The Social Origins of Language

by Robert M. Seyfarth, Dorothy L. Cheney

2017 · Princeton University Press

How human language evolved from the need for social communication The origins of human language remain hotly debated. Despite growing appreciation of cognitive and neural continuity between humans and other animals, an evolutionary account of human language—in its modern form—remains as elusive as ever. The Social Origins of Language provides a novel perspective on this question and charts a new path toward its resolution. In the lead essay, Robert Seyfarth and Dorothy Cheney draw on their decades-long pioneering research on monkeys and baboons in the wild to show how primates use vocalizations to modulate social dynamics. They argue that key elements of human language emerged from the need to decipher and encode complex social interactions. In other words, social communication is the biological foundation upon which evolution built more complex language. Seyfarth and Cheney’s argument serves as a jumping-off point for responses by John McWhorter, Ljiljana Progovac, Jennifer E. Arnold, Benjamin Wilson, Christopher I. Petkov and Peter Godfrey-Smith, each of whom draw on their respective expertise in linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, and psychology. Michael Platt provides an introduction, Seyfarth and Cheney a concluding essay. Ultimately, The Social Origins of Language offers thought-provoking viewpoints on how human language evolved.

Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice

by Monica G. Turner, Robert H. Gardner

2015 · Springer

This work provides in-depth analysis of the origins of landscape ecology and its close alignment with the understanding of scale, the causes of landscape pattern, and the interactions of spatial pattern with a variety of ecological processes. The text covers the quantitative approaches that are applied widely in landscape studies, with emphasis on their appropriate use and interpretation. The field of landscape ecology has grown rapidly during this period, its concepts and methods have matured, and the published literature has increased exponentially. Landscape research has enhanced understanding of the causes and consequences of spatial heterogeneity and how these vary with scale, and they have influenced the management of natural and human-dominated landscapes. Landscape ecology is now considered mainstream, and the approaches are widely used in many branches of ecology and are applied not only in terrestrial settings but also in aquatic and marine systems. In response to these rapid developments, an updated edition of Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice provides a synthetic overview of landscape ecology, including its development, the methods and techniques that are employed, the major questions addressed, and the insights that have been gained.”