Language and human uniqueness
Michael Tomasello thinks humans have moved beyond other animals' abilities to request and demand from other individuals to be able to inform others of their intentions and even to share their feelings. This (according to Tomasello) is not fundamentally because of an innate language module in the human brain (as per Chomsky), but because of a innate cooperative drive coupled with an ability to see things from the perspective of others (Theory of Mind). I found the book a bit repetitive in the end, but clear and convincing.
I have only just started this book, but know the author from various podcasts and online courses. The book is rather older now in the field of cognition (1997), but represents a rather novel approach to human uniqueness through language. Deacon rejects (as do many others) Chomsky's language module, but also does not think (contra many cognitive scientists) that the the complexity of the human brain alone can explain sufficiently the phenomenon of human language. As the title suggests, Deacon believes the human brain not only produced (some kind of) language, but that language itself helped develop the human brain over time. This seems to be compatible with Tomasello in that it is the symbolic use of language that is unique to humans, according to Deacon. And it is precisely this use of language that is necessary for Tomasello's informing and sharing.
This looks to be an attempt to bring the former book up to date:
A relevant MAP post can be found here:
And finally, what does it have to do with translation? I have some ideas, but would prefer to prompt a discussion. You don't even have to have read the books to comment. Relevance theorists may want to weigh in, as may semioticians. All are welcome.
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I very much like your point, Krijn. Thank you for your response. What concerns me is that there seem to be some built-in limits or even contradictions to theory of mind. Understanding the perspective of others in human social contexts mainly takes the form of in-group formation. Thus we create social and linguistic worlds in which we understand each other (or at least think we do) very well within the group, but do so at the expense of understanding/affiliating with others outside the group. Some form of this seems to be true even at the hormonal level: varying the amount of vasopressin in Montane and Prairie voles can actually change their mating strategies (see http://sciencenetlinks.com/science-news/science-updates/monogamous-voles/). And mother voles will become more nurturing to their offspring with increased vasopressin, but also more protective and aggressive toward outsiders. Natural affiliation always seems limited to a fairly small group, whether is humans or other animals. And the contradiction seems to exist also at the level of the myelinated connected networks our brains form. Some neuroscientists have claimed that "memory is the enemy of learning." That is, the better we "know" a certain thing (or individual), the less likely we will be to consider alternatives. The 10,000 hour rule (or simply brain development from birth to puberty) works as much to prune out "unneeded" neurons as as it does to myelinate the ones that it wants to keep. It comes back to an issue of how to value affiliation at the highest level ("love your enemy") and not let it be limited to just the in-group. I have tried to think about this elsewhere: https://map.bloomfire.com/groups/28732/posts/1065232-are-there-moral-spiritual-universals-in-biblical-cultures https://map.bloomfire.com/posts/645137-born-good-babies-help-unlock-the-origins-of-morality https://map.bloomfire.com/groups/28732/posts/913695-your-morals-depend-on-language Maybe your "omniscient narrator in Biblical narrative" can be a model for translators (not always, of course; sometimes the narrator seems quite provincial, even racist). Thanks again for your comments, Krijn.