Gesture, Interjection and Onomatopoeia in Edward Burnett Tylor’s Theory of the Origin and Development of Language
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12775/ths.2016.005Keywords
origin of language, gesture-language, interjection, onomatopoeia, emotional tone, natural language, Darwinian debateAbstract
In this paper, I shall focus on E. B. Tylor’s theory on the origin and development of language, as it is expounded in his Researches into the Early History of Mankind (1865), in Primitive Culture (1871) and in Anthropology (1881). In his first work, influenced by Charles Darwin and Max Müller, he tried to explain the emergence of human language from what he called “Gesture-Language”. This line of inquiry prompted him to discuss the relation between objects and names, which in turn led him to the conclusion that primitive minds cannot separate “objects” from “ideas”. This idea stands at the core of his most famous theory, that is, “Primitive Animism”. Tylor’s theory of “Gesture-Language” was in contrast with Müller’s idea of language as the “Rubicon” that separates Men from Animals. This opposition is analysed in Primitive Culture and Anthropology, where Tylor explicitly discusses of interjectional and imitative theories.
References
Aarsleff, H. (1967). The Study of Language in England. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Alter, S. (2007) Darwin and the Linguists: the Coevolution of Mind and Language, Part1. Problematic friends. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 38: 573–84.
Alter, S. (2008). Darwin and the Linguists: the Coevolution of Mind and Language, Part 2. The Language-Thought Relationship. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 39, 38-50.
Bucchi, S., Gensini, S. (eds.) (2014) Darwiniana. Evoluzione e comunicazione. Dai vermi all’intelligenza artificiale. Pisa: ETS.
Darwin, C. R. (1859). On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. London: John Murray.
Darwin, C. R. (1871). The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex [2 vols]. London: John Murray.
Gensini, S. (2011). Darwin e il dibattito linguistico coevo. Paradigmi, 24(2), 47–66.
Gensini, S. (2014). Darwin e l’origine del linguaggio: fra storia naturale e teoria. In Bucchi & Gensini (eds) (2014): 54–76.
Knoll, E. (1986). The Science of Language and the Evolution of Mind: Max Muller’s Quarrel with Darwinism. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 22, 3–22.
Mocerino, R. (2015). Linguaggio e natura umana: il dibattito sul linguaggio come dispositivo specie-specifico negli studi americani di antropologia (1775–1871) (Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation). Sapienza University, Rome.
Müller, M. (1861). Lectures on the Science of Language. First Series. London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts.
Nicholls, A. (2014). A Germanic Reception in England: Friedrich Max Müller’s Critique of Darwin’s Descent of Man. In T. F. Glick and E. Shaffer (eds.) The Literary and Cultural Reception of Charles Darwin in Europe, vol. 3, 78–100. London and New York: Bloomsbury.
Piattelli, M. (2014). Una fonte di Darwin: Hensleigh Wedgwood e l’origine naturale del linguaggio. In Bucchi & Gensini (eds) (2014): 77–94.
Piattelli, M. (2016, forthcoming). Hensleigh Wedgwood, Charles Darwin, and the Imitative Origin of Language. In Nobile, L. (ed.) Towards A History of Sound Symbolic Theories [provisional title],. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Stocking, G. W. (1968). Race, Culture and Evolution: Essays in the History of Evolution. New York: Free Press.
Stocking, G. W. (1973). From chronology to ethnology: James Cowles Prichard and British anthropology, 1800–1850. In Researches into the Physical History of Man, ed. by George W. Stocking [1st ed. 1813], ix–cx. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Stocking, G. W. (1987). Victorian Anthropology. New York: Free Press.
Tylor, E. B. (1865). On the Origin of Language. Fortnightly review, (o.s.) 4, 544–559.
Tylor, E. B. (1870). Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization [2nd ed.]. London: John Murray.
Tylor, E. B. (1871). Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Customs [2 vols]. John Murray, London.
Tylor, E.B. (1881). Anthropology: An Introduction to the Study of Man and Civilization. London: Mac Millan.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
Stats
Number of views and downloads: 690
Number of citations: 0
