The role of gesture in language evolution: Beyond the gesture-first hypotheses

Ozyurek, A. (2015). The role of gesture in language evolution: Beyond the gesture-first hypotheses. Talk presented at the SMART Cognitive Science: the Amsterdam Conference – Workshop, Evolution of Language: The co-evolution of biology and culture. Amsterdam, the Netherlands. 2015-03-25 - 2015-03-26.
It has been a popular view to propose that gesture preceded and paved the way for the evolution of (spoken) language (e.g., Corballis, Tomasello, Arbib). However these views do not take into account the recent findings on the neural and cognitive infrastructure of how modern humans (adults and children) use gestures in various communicative contexts. Based on this current knowledge I will revisit gesture-first theories of language evolution and discuss alternatives more compatible with the multimodal nature of modern human language
Publication type
Talk
Publication date
2015

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