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9780080443188

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This book is a sound and sober, yet sympathetic, extensive comment on the widely publicised current debate on the evolution of language. While fully acknowledging the great interest of the question, Botha shows that the biologists, paleontologists, linguists, psychologists, philosophers and other participants in this unique interdisciplinary debate, are in dire need of clarification and explicitation of the assumptions, presuppositions, established forms of argument and theoretical premises current in the sister disciplines involved. Besides taking part in the actual process of unravelling the evolution of language, Botha also unravels the debate itself, and he does so with the typical combination of acumen, merciless systematicity and empathy that we know from his previous writings. Like his other works, this new book makes for great reading . Pieter A. M. Seuren, Research fellow, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The evolutionary emergence of language is an exciting new field, generating a rapidly expanding scientific literature. But is it really science? This razor-sharp, relentlessly critical book - the first systematic overview of recent thinking in this area - shows that the problems run deep. Competing hypotheses recall ships passing in the night, their concepts and terminologies wholly incommensurable. Scholars on all sides feel misunderstood, lacking even the rudiments of a conceptual framework which might allow them to settle their differences. What, for example, is 'language'? Not even on this fundamental point is agreement in sight. No currently available paradigm offers hope of unifying the field. The irony of the situation is therefore painful. Lacking a scientific language of their own, Botha reveals 'evolutionary linguists' to be in disarray. It is precisely these scholars who illustrate - perhaps more poignantly than any other known population - the complications of life in the absence of language . Chris Knight, University of East London, UK ...the volume's basic point of thrust has undeniable merit. -D. Kimbrough Oller, HUMAN ETHOLOGY BULLETIN

This book is a sound and sober, yet sympathetic, extensive comment on the widely publicised current debate on the evolution of language. While fully acknowledging the great interest of the question, Botha shows that the biologists, paleontologists, linguists, psychologists, philosophers and other participants in this unique interdisciplinary debate, are in dire need of clarification and explicitation of the assumptions, presuppositions, established forms of argument and theoretical premises current in the sister disciplines involved. Besides taking part in the actual process of unravelling the evolution of language, Botha also unravels the debate itself, and he does so with the typical combination of acumen, merciless systematicity and empathy that we know from his previous writings. Like his other works, this new book makes for great reading . - Pieter A. M. Seuren, Research fellow, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, the Netherlands The evolutionary emergence of language is an exciting new field, generating a rapidly expanding scientific literature. But is it really science? This razor-sharp, relentlessly critical book-the first systematic overview of recent thinking in this area-shows that the problems run deep. Competing hypotheses recall ships passing in the night, their concepts and terminologies wholly incommensurable. Scholars on all sides feel misunderstood, lacking even the rudiments of a conceptual framework which might allow them to settle their differences. What, for example, is 'language'? Not even on this fundamental point is agreement in sight. No currently available paradigm offers hope of unifying the field. The irony of the situation is therefore painful. Lacking a scientific language of their own, Botha reveals 'evolutionary linguists' to be in disarray. It is precisely these scholars who illustrate-perhaps more poignantly than any other known population-the complications of life in the absence of language . - Chris Knight, University of East London, UK

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