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What about the increasing adaptive value of manipulative language use?

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Comtnentary on R. I. M.Dunbar (1993) Coevolution of neocortical size, group size and language in humans. BBS 16:681–735.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

David Kemmerer
David Kemmerer
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260. v323mv3n@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
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Abstract

Dunbar (1993) emphasizes the role of cooperative language use in the evolution of human linguistic capacity and neglects to consider the role that manipulative language use would have played. I argue that as group size and neocortieal size increased during human evolution, the adaptive value of using language to benefit oneself at the expense of others would also have increased. I discuss how selection pressures for manipulative language use would have operated in the contexts of mating, status striving, and social exchange.

Information

Type
Continuing Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 19 , Special Issue 3 , September 1996, pp. 546 - 548
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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