Acknowledgements ............................................. viii
List of Figures ................................................ ix
List of Tables .................................................. x
Notes on the Contributors ...................................... xi
1 Introduction: a social perspective on how language began ..... 1
Daniel Dor, Chris Knight, and Jerome Lewis
Part I. Theoretical Foundations
2 Why we need to move from gene-culture co-evolution to
culturally driven co-evolution .............................. 15
Daniel Dor and Eva Jablonka
3 Niche construction and semiosis: biocultural and social
dynamics .................................................... 31
Chris Sinha
4 Signal evolution and the social brain ....................... 47
Camilla Power
5 How can a social theory of language evolution be grounded
in evidence? ................................................ 56
Sverker Johansson
Part II. Language as a Collective Object
6 The 'poly-modalic' nature of utterances and its relevance
for inquiring into language origins ......................... 67
Adam Kendon
7 BaYaka Pygmy multi-modal and mimetic communication
traditions .................................................. 77
Jerome Lewis
8 Language presupposes an enchronic infrastructure for social
interaction ................................................. 92
N.J. Enfield and Jack Sidnell
9 The instruction of imagination: language and its evolution
as a communication technology .............................. 105
Daniel Dor
Part III. Apes and People, Past and Present
10 Chimpanzee grooming gestures and sounds: what might they
tell us about how language evolved? ........................ 129
Simone Pika
11 Vocal communication and social awareness in chimpanzees
and bonobos ................................................ 141
Zanna Clay and Klaus Zuberbühler
12 Why humans and not apes: the social preconditions
for the emergence of language .............................. 157
Charles Whitehead
13 Language and collective fiction: from children's pretence
to social institutions ..................................... 171
Emily Wyman
14 The time frame of the emergence of modern language
and its implications ....................................... 184
Dan Dediu and Stephen C. Levinson
15 The evolution of ritual as a process of sexual selection ... 196
Camilla Power
16 The red thread: pigment use and the evolution of
collective ritual .......................................... 208
Ian Watts
17 Language and symbolic culture: an outcome of hunter-
gatherer reverse dominance ................................. 228
Chris Knight
Part IV. Social Theories of Language Evolution
18 The co-evolution of human intersubjectivity, morality,
and language ............................................... 249
Jordan Zlatev
19 Forever united: the co-evolution of language and
normativity ................................................ 267
Ehud Lamm
20 Why talk? .................................................. 284
Jean-Louis Dessalles
21 Vocal deception, laughter, and the linguistic significance
of reverse dominance ....................................... 297
Chris Knight and Jerome Lewis
Part V. The Journey Thereafter
22 Memory, imagination, and the evolution of modern language .. 317
Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka
23 Transmission biases in the cultural evolution of language:
towards an explanatory framework ........................... 325
N.J. Enfield
24 Breaking down false barriers to understanding .............. 336
Luc Steels
References .................................................... 350
Index of Authors .............................................. 421
Index of Subjects ............................................. 425
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