempt to fill the gap left by the diachronic discontinuity between nonhuman and human language evolution. However, it is in the interest of my argument that I have limited my survey on the ones I presented above (with additional elaborations and emphases of my own). These particular claims and accounts are material to my own brief critique on the three theorists which I shall present in the latter part of this paper.
If indeed nonhumans are capable of expressive communication, a social faculty for creatures to demonstrate their linguistic powers, it can be inferred that human ancestors are also capable of the same. And this communicative language, as argued above, did not develop with the realization of intentionality first; at least, not a priori to communication. Note that in both cases – the analogy of the ‘Wise-Ape' Like and the Myth of X – the creatures are already using intentionality at the very first stage they started to communicate. It looks like intentionality was the natural and spontaneous thing to do parallel with the act of communicating – again, not a priori. If this is the case, then there is no point for a Gricean intentionality to act as a catalyst for language evolution to advance.
Commentary
It is obvious the last part of my paper that I adhered to Bar-On’s argument in answering the question of whether there was a need for Gricean intentionality for language to evolve from its primeval form of mono-syllabic vocalization to complex composite linguistic structure.
Although
Bibliography
Bar-On, D. (2013). Expressive Communication and Continuity Skepticism. Journal of Philosophy , 110 (6), 293-330.
Grice, P. (1957). Meaning. Philosophical Review , 66 (3), 213-223.