Cognitive Science talk

Speaker: Dr Jerome Lewis (University College London)

Title: Music first: hunter-gatherer ethnography and the evolution of language

Abstract: If language evolved when humanity lived in Africa as hunter-gatherers, then what might African hunter-gatherer ethnography have to tell us about the evolutionary relationship between music and language?

The BaYaka’s view of the human communicative spectrum extends from using plants to signal, signing and animal mimicry, through a range of human languages and linguistic devices, to the employment of music, dance and other performative strategies. 

The ethnography suggests that musical ritual sufficiently respects costly signalling constraints to provide the key scaffolds required for language: capacities for vocal dexterity and vocal learning while participation stimulates we-intentionality, so enabling normativity to develop. These are key building blocks for the emergence of language.

Further information

Reception after the talk: Concourse, Psychology building. All Welcome.

Contact

Richard Shillcock