Growth points from the very beginning

David McNeill | Department of Psychology, University of Chicago

Susan D. Duncan

Jonathan Cole | University of Bournemouth and Clinical Neurological Sciences, Clinical Neurophysiology, Poole Hospital, U. K.

Shaun Gallagher | Department of Philosophy, University of Central Florida

Bennett Bertenthal | Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University

Early humans formed language units consisting of global and discrete dimensions of semiosis in dynamic opposition, or ‘growth points.’ At some point, gestures gained the power to orchestrate actions, manual and vocal, with significances other than those of the actions themselves, giving rise to cognition framed in dual terms. However, our proposal emphasizes natural selection of joint gesture-speech, not ‘gesture-first’ in language origin.

Keywords: social interaction, pantomime, gesture, growth point theory, thinking-for-speaking

Published online: 07 March 2008
https://doi.org/10.1075/is.9.1.09mcn

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Caselli, Maria Cristina, Pasquale Rinaldi, Silvia Stefanini & Virginia Volterra

2012. Early Action and Gesture “Vocabulary” and Its Relation With Word Comprehension and Production. Child Development 83:2 ► pp. 526 ff.

Ferretti, Francesco & Ines Adornetti

2021. Persuasive conversation as a new form of communication in Homo sapiens . Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 376:1824

Ferretti, Francesco, Ines Adornetti & Alessandra Chiera

2022. Narrative pantomime: A protolanguage for persuasive communication. Lingua 271 ► pp. 103247 ff.

Gallagher, Shaun

2018. In The Mystery of Rationality, ► pp. 83 ff.

Hall, Matthew L.

2017. Pros and cons of blurring gesture-language lines: An evolutionary linguistic perspective. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 40

McNeill, David

2015. In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, ► pp. 109 ff.

McNeill, David, Liesbet Quaeghebeur & Susan Duncan

2010. In Handbook of Phenomenology and Cognitive Science, ► pp. 519 ff.

Reno, Joshua

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Salo, Virginia C., Pier F. Ferrari & Nathan A. Fox

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Wacewicz, Sławomir, Przemysław Żywiczyński & Sylwester Orzechowski

2016. Visible movements of the orofacial area. Gesture 15:2 ► pp. 250 ff.

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