IS PANTOMIME A LIKELY STAGE IN LANGUAGE EVOLUTION? EVIDENCE FROM HUMAN AND PRIMATE GESTURE

Abstract

Gestural origin of language theories (e.g. Corballis, 2002; Armstrong & Wilcox, 2007) have garnered increasing interest, fueled by studies of great ape gestural communication and primate mirror neurons. Gesture, particularly pantomime, has been suggested as a key stage of hominid communication before the codification of a shared symbolic system (Arbib, 2005). Pantomime is an attractive candidate because it can be understood without a conventional system and allows sharing of novel or absent events through iconic representation. Arbib (2005) proposes that increased imitation abilities in the human lineage (driven by hierarchical processing of action sequences) provided the foundation for iconic representation of action through gesture. This became the beginnings of pantomime. His proposal leads one to ask: what are the challenges in developing a pantomime-based system, and how early could this stage occur? To this end, we discuss acquisition and use of iconicity in human and ape gesture and point out difficulties in developing an iconic system. Iconic gesture is a powerful communicative and cognitive tool because it can represent objects and events outside of real-world acts. However, iconic gesture is a complex task even for modern humans, and involves a level of symbolic understanding beyond imitation. Pantomime-like gestures involving manipulation of imaginary objects are complex, and young children struggle with them (Overton & Jackson, 1973). Children do not use iconic gestures until near age three, well after they have acquired conventional gestures that rely on shared meanings. Furthermore, young children do not map iconic gestures to referents more quickly than conventional gestures, indicating that iconicity in gesture does not aid early stages of language learning (Namy et al., 2004). The relationship between language learning and language evolution must be