THE TRUTH ABOUT LANGUAGE: WHAT IT IS AND WHERE IT CAME FROM

Book ID/图书代码： 08136014B72203

English Summary/英文概要： If there is one thing that separates us from other animals it is language. Even our closest non-human relatives, the chimpanzee and bonobo, come nowhere near being able to talk as we humans do. They can’t gossip, tell stories, let us or their mates know what they plan for tomorrow, or explain how to make a tool. The apparent uniqueness of human language has led to the widely held belief that language must have been the result of a big-bang moment, whether a gift from the deity, a fortunate genetic mutation, or a byproduct of simply having a large and complicated brain.

In OUTSPOKEN, Michael Corballis shatters this view. Drawing on decades of experience at the forefront of cognitive science, he makes sense of the complexity of human language with the help of just one powerful idea: that language evolved as a gradual process, governed by natural selection. In an original synthesis of psychology, neuroscience, genetics and anthropology, he reveals how we learned first to speak with our hands, not our mouths, and why our advanced language skills depend not on a universal grammar or on the inherent wordiness of our thoughts, but on our ability to imagine the past and future and to understand what others are thinking. Language, in other words, is a device for sharing our thoughts, not thought itself. What’s more, Corballis argues that by understanding the stepwise progression of our capacity to tell stories and converse with others, we can see that the possibility of animals ’crossing the Rubicon of language’ may not be as farfetched as we had thought.

In the tradition of Steven Pinker’s The Language Instinct and Jonathan Gottschall’s The Storytelling Animal, OUTSPOKEN will make you reconsider our place in the world, and marvel at an ability we take for granted every day.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 如果世界上有一种东西能够将我们与动物区分开来，那一定是语言。即便是人类的近亲黑猩猩和倭黑猩猩，也无法像人类一般交谈。它们不能窃窃私语，无法讲述故事，无法让同伴知道它们对于明天的计划，甚至无法解释如何适用一种工具。人类语言最明显的特性使得人们普遍相信语言的产生来自于某一个重大的时刻，可能是来自神灵的礼物、一次幸运的基因变异，又或者拥有了一个大而复杂的大脑后的附属产品。在《直言无讳》一书中，迈克尔•考博利斯为我们颠覆了这一观点。他凭借自己在认知科学领域数十年的工作经验，通过一种强有力的理论进行支撑，重新为我们解读了复杂的人类语言：语言虽由自然选择支配，却是逐步进化发展的产物。他创造性地综合了心理学、神经科学、基因学和人类学知识，向我们揭示了我们是如何在最初阶段首先学会了用双手而非嘴巴去表达；以及我们语言技能的发展为何不取决于常规语法或是我们思维语言的一致性，而是取决于我们想象过去和未来以及理解其他人想法的能力。换句话说，语言是一种我们用以分享思维的工具，而非思维本身。更重要的是，考博利斯认为通过理解我们自己在讲述故事及与他人交流上的能力的不断提升与进步，我们便可以发现让动物“突破语言大关”其实也并非如我们所想象的那般遥不可及。

《直言无讳》不仅承袭了史蒂文•品客的《语言直觉》和乔纳森•高茨肖尔的《讲故事的动物》，它还将使你重新考虑我们在世界上的位置，并为这一我们每天都认为理所当然的语言天赋而重新惊奇不已。（DC）

Awards/获奖情况："In this wonderfully written book, distinguished scholar Michael Corballis interweaves arguments from cognitive psychology, neuroscience, paleontology, anthropology, genetics, primatology and linguistics to make a strong and timely statement: Chomsky’s view of language as an innate capacity for internal thinking leaves the question of the evolutionary emergence of language in the realm of mystery. Conceptualizing language as a socially constructed tool for the communication of experience, coupled with the hypothesis--made famous in From Hand to Mouth and seriously updated here--that spoken language emerged from manual gesture, turns the mystery into a scientific question, and allows for an elegant, detailed and thought-provoking account of how our ancestors crossed the Rubicon of language."--Daniel Dor, author of The Instruction of Imagination

"An insightful and engaging book that challenges traditional perspectives on the nature of language and its origin. Michael Corballis offers a compelling argument for the gradual evolution of what many regard as our most distinct faculty."--Thomas Suddendorf, author of The Gap

"The word ’truth’ in the title implies that there are misperceptions to be corrected. These include those of Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky who, in Why Only Us approach language and evolution with an undue emphasis on Merge and with no concern for mental time travel and the linkage of brain and hand whose importance is so engagingly emphasized by Corballis."--Michael Arbib, author of How the Brain Got Language

About the Author/作者介绍： 迈克尔•C•考博利斯是新西兰奥克兰大学一名功勋卓著的心理学教授。著有THE LOPSIDED APE （牛津大学出版社，1991），他是一名知名的演说家，不论听众是一般民众或是专业科学人士都能接受，并多次出现在电视机广播节目上。他是多个协会的荣誉会员，并为国际精神心理学协会会长，曾于诸多知名期刊杂志上发表文章，包括《自然》《科学》《美国科学》《美国科学家》《大脑》，以及专业的心理学和神经科学类期刊出版物，当然也包括一般类出版物如《时代周刊补刊》。

MICHAEL C. CORBALLIS is an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. The author of THE LOPSIDED APE (Oxford University Press, 1991) and FROM HAND TO MOUTH (Princeton University Press, 2002), he is a well-known speaker to both general and scientific audiences, and has made many television and radio appearances. An elected fellow of several societies and president of the International Neuropsychological Society, he has published in such well-known journals as Nature, Science, Scientific American, American Scientist and Brain, as well as in specialist psychology and neuroscience journals and in general publications such as The Times Literary Supplement.

Format:

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE

Sales in other countries/其他国家销售情况：

原文第一章内容：暂无

手稿：暂无

大纲：暂无