Intercultural Pragmatics 2020; 17(3): 293–313

Keith Allan*
Linguistics and communication
https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2020-3002

Abstract: This essay begins by identifying what communication is and what lin-
guistics is in order to establish the relationship between them. The characterization
of linguistics leads to discussion of the nature of language and of the relationship
between a theory of language, i. e., linguistic theory, and the object language it
models. This, in turn, leads to a review of speculations on the origins of human
language with a view to identifying the motivation for its creation and its primary
function. After considering a host of data, it becomes clear that, contrary to some
approaches, the primary function of human language is to function as a vehicle of
communication. Thus, linguistics studies what for humans is their primary vehicle
of communication.

Keywords: language, social interactive behavior, message, human beings,

linguistic theory, the relation of theory to data, the origins of language

1 Overview
To examine the relationship between linguistics and communication we first need
to identify what communication is and what linguistics is. The characterization of
linguistics leads to discussion of the nature of language and of linguistic theories
and the relation of linguistic theory to the object language it models. In turn, this
leads to a review of speculations on the origins of human language with a view to
identifying its motivation and primary function. After considering a host of data, it
becomes clear that the primary function of human language is to function as a
vehicle of communication. Thus, linguistics studies what for humans is the pri-
mary vehicle of communication.
Section 2 of this essay defines and describes communication. Section 3 defines
and describes linguistics and its object of study, human language(s). Section 4
reviews the conditions on theories of language, i. e. linguistic theories, and their
relation to the object that they model. Section 5 surveys speculations on the origins
of human language from the time of Plato until the present day with a view to

*Corresponding author: Keith Allan, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia,

E-mail: [email protected]
294 K. Allan

discovering hypothetical motivations for human language and its primary func-
tions. Section 6 sums up the evidence.

2 Communication
Meanings given for the Latin verb communicare are “share; share/divide with/out;
receive/take a share of; receive; join with; communicate, discuss, impart; make
common cause; take common counsel, consult” which is essentially identical with
the meanings of the current English verb communicate. Communication is the act
of conveying a message from one entity (or set of entities) to another (others)
through the use of semiotic phenomena such as signs, symbols, and various kinds
of biosemiotic data among lower animates like bacteria (Winnans and Bassier
2008), insects (Leonhardt et al. 2016), plants (Elhakeem et al. 2018; Karban 2015),
and fungi (Cottier and Mühlschlegel 2012). Communication among lower animates
is not random or accidental but motivated: consider bee-dancing or the exchange
of pheromones among various species of insect. Going beyond communication
among organic life-forms, I am doubtful that natural events like wildfire and the
onset of rain can truly be said to communicate even though they accidentally
motivate somewhat predictable responsive behaviors in certain organisms
(including humans). Thus, although non-human communication is relevant to
linguistics insofar as it suggests comparisons that throw light on human
communication, I will more or less ignore it hereafter to focus on human
communication.
When humans communicate using language, we can normally identify in the
act of communication the following components (1)–(8).
1. A motive for sender (speaker, writer, signer) to communicate with recipient(s)
(audience, hearer, reader, viewer).
2. Assessment of common ground1 with recipient (this is rarely a conscious effort).
3. Need to compose the content and form of a message to be communicated.
4. Choice of medium for communication (signing, speech, written text – digital or
otherwise).
5. Transmission of the message (taking account of possible interference from
“noise”).
6. Cognitive and contextual factors that affect the ability of the recipient to receive
the message.
7. Getting the recipient to interpret the illocutionary point of the message inten-
ded to be communicated by the sender.

1 See Allan 2013b; Clark, Schreuder and Butterick 1983; Stalnaker 2002.
 Linguistics and communication 295

8. An acknowledgment or response from recipient to sender such that the recip-

ient becomes a reciprocal sender.

Arguably, all these components fall within the scope of linguistics; however,
traditionally, linguistics has focused on (3). The transaction between sender and
recipient defines the act of communication (in this case an act of languaging) as a
species of social interaction that is a kind of social behavior.

3 Linguistics and human language(s)

Linguistics is the study of the human ability to produce and interpret language in
speaking, writing, and signing (for the deaf). All languages and all varieties of
every language constitute potential data for linguistic research, as do the re-
lationships between them and the relations and structures of their components. A
linguist is someone who studies and describes the structure and composition of
language and/or languages in a methodical and rigorous manner (Allan 2016: 1).
Language has physical forms to be studied. You can hear speech, see writing and
signing, and feel braille. The forms can be decomposed into structured compo-
nents such as sentences, phrases, words, letters, sounds, syllables. These lan-
guage constituents are expressed and combined in conventional ways that are
largely (if not completely) rule-governed.
Human languages are important because of the meanings they convey. It is a
bonus that the sound of a human voice is comforting, or that beautiful callig-
raphy delights us: these are by-products of the main function of language. As
already mentioned, language is manifest as a physical object or physical event
(right now, you can see language in the print before your eyes). Language as a
physical object or physical event is language uttered at a particular time in a
particular place – giving it spatiotemporal coordinates. The physical manifes-
tations of language are manifestations of something abstract and intangible.
English, for instance, is not just all that is written and spoken in English; it is also
something abstracted from people and times and places, it is something that
speakers of English are able to use in order to say something that has never ever
been said before – consequently it must exist independently of any particular
speakers. In order to use a language, you must know it: so, language must also be
a cognitive or psychological entity. And, to get to the nub of this essay, language
exists as a vehicle for communication between people; in other words, language
is a manifestation of social interactive behavior. Social interaction includes
flirting and passing the time of day, as well as the exchange of information and
the expression of opinions and points of view. It involves the use of language for
296 K. Allan

entertainment in factual historical anecdotes and in fictional narrative. Social

interaction is of primary importance within human communities, and language is
the principal means of social interaction (cf. Clark 1996). Whether or not language
was motivated and developed for this purpose (in Section 5 I argue it was), its
grammar is certainly influenced by the fact that it is a means of social interaction,
a technique for revealing one’s thoughts and perceptions to others. Language is
an essential tool for cementing human bonding and for displaying it to others,
both at the individual and the community level.

4 Theories of language
Both Hittite and English exist (in some sense of this verb) independently of
speakers of these languages; that is, they are abstractions. A linguist’s model of
Hittite, English, or any other language, therefore models an abstract entity.
Saussure’s notion of langue as a social contract (Saussure 1931) presupposes that a
language exists independently of an individual speaker; thus, necessarily, lan-
guage is an abstraction. Chomsky’s notion that a grammar of language L should
model the ideal speaker-hearer’s internalized knowledge of L (Chomsky 1965,
1986) presupposes that L is the object of the speaker-hearer’s knowledge and
therefore it exists independently of the speaker-hearer (cf. Katz 1981). In my view,
Chomsky’s claim renders language an abstraction, but because Chomsky has
challenged this conclusion, I shall discuss it in some detail. It is barely contro-
versial that emic categories (phonemes, morphemes, lexemes, etc.) and other such
theoretical constructs are abstract. The inductivist linguistics of the American
structuralists (Bloomfieldians) foundered on the impossible task of deriving emic
from etic categories that have spatiotemporal existence (phones, morphs, etc.)
using the approved distributional and classificatory criteria.2 So how are emic
(abstract) categories discovered? Einstein wrote:

The concepts and fundamental principles which underlie [a scientific theory] are free in-
ventions of the human intellect which cannot be justified either by the nature of that intellect or
in any other fashion a priori. (“On the method of theoretical physics” [1934] Einstein 1973: 266)

The concepts and fundamental principles are not out there in Nature waiting to be
discovered; they are invented by human intellect. Einstein’s description “free in-
ventions of the human intellect” needs qualifying:

2 The inductive method assumes that there is an intrinsic structure to natural phenomena that can
be discovered by inspection. ‘The only useful generalizations about language are inductive gen-
eralizations’ (Bloomfield 1933: 20).
 Linguistics and communication 297

The liberty of choice […] is of a special kind; it is not in any way similar to the liberty of a writer
of fiction. Rather, it is similar to that of a man engaged in solving a well-designed word puzzle.
He may, it is true, propose any word as a solution; but there is only one word which really
solves the puzzle in all its parts. It is a matter of faith that nature – as she is perceptible to our
five senses – takes the character of such a well-formulated puzzle. The successes reaped up to
now by science do, it is true, give a certain encouragement for this faith. (“Physics and reality”
[1936] Einstein 1973: 287)

Within a given theory, it is not the case that anything goes: theoretical constructs
are constrained by the characteristics of the natural phenomenon being modeled.
If the theoretician does a good job, we recognize a harmony between the theo-
retical constructs and the natural phenomena they model.

There is no logical path to these laws [of the natural phenomena being modelled], only
intuition resting on sympathetic understanding of experience can reach them. (“Principles of
research” [1934] Einstein 1973: 221)

It is “intuition resting on sympathetic understanding of experience” that guides

the “free inventions of the human intellect.”

The theoretical idea […] does not arise from and independent of experience; nor can it be
derived from experience by a purely logical procedure. It is produced by a creative act. (“On
the generalized theory of gravitation” [1950] Einstein 1973: 334)

So, the abstract constructs of a theory of a natural phenomenon such as human

language arise through a creative act. The theory and its constructs are created by
human intuition originating in (evoked by) a sympathetic understanding of our
experiences of the natural phenomenon being investigated.
There are, of course, problems when claiming that the truth of a scientific
theory consists in its correspondence to those facts that constitute its data:
A. It is difficult to perceive the data without prejudice; it is not humanly possible
to avoid taking a point of view.
B. What limits have to be placed on the database before the theory is constructed?
If the database keeps expanding, so might the theory.
C. The so-called “truth” claims3 made by a theory are not necessarily exhausted
by what it has to say about its database; for instance, a theory of grammar can
use sentences of L as its input, but the theory may also make claims about the
learnability of L.

3 I have put “truth” in quotes because proponents of the theory may claim that certain proposi-
tions are true, whereas opponents may claim the same propositions are false or indeterminably
true or false. This is the case with recent Chomskyan theories, as we shall see.
298 K. Allan

Despite these problems, I assume that every constructor of a linguistic theory

(i. e. a theory of language) should seek to demonstrate that the constructs of the
theory are in harmony with what is known about human language.
Willy-nilly, a model of language is constructed on the basis of the linguist’s
intuitions about the structure of language; it is not derived directly from lan-
guage data. Nevertheless, the intuitions must be guided by scrupulous obser-
vation of the data. Thus, the task of collecting and classifying language data is
necessarily prior to the construction of a hypothetico-deductive model based
upon it.4 But the process of classification will not serve as a source for satisfactory
inductive generalizations about the nature of language, even though such gen-
eralizations will doubtless prove useful for all sorts of purposes: after all, New-
tonian dynamics is still used by engineers; and Ptolemy’s astronomical charts
could still be used for navigation. The contribution to linguistics of inductivists
such as Bloomfieldian linguists was considerable, and (I believe) a necessary
precursor to hypothetico-deductivism. But a theory of language must, if it is to be
consistent, coherent, and efficacious, be a hypothetico-deductive theory.
Because such theories are constructed on the basis of a linguist’s scholarly
intuition about the structure of language, there are potentially as many theories
as there are theoreticians. For this reason, we need an evaluative procedure to
select the best among them. A theory of language should comply with conditions
(A)–(L) below.
A. Be a theory of language and not of something else, such as a theory of mind or
human behavior. This raises the dispute between the realists and the con-
ceptualists, which will be examined below.
B. Have ontologically determinate constructs in the sense of Botha 1980. (This
will be discussed.)
C. Have constructs that are independently motivated and predictive.
D. Have the means to distinguish any genuine utterance in the object-language
from any other thing.

4 A hypothetico-deductive model is the inverse of the inductivist model; it is “top-down”: in

language analysis, start with the sentence and analyze it into its successive constituent structures
until its phonological form is resolved. Ideally, hypothetico-deductivism postulates an abstract
general theory of the phenomena in question in terms of a defined vocabulary consisting of a
specified set of symbols with an interpretation specified for each vocabulary item; there will also be
an explicit syntax consisting of a set of axioms and rules for combining the vocabulary items; and a
set of axioms and rules for interpreting theorems (i. e., sentences) of the metalanguage. Such
machinery expresses the fundamental theoretical concepts and relations to be used in modeling
the phenomenon, and is the means for deducing the characteristics of particular instances to be
found in the data. These ideal criteria explain the preference for mathematical models of natural
phenomena.
 Linguistics and communication 299

E. Be comprehensive and be applicable to every utterance, part of an utterance,

or combination of utterances in the object-language.
F. Be consistent and coherent: conclusions should follow from premises; all parts
of the theory should be compatible with one another.
G. Be concise and succinct in its metalanguage; and therefore readily interpret-
able by users. (This is a desirable, but not a necessary, criterion.)
H. Be explanatory in the sense that the meaning and structural description it
assigns to any expression of the object-language should accord with a native
speaker’s intuitions about the reasonableness of such an ascription. (There are
bound to be individual differences of opinion on this score.) Harvey J. Gold in
Mathematical Modelling of Biological Systems writes:
The result of a mathematical development should be continually checked against one’s
intuition about what constitutes reasonable biological behavior. When such a check
reveals a disagreement, then the following possibilities must be considered:
a. A mistake has been made in the formal mathematical development;
b. The starting assumptions are incorrect and/or constitute a too drastic over-
simplification;
c. One’s own intuition about the biological field is inadequately developed;
d. A penetrating new principle has been discovered.
Alternative d is, of course, what everyone roots for, but acute embarrassment lies in wait if
the first three are not carefully checked. Agreement between intuition and the mathe-
matics is certainly no guarantee of correctness, but disagreement should always be
regarded as a danger signal. (Gold 1977: 15)
I. Be explanatory in the sense that it shows (or can be caused to show) reasons for
assigning a particular meaning and structural description to an expression in
the object-language.
J. Explain what is common to all languages.
K. Be in harmony with an account for the learnability of languages.
L. Explain how language functions as a practical means of communication.

I said earlier that language can be viewed from at least four perspectives: as
manifest in physical objects and physical events; as social behavior; as the object
of knowledge; and as an abstract object. The last one mentioned is fundamental.
My view is similar to, but not identical with, the “realist” view of Katz 1981; Katz
and Postal 1991. For realists (Platonists), language and the theoretical constructs
of a linguistic theory are abstract objects which exist independently of human
beings. According to Katz and Postal 1991: 518, natural language sentences are
“things which, like numbers in mathematics, are not located in space-time,
involved in causal interaction, or dependent for their existence on the human
mind/brain.” Plato’s Ideas (Forms) are not sensible to mankind, but exist in an
immortal world separate from ours, and humans can access them through their
immortal souls:
300 K. Allan

They say that the human soul is immortal; at times it comes to an end, which they call dying,
at times it is reborn, but it is never destroyed […] As the soul is immortal, has been born often
and has seen all things here and in the underworld, there is nothing which it has not learned
[including Ideas]; so it is in no way surprising that it can recollect the things it knew before,
both about virtue and other things. (Meno 81b,c)

Judging Plato’s account by today’s criteria it is metaphysical; but for Plato the Ideas
were “natural”, being categories of physis which we humans have only imperfect
and possibly illusory apprehension of. This doctrine of anamnesis offers a solution
to the perennial puzzle posed by universals (e. g. all circles), or impossible objects
(e. g. a perfect circle), or even the lexeme circle: how can we know the meanings of
such expressions on the basis of experiencing just a few instances of (necessarily)
imperfect circles? Yet we do. If we are loath to accept Plato’s metaphysical expla-
nation, various updates on the machinery exist; but no one has offered a solution
which is essentially different and at the same time satisfactory. Katz 1981; Katz and
Postal 1991 are at least as mysterious as Plato on where (Platonic) abstract objects
exist (how they can properly be said to “exist” is a mystery if they are atemporal and
aspatial, but we will let that verb pass). Katz 1981: 181ff flatly denies that they are
human constructions, but I think he is wrong. According to Katz 1981, we appre-
hend abstract objects (all kinds) not through our immortal souls, but through
intuition – which Katz distinguishes from introspection, perception, and reasoning.
But Katz’s refurbishment of the immortal soul is unconvincing because language
exists as a form of human behavior; it also exists in people’s heads.5 Therefore, if
language and its constructs are abstract objects, it is because we human beings
abstract them from physical language events. This is directly contrary to Katz 1981,
who regards the products of such abstraction as “idealizations”, and writes: “In
contrast, abstract objects are not idealizations at all. They do not represent anything
physical or psychological” (Katz 1981: 56).
Although I claim that language and its constructs are abstract objects, I hold
that they are abstracted from spatiotemporally located physical, psychological,
and social manifestations of language events (contra Itkonen 1978, for instance). I
do not believe, as the conceptualists do, that linguistic theory is a theory of the
mind/brain (see Botha 1992 for extensive discussion).

To know a language is to be in a certain mental state, which persists as a relatively steady

component of transitory mental states. (Chomsky 1980: 48)

Chomsky has long claimed that linguistic theory should model the ideal speaker’s
knowledge of the language, KL; consequently, a model of KL, Ψ, will be a model of a

5 I do not wish to extend this argument to other abstract objects such as the constructs of
mathematics and logic, about which I am agnostic.
 Linguistics and communication 301

mental state which purports to be a theory of language L. This cognitive aspect of

language is what led Saussure to claim that language is concrete and not abstract;
but I think he was wrong. Note that Ψ is not directly a model of L; this is a point I will
take up very shortly. A theoretical construct, φ of Ψ, would model some mental
representation which is an element of this knowledge. Chomsky claims, “We
attribute ‘psychological reality’ to the postulated representations and mental
computations” (Chomsky 1976: 9); but Botha 1980; 1982 demonstrates that such
claims are vacuous because the theoretical entities Chomsky postulates are
ontologically indeterminable, which renders his theory unfalsifiable. So, despite
Chomsky’s claims to the contrary, φ is not itself a psychological entity, i. e. it is not
a construct of the (ideal-speaker-hearer’s) mind which has knowledge of language.
It is in fact a construct of the theory of knowledge of language, and therefore a
construct of the theoretician’s mind.6 By parallel argument, it is no help to a
Chomskyan to become more biologistic, and to argue that what were once regarded
as mental states are now to be regarded as brain states (see Chomsky 1986). Gilbert
Harman argues that we need to consider what aspects of a theory correspond to
natural phenomena and which are theoretical constructs.

Geography contains true statements locating mountains and rivers in terms of longitude and
latitude without implying that the equator has the sort of physical reality that the Mississippi
River does. (Harman 1980: 21)

Latitude, longitude, and the equator are useful theoretical constructs. So are
grammatical (and other linguistic) categories – or so they should be! They are
concepts from a theory and they can be profitably employed in the analysis of a
language and in the conscious learning of languages; but they are not language
(which is the object of the theory and its constructs). Nor are they concepts in the
minds of a majority of language users (as Baker 1770: v recognized). Suppose
scholar α claims that the grammatical structures assigned by a particular model of
KL, Ψ1, have psychological reality; and scholar β develops a notational variant of
the same grammatical structures in another theory of KL, Ψ2; then, on the
conceptualist theory, Ψ2 manifests a different psychological reality from Ψ1. This
unwelcome (not to say absurd) consequence will not arise if we recognize that Ψ1,
…, Ψn are abstract rational models of KL, and each is independent of KL. Chomsky
appears to respect this independence:

When I use such terms as “mind”, “mental representation”, “mental computation”, and the
like, I am keeping to the level of abstract characterization of the properties of certain physical
mechanisms, as yet almost entirely unknown. (Chomsky 1980: 5; see also Chomsky 1975: 32)

6 As are the M[agritte]-representations of Burton-Roberts and Carr 1999.

302 K. Allan

An abstract characterization necessarily utilizes theoretical constructs which are

abstract objects, no matter what is being modeled – be it mentalistic, neurological,
or inorganic. Chomsky’s hypothetico-deductive model is, like any other, an
abstraction; it presents an abstract representation of KL. By definition, neither a
model of language processing ability nor a model of a cognitive state is a model of
language. The problem with a mentalistic theory of language such as Chomsky’s is
in relating the products of the theory to products of the mind rather than with direct
manifestations of language, because no Ψ is directly a theory of language. This
suggests that Ψ should be evaluated by psychologists rather than linguists, and
consequently that Chomskyan theory is psychology rather than linguistics.
This is not disciplinary chauvinism. The argument that the linguist should
model KL is a strong one. Yet if every human science that involves cognition is to be
subject only to mentalist theories, then philosophy, applied mathematics, and
many other disciplines to a greater or lesser extent, will join Chomskyan linguistics
as branches of psychology. Pace Jerry Fodor, but this is not the “Right View” – even
if he dubbed it that. Fodor wrote:

An adequate linguistics should explain why it is that the intuitions of speaker/hearers constitute
data relevant to the confirmation of grammars. The Right View meets this condition. It says ‘We
can use intuitions to confirm grammars because grammars are internally represented and
actually contribute to the etiology of the speaker/hearer’s native judgments’. (Fodor 1985: 152
[sic])

We do not presume that, within a theory of esthetics, the intuitions of artists

constitute data relevant to the confirmation of their esthetic decisions; we examine
the structure and form of their artistic products. If Fodor’s “Right View” is indeed
the right view, then – by parity of argument – we should expect a theory of
aesthetics to be modeling the internal representations of aesthetes! Presumably
the same argument could be extended to every phenomenon we have theories of.
This is not a wise approach to theory construction. As Barry J. Blake has reminded
me (pc December 2018): “Speakers intuitions are iffy, but if speakers consistently
judged a sentence to be unsatisfactory, one would have to take that into account. I
[BB] say ‘satisfactory’ because the distinction between grammatical, idiomatic,
appropriate is not always clear.”
The object of analysis for linguistic theory should be language, and
although there is no doubt that Chomsky’s view of where language resides is one
well-justified view, it is not the only one. In Reflections on Language, Chomsky
wrote:

There is […] a very respectable tradition […] that regards as a vulgar distortion the ‘instru-
mental view’ of language as ‘essentially’ a means of communication, or a means to achieve
 Linguistics and communication 303

given ends. Language, it is argued, is ‘essentially’ a system for the expression of thought.
(Chomsky 1975: 56f)

The last sentence clearly reveals what lies behind Chomsky’s mentalism: his belief
that language is essentially a system for the expression of thought (a view shared
with Leibniz 1765 and Herder 1772, 1799). But the objection to what he calls the
“instrumental view” of language is unsound. There is the trivial objection that
Chomsky apparently contradicts himself here. For the sake of argument, let’s grant
him that a major function of language is the expression of thought: then for
Chomsky this is the “given end” which language achieves. But he says in the
previous sentence that language should not be seen as achieving given ends! We
might charitably conclude that this is an infelicity of expression, but we must
doubt the clarity of Chomsky’s thinking here. When he writes, “Language […] is
‘essentially’ a system for expression of thought”, Chomsky implies that language is
a vehicle for the expression of thought – that is, the communication of thought to
someone else. Chomsky does, of course, recognize that thought is independent of
language, and thoughts don’t have to utilize language or be communicated
through language (Chomsky 1975: 57). He also recognizes that language serves a
communicative function and that one can expect “significant connections between
structure and function” (Chomsky 1975: 56). In his view language exists primarily
for the expression of thought; human communication is a by-product. Yet if lan-
guage is not primarily for the purpose of communication, it is hard to see why
anyone should wish to learn a foreign language except as a mental exercise, and it
is puzzling what the evolutionary value of language to humans (and other species
said to have language) could possibly be. My own view (Allan 1986/2014; 2001;
2013a, b; 2015; 2018; 2020) is that language conventions are a proper subset of the
conventions governing social interactive behavior and therefore that language
should be approached within a communicative framework rather than a mental-
istic one. Interestingly, Chomsky’s claim that “Actual investigation of language
necessarily deals with performance, with what someone does under specific cir-
cumstances” (Chomsky 1980: 225), taken together with other things said about
“performance”, suggests that he himself recognizes that at least one source for
language data is the act of utterance, in other words, language used for commu-
nication.
The point of this discussion about the essential function of language (which
gives a reason for its existence) is that it offers an alternative point of view about
the object of analysis for linguistic theory. Rather than modeling the idealized
speaker-hearer’s knowledge of language, which is a mental state KL, a linguistic
theory should directly model a language L, which is the abstract object that KL is
knowledge of. This same abstract object L is what is used in the social contract
304 K. Allan

between interlocutors that Saussure spoke of. The language data that form the
object of analysis are public, whereas mentalistic data are not (even if their
manifestations sometimes are). The language data, which are normally the
product of communicative acts between language users, can be directly compared
with products of the theory of language.
The view that language data are typically the product of communicative acts
between language users is compatible with the view that language is a system for
the expression of thought. Some people think in visual images, so language is not a
prerequisite for solipsistic thinking. But, beyond the simplest level, language is
absolutely essential for the expression of thought to others. Whether and how one
expresses a particular thought to a particular other is determined, more often than
not, by a judgment of the desired effect on the hearer or reader. Within human
society, the kind of food you eat, the clothes you wear, the things people know that
you own, your religion and ideology are components of cultural expression that
communicate information to others about you and are therefore of potential in-
terest to semioticians. We speak of “natural language” because human language
has evolved with the species and not been consciously constructed. Nevertheless,
natural language uses non-natural signs in the sense that there is no natural
connection between form and meaning. For example, none of the translation
equivalents ájá (Yoruba), cane (Italian), dog (English), Hund (German), kare
(Hausa), mbwa (Swahili), pies (Polish) is naturally representative of dogs or of their
distinctive properties. Thus Grice 1957 refers to language meaning as “non-natural
meaning” or “meaningNN”. Natural signs are referred to in nostrums like Where
there’s smoke, there’s fire; Those clouds mean rain; Red sky at night, shepherds’
delight; red sky in the morning, shepherds’ warning. Natural signs needn’t involve
language at all: wet pathways outside your house mean that it has been raining.
The study of signs, natural and non-natural, is semiotics and many people believe
that linguistics is a part of semiotics. I assume that language is an aspect of culture
and cultural transmission; but so too are gender roles, clothing, chattels, and food.
On many occasions language is best interpreted in the context of the speaker’s (or
writer’s) cultural background, i. e. in the light of his or her belief system and
probable assumptions (cf. Allan 2018). The physical and social distance main-
tained between interlocutors, where their gaze is directed, the management of
terms of address and reference to others, notions of appropriate discourse, the
perception of silence, the indicators of intention to speak, voice quality – all these
are (sub)culturally conditioned and vary between speech communities even within
one society (cf. Tannen 1990). The cultural norms guide behavior, and so a
speaker’s observation or modification of them communicates by contributing to
meaning in human languages.
 Linguistics and communication 305

5 The origins of human language

In this section, I embark on a different tack: what light do the origins of human
language throw on the motivation for creating language? I conclude that the best
evidence suggests it was to facilitate communication among human beings in
social interaction.
It is probable that human beings have speculated on the origin of language
since prehistoric times. On the basis of sound symbolism, Socrates in Plato’s
Cratylus (c. 385 BCE) attributes the creation of language to a wordsmith, nom-
othetēs, or name-maker, onomatourgos; but he concludes by throwing doubt upon
the plausibility of such a hypothesis (Cooper and Hutchinson 1997). Epicurus
(341–270 BCE) rejected the idea of the name-maker, suggesting instead that humans
at first uttered cries as other animals do in reaction to their experiences of the
world; later, social pressures coerce humans to communicate purposefully with
each other by distinguishing referents using conventional symbols, but they also
make recourse to analogy and onomatopoeia enabling us to speak of absent en-
tities (Epicurus 1926). Like Epicurus, Lucretius (c. 95–55 BCE) believed that humans
are naturally predisposed to use language. It is in the nature of humans to vocalize
in order to achieve some goal; just look at the behavior of human babies and other
(non-human) creatures. Unlike Epicurus he explicitly denies that language was
invented by a single person (Lucretius 1951). Jumping forward to the seventeenth
century, inquiry into the nature and origin of human language grew from two
principal sources: interest in the nature of human reason and the search for a
scientific explanation for the accrued facts about human language. Although
belief in God remained strong throughout the period, the Genesis 11 story of the
tower of Babel was less and less taken at face value. The doctrine that “God gave
man languages” was altered to “God made man, and man invented language”.
Descartes had remarked that man was not merely the only rational being on Earth,
but also the only one with language (Descartes 1968: 74f [1637]). Both claims need
hedging. There seems little doubt that some animals are capable of limited
reasoning, and a few even have communication systems that may warrant the label
language. However, human reasoning abilities and human language are un-
doubtedly far more complex than anything found among animals. Descartes did
not, of course, have access to all the twentieth century research on animals that
demonstrates their abilities (e. g. Byrne 1995; Cheney and Seyfarth 1990; Dunbar
1996; Whiten and Byrne (eds) 1997). In his Essay Concerning Humane Under-
standing, Locke 1700 presents the motivation for language as arising from the
sociable nature of humans; but what characterizes human language is that it is
used to communicate ideas, and not merely to indicate objects in the situation of
306 K. Allan

utterance. Continuing to improve on Epicurus, Locke suggests that part of the

evidence for this is the human ability to use general (generic) terms, universals,
and also to speak of what does not exist and/or is absent. Condillac 1746, Rousseau
1755, 1782, and Herder 1772, 1799 all believed that the force that generates language
also generates thought. Humans share with beasts the ability to make utterances;
the difference is that human reason has assigned functions to certain forms of
utterance and so humans have developed artificial vocal gestures as conventional
symbols. Herder apparently believed that thought needs language, as did Leibniz
(1646–1716) and the German Romantic Johann Hamman (1730–88) (Brown 1967:
58–61); subsequently, Chomsky 1975: 56f and Chomsky 1980 229f, 239 reached a
similar conclusion.7 Herder 1799 wrote that thinking is innere Sprache “inner
speech”; and talking is thinking aloud. There is something of this in the twelfth
century remark of Peter Abelard: “sermo generatur ab intellectu et generat intel-
lectum” “language is generated by the mind and creates understanding” (Müller
1861: 41 and Joseph 1996: 365, inter alios8). In Herder’s view “man is a listening, a
noting creature, naturally formed for language” (Herder 1953: 765) and “without
language man can have no reason, and without reason no language” (Herder 1953:
758f).
For most of the twentieth century, linguists eschewed speculation on the
origin of language. Interest revived with the interchange of information among the
fields of linguistics, primatology, palaeoanthropology, evolutionary biology,
neurology, and psychology at the end of the century. Human language is certainly
different in kind from animal communication in its complexity, its media (speech,
writing, signing), and perhaps its cooperative constraints. There is little doubt that
animals are cognizant and store information about the world around them. The
evolutionary foundations of semantics and pragmatics

lie in the internal mental representations that animals have of the things, events, and
situations in their environment. […] Rudimentary concepts, ideas, and situations in the
world, can reasonably be said to exist in animals’ minds, even though they may not ever be
publicly expressed in language, or indeed in any kind of communication whatsoever.
(Hurford 2007: 5).

Judging from areas of brain activity, animals re-run episodes from past experience in
rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, just as humans do. There is also the fact that many
animals hide and later retrieve food. Like humans older than three, some higher
animals are able to reason their way through the invisible displacement task: what

7 By way of contrast, Humboldt 1836, Saussure 1931, Sapir 1929; 1949, and Whorf 1940; 1941 all
believed that thought is shaped by language.
8 I have been unable to find this quote myself in any work by Abelard. Everyone cites Müller.
 Linguistics and communication 307

happens is that an object in sight of the animal is placed inside a box which is then
moved behind an obstacle at which time the object is removed; the animal is shown
the empty box which causes it to look behind the obstacle for the missing object.9
Furthermore, animals “are capable of proposition-like cognition” (Hurford 2007:
88). They not only recognize different kinds of predators but have different alarm
calls for them; and even chickens are smart enough not to bother making alarm calls
when there are no conspecifics around! There is some evidence that individual
animals modify the sounds and gestures they make to differentiate themselves from
others (Hurford 2007: 181). “[I]t is probable that uniquely complex human language
could not have evolved without the social ritualized doing-things-to-each-other
scaffolding found in many other social species, including our nearest relatives, the
primates” (Hurford 2007: 185). As already emphasized in this essay, despite
Chomsky’s belief that language is primarily a system for the expression of thought,
all evidence points to its primary function being a medium of communication for the
establishment and maintenance of social interactive behavior among members of
large communities. Human society demands long-term cooperation and commu-
nication which is partly motivated by the difficulties of human childbirth10 and the
long childhood dependence to allow for brain development and skills learning.
Cooperation requires trust; consequently, gossip about who is trustworthy is valu-
able within the community. “The integration of deixis and symbols is the basis of
declarative information-giving. The growth of symbolic vocabulary, and the in-
crease in deictic/symbolic integration, can only take off if the animals concerned are
disposed to give each other information.” Which is what must have happened
among our remote ancestors (Hurford 2007: 242). The meaningful aspect of human
language had firm foundations before Homo sapiens developed.
Primates display many pre-language capabilities which would presumably
have been present in early hominids. They vocalize and use gestures that invite
reciprocation – but do not vocalize in the absence of emotional stimulus (Corballis
2003: 202). Chimpanzees seem to have a “theory of mind”; that is, they can
recognize three or even four levels of intentionality such as “X is trying to deceive
me into believing that p” or “X is trying to deceive me into believing that X believes
that p” – which is about what a four-year-old human can manage (Dunbar 1996:
83–101). In captivity, primates can be taught to associate abstract symbols with
entities or actions, but apparently don’t do so in the wild. In experimental situa-
tions they are capable of simple syntactic structuring (Savage-Rumbaugh et al.

9 It is thought that children logically deduce the answer whereas animals associate the last seeing
with a certain location and go looking in that location. This is a task that must use mental
representation of relative location/space in memory rather the scene directly perceived.
10 A function of the narrow birth-canal that results from bipedality.
308 K. Allan

1998). Primates certainly recognize social relationships (Worden 1998: 152) and
know how to establish joint attention (Hurford 2003: 47) – which is a prerequisite
for language use (Clark 1996: 274–82). Importantly, they display cooperative
behavior such as reconciliation and peacemaking for the maintenance of group
cohesion; and group bonding is achieved through grooming. Primate social groups
that devote too little time to grooming fragment and are liable to dissolve (Dunbar
1996, 1998). Non-human primates do not, however, have the respiratory, phona-
tory, and articulatory ability to speak; nor do they have the cognitive specialization
for language. The consensus seems to be that from c. 500,000–400,000 BP, Homo
erectus and H. sapiens neanderthalensis could probably speak after a fashion,
using what Bickerton 1998 calls “protolanguage”, in which “there might have
existed only two types of linguistic entities: one denoting thing-like time stable
entities (i. e. nouns), and another one for non-time stable concepts such as events
(i. e. verbs)” (Heine and Kuteva 2002: 394). As early as 170,000 BP H. sapiens or as
late as 50,000 BP H. sapiens sapiens would have had linguistic abilities similar to
those of today’s human beings.
There is much controversy over the part that gesture plays in language;
McNeill and Levy 1982 show that gestures used when speaking are precisely
synchronized with speech, suggesting that speech and gesture form an integrated
system. This leaves to be explained why human language is primarily vocal. The
most convincing explanation is that of Dunbar 1996: hominid language replaced
the kind of grooming found among other primates. Primates spend 10 to 20% of
their time grooming one another. It is usually one-on-one, occasionally two or
more on one. What it cannot be is one groomer to many groomees. There is a link
between neocortex size and social group size that applies to humans as well as to
other primates: human neocortex capacity correlates with a group of about 150
members, which turns out to be the normal size of communities that share good
knowledge of all group members in both traditional and post-industrial societies
(Dunbar 1998: 94f). Social understanding seems to be an innate predisposition:
“whilst our genes do not determine our ability to understand and interact with
other people, they play a strong role in the development of social understanding,
and, via this, may ultimately exert a long term and pervasive influence on many
aspects of our social lives” (Hughes and Plomin 2000: 61). A cross-cultural com-
parison shows that, like other primates, humans spend on average about 20% of
their waking hours in social interaction. In order to maintain the bonds that our
fellow primates maintain through grooming, humans use language for commu-
nication; this enables one-to-many bonding as a speaker addresses a number of
hearers. So, the grooming hypothesis is a very plausible motivation and expla-
nation for the development of spoken language. There is added plausibility in the
fact that the primary functions of language are social interactive. Reviewing
 Linguistics and communication 309

situations in which children create a language where there was none before,
Jackendoff 2002: 100 concludes: “Evidently a community is necessary for language
creation, but a common stock of pre-existing raw material is not.”11 Exchange of
information is secondary, though extremely valuable. And information exchange
normally has social interactive accompaniment and modifiers. Whereas other
species depend on direct personal observation for information about their fellows,
by using language “humans can find out very rapidly about the reliability of an ally
or about a friend’s good or bad behavior via third parties” (Dunbar 1998: 96). Once
again, this confirms the social interactive value of language use for communica-
tion among human beings.

6 Linguistics and communication

We have seen that the scope of communication is much greater than language; even
human communication extends beyond human language. I have presented evi-
dence that the primary function of language is to be a vehicle for communication
among humans. I leave it to the reader to recognize that communication between
humans and animals, plants, or metaphysical entities such as gods is parasitic on
this. So, language is a proper part of communication, but because human language
is one of the properties that define what it is to be human and our extensive use of
language distinguishes us from other creatures, human language is easily the
salient category of communication for human beings. Communication is defined
by pragmatic spatiotemporally realized acts; certainly, linguistics studies these,
but in addition – as I have argued in Section 4 – linguists theorize about language
as an emic or abstract entity. Linguistics develops tools that we use to gauge
correctness, appropriateness, grammaticality, political correctness, common
ground, and so on, in human communication. If we gloss linguistics as the study of
the human ability to produce and interpret language then its importance within
communicology is as the study of the salient category of communication among
humans – which is, of course, of primary importance to us anthropocentric
members of H. sapiens sapiens.

Acknowledgments: I have benefitted greatly from the comments of several

friends on earlier versions of this essay. I should like to thank Barry Blake, Mike
Balint, Alessandro Capone, Pedro Chamizo, Adam Głaz, Istvan Kecskes, Finex
Ndhlovu, Mohammad Salmani Nodoushan, and Roberto Sileo, for their helpful

11 Jackendoff is an acolyte of Chomsky, but here he reveals himself to believe that a primary
motivation for language is communication.
310 K. Allan

comments. I did not always take their advice, so all remaining infelicities are
mine alone.

References
Allan, Keith. 1986/2014. Linguistic meaning. 2 vols. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. [Reprint
edn, Beijing: World Publishing Corporation, 1991. Reissued in one volume as Routledge
Library Editions: Linguistics Volume 8, 2014].
Allan, Keith. 2001. Natural language semantics. Oxford & Malden MA: Blackwell.
Allan, Keith. 2013a. Referring to ‘what counts as the referent’: a view from linguistics. In
Alessandro Capone, Franco Lo Piparo and Marco Carapezza (eds.), Perspectives on linguistic
pragmatics, 263–284. Cham: Springer.
Allan, Keith. 2013b. What is common ground?. In Alessandro Capone, Franco Lo Piparo and Marco
Carapezza (eds.), Perspectives on linguistic pragmatics, 285–310. Cham: Springer.
Allan, Keith. 2015. A benchmark for politeness. In Jacob L. Mey and Alessandro Capone (eds.),
Interdisciplinary studies in pragmatics, culture and society, 397–420. Cham: Springer.
Allan, Keith. 2016. What is linguistics? In Keith Allan (eds.), Routledge handbook of linguistics,
1–16. Abingdon: Routledge.
Allan, Keith. 2018. Getting a grip on context as a determinant of meaning. In Alessandro Capone,
Marco Carapezza and Franco Lo Piparo (eds.), Further advances in pragmatics and
philosophy. Part 1. From theory to practice, 177–201. Cham: Springer.
Allan, Keith. 2020. The semantics and pragmatics of three potential slurring terms. In Kerry
Mullan, Bert Peeters and Lauren Sadow (eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural
semantics, and intercultural communication: Ethnopragmatics and semantic analysis,
163–183. Singapore: Springer.
Baker, Robert. 1770. Reflections on the english language. London: J. Bell.
Bickerton, Derek. 1998. Catastrophic evolution: The case for a single step from protolanguage to
full human language. In James R. Hurford, Michael Studdert-Kennedy and Chris Knight (eds.),
Approaches to the evolution of language: Social and cognitive bases, 341–358. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston.
Botha, Rudolf P. 1980. Methodological bases of a progressive mentalism. Synthese 44(1). 1–112.
Botha, Rudolf P. 1982. On Chomskyan mentalism: a reply to Peter Slezak. Synthese 53(1). 123–141.
Botha, Rudolf P 1992. Twentieth century conceptions of language: The metaphysics market.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Brown, Roger L. 1967. Wilhelm von Humboldt’s Conception of Linguistic Relativity. The Hague:
Mouton.
Burton-Roberts, Noel & Philip Carr. 1999. On speech and natural language. Language Sciences
21(4). 371–406.
Byrne, Richard W. 1995. The thinking ape: Evolutionary origins of intelligence. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Cheney, Dorothy L. & Robert M. Seyfarth. 1990. How monkeys see the world: Inside the mind of
another species. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 1975. Reflections on language. New York: Pantheon Books.
 Linguistics and communication 311

Chomsky, Noam. 1976. On the biological basis of language capacities. In R.W. Rieber (eds.), The
neuropsychology of language: Essays in honor of Eric Lenneberg, 1–24. New York: Plenum
Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 1980. Rules and representations. New York: Columbia University Press.
Chomsky, Noam. 1986. Knowledge of language: Its nature, origin, and use. New York: Praeger.
Clark, Herbert H, Robert Schreuder & Samuel Butterick. 1983. Common ground and the
understanding of demonstrative reference. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior
22(2). 245–258.
Clark, Herbert H. 1996. Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Condillac, Étienne Bonnot De. 1746. Essai sur l’origine des connoissances humaines. Ouvrage où
l’on réduit à un seul principe tout ce qui concerne l’entendement humain. 2 vols. Amsterdam:
Pierre Mortier.
Cooper, John M. & Douglas S. Hutchinson (eds.). Plato: Complete works. 1997. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Corballis, Michael C. 2003. From hand to mouth: The gestural origins of language. In Morten H.
Christiansen & Simon Kirby (eds.), Language evolution, 201–218. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Cottier, Fabien & Fritz A. Mühlschlegel. 2012. Communication in fungi. International Journal of
Microbiology. 1–9, 351832. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/351832.
Descartes, René. 1968. Discourse on method and meditations. Transl. by F.E. Sutcliffe.
Harmondsworth: Penguin. [Discours de la methode first published 1637, Meditationes de
Prima Philosophia first published 1641].
Dunbar, Robin I.M. 1996. Grooming, gossip and the evolution of language. London: Faber and
Faber.
Dunbar, Robin I.M. 1998. Theory of mind and the evolution of language. In James R. Hurford,
Michael Studdert-Kennedy & Chris Knight (eds.), Approaches to the evolution of language:
social and cognitive bases, 92–110. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Einstein, Albert. 1973. Ideas and opinions. Laurel edn. New York: Dell. [First published 1954].
Elhakeem, Ali, Dimitrije Markovic, Anders Broberg, Niels P. R. Anten & Velemir Ninkovic. 2018.
Aboveground mechanical stimuli affect belowground plant-plant communication. PLOS One
13(5). e0195646. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0195646.
Epicurus. 1926. Epicurus: The Extant Remains. Short critical apparatus, translation, and notes by
Cyril Bailey. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Fodor, Jerry A. 1985. Some notes on what linguistics is about. In Jerrold J. Katz (eds.), The
Philosophy of linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gold, Harvey J. 1977. Mathematical modeling of biological systems - an introductory guidebook.
New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Grice, H. Paul. 1957. Meaning. Philosophical Review 66. 377–388.
Harman, Gilbert. 1980. Two quibbles about analyticity and psychological reality. Behavioral and
Brain Sciences 3(1). 21–22.
Heine, Bernd & Tania Kuteva. 2002. On the evolution of grammatical forms. In Alison Wray (eds.),
The transition to language, 376–397. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Herder, Johann G. Von. 1772. Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache. Berlin: C.F. Voss.
Herder, Johann G. Von. 1799. Verstand und erfahrung, eine metakritik zur kritik der reinen
vernunft. Mannheim: Bei Johann Friedrich Hartknoch.
Herder, Johann G. Von. 1953. Abhandlung über den Ursprung der Sprache. In Karl-Gustav Gerold
(eds.), Johann gottfried herder: Werke in zwei bänden, 733–830. München: Carl Hanser
Verlag.
312 K. Allan

Hughes, Claire & Robert Plomin. 2000. Individual differences in early understanding of mind:
genes, non-shared environment and modularity. In Peter Carruthers & Andrew
Chamberlain (eds.), Evolution and the human mind, 47–61. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Humboldt, Wilhelm Von. 1836. Einleitung. Über die verschiedenheit des menschlichen
sprachbaues und ihren einfluss auf die geistige entwickelung des menschengeschlechts. In
Über die Kawi-Sprache auf der Insel Java. Erster Band. Berlin: Druckerei der Königlichen
Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Hurford, James R. 2003. The language mosaic and its evolution. In Morten H. Christiansen & Simon
Kirby (eds.), Language evolution, 38–57. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hurford, James R. 2007. Language in the light of evolution 1: The origins of meaning. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Itkonen, Esa. 1978. Grammatical theory and metascience: A critical investigation into the
methodogical and philosophical foundations of ’autonomous’ linguistics. Amsterdam: John
Benjamins.
Jackendoff, Ray S. 2002. Foundations of language: Brain, meaning, grammar, evolution. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Joseph, John E. 1996. The immediate sources of the ‘Sapir-Whorf hypothesis’. Historiographia
Linguistica 23(3). 365–404.
Karban, Richard. 2015. Plant sensing and communication. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Katz, Jerrold J. & Paul M. Postal. 1991. Realism versus conceptualism in linguistics. Linguistics and
Philosophy 14 (5). 515–554.
Katz, Jerrold J. 1981. Language and other abstract objects. Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield.
Leibniz, Gottfried W. 1765. Oeuvres Philosophiques latines et francoises de feu Mr. De Leibnitz.
Amsterdam: Rudolf Raspe.
Leonhardt, Sara D, Florian Menzel, Volker Nehring & Thomas Schmitt. 2016. Ecology and evolution
of communication in social insects. Cell 164(6). 1277–1287.
Locke, John. 1700. Essay concerning humane understanding. 4th edn. with large additions. 4 vols.
London: Awnsham and John Churchil et al. [First edn, 1690].
Lucretius, Titus. 1951. On the Nature of the Universe. Transl. by Ronald Latham. Harmondsworth:
Penguin.
McNeill, David & Elena Levy. 1982. Conceptual representations in language activity and gesture. In
Robert J. Jarvella & Wolfgang Klein (eds.), Studies in deixis and related topics, 271–295.
Chichester: John Wiley.
Müller, F. Max. 1861. Lectures on the science of language, delivered at the Royal Institution of Great
Britain in April, May, & June 1861. London: Longmans Green & Co.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1755. Discours sur l’origine et les fondemens de l’inégalité parmi les
hommes. Amsterdam: Marc Michel Rey.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. 1782. Les confessions de J.J. Rousseau, suivies des rêveries du
promeneur solitaire. 2 vols. Geneve: Société Typographique.
Sapir, Edward. 1929. The status of linguistics as a science. Language 5(4). 207–214. Reprinted in
Selected Writings of Edward Sapir in Language, Culture and Personality, ed. by David G.
Mandelbaum, Berkeley: University of California Press. 1949. 160–66. Also in Culture,
Language and Society: Selected Essays, ed. by David G. Mandelbaum, Berkeley: University of
California Press. 1956. 65–77.
Sapir, Edward. 1949. Language: An introduction to the study of speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace
& World. [First published 1921].
 Linguistics and communication 313

Saussure, Ferdinand De. 1931. Cours de linguistique générale. Publié par Charles Bally et Albert
Sechehaye avec la collaboration de Albert Riedlinger. 3rd edn. Paris: Payot. [First edn
published 1916].
Savage-Rumbaugh, Sue, Stuart G. Shanker & Talbot J. Taylor. 1998. Apes, language, and the
human mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
Stalnaker, Robert C. 2002. Common ground. Linguistics and Philosophy 25(5/6). 701–721.
Tannen, Deborah. 1990. You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation. New York:
William Morrow.
Whiten, Andrew & Richard W. Byrne (eds.). 1997. Machiavellian intelligence II: Extensions and
evaluations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Whorf, Benjamin L. 1940. Linguistics as an exact science. Technology Review (M.I.T.) 43. 61–63,
80–83. Reprinted in Benjamin L. Whorf. Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of
Benjamin Lee Whorf. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. 1956. 220–232.
Whorf, Benjamin L. 1941. The relation of habitual thought and behavior to language. In Leslie Spier
(eds.), Language, culture and personality, 75–93. Menasha WI: Sapir Memorial Publication
Fund. Reprinted in Benjamin L. Whorf. Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of
Benjamin Lee Whorf. Cambridge MA: MIT Press. 1956. 134–159.
Winnans, Stephen C. & Bonnie L. Bassier, (eds.). 2008. Chemical communication among bacteria.
Washington, DC: ASM Press.
Worden, Robert. 1998. The evolution of language from social intelligence. In James R. Hurford,
Michael Studdert-Kennedy & Chris Knight (eds.), Approaches to the evolution of language:
Social and cognitive bases, 148–166. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bionote
Keith Allan
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
[email protected]
Keith Allan MLitt, PhD (Edinburgh), FAHA. Emeritus Professor, Monash University and Honorary
professor at University of Queensland. Research interests focus mainly on aspects of meaning in
language, with a secondary interest in the history and philosophy of linguistics. He has published
on the topics of censorship, discourse analysis, dysphemism, euphemism, grammaticalization,
jargon, language policy, linguistic metatheory, morphology, politeness, pragmatics, prosody,
psycholinguistics, semantics, sociolinguistics, speech act theory, syntax, and taboo. Homepage:
http://users.monash.edu.au/∼kallan/homepage.html.