Language & meaning & evolution

I'm puzzling a bit over the Richard Byrne et al. study on orangutans which I read about in Dagens nyheter. The study is presented in the popular press as providing some clues about the evolution of (human) language. The finding of Byrne et al is that orangutans communicate their intentions in much the same way as that of humans participating in wordless charades. The idea is, I suppose, that charades illustrate a more "primordial" or "stripped-down" version of more "full-fledged" communication, and that charades therefore bring forth the most essential aspects of language and its relation to intentions and mutual understanding. Byrne et al conducted experiments in which orangutans were presented with two food options so that the apes would communicate which of these were the most desirable. They did this by means of gestures, and when the experiment conductors intentionally "misunderstood", the apes signalled that their message had not been received. When the apes got the food they wanted, they stopped gesturing.

"Although the communication sequences of the orangutans are perhaps not as sophisticated, they nonetheless accomplish the same objectives. By maximizing efficiency at searching for an understood signal and homing in on those that achieve partial success, orangutans are able to overcome misunderstandings. In the absence of a shared lexicon, one way of arriving at a shared meaning is to adopt a charades-like strategy, transmitting not only the content of the intended message but also a signal indicating how well you have been understood.

If the recipient can use this information, then the signaler and recipient will be able to arrive at a common understanding much faster. This strategy offers one possible pathway toward constructing a shared lexicon from learned or ritualized signals. Investigations into the structures of intentional communication by apes may therefore provide insight into the prelinguistic devices that helped construct the very earliest forms of hominid language." (source)

And:

"And the charades-like strategy illustrates how an individual in a prelinguistic society might still have been able to communicate their desires effectively." (source)

This assertion seems to rely on the conviction that meaning is founded on signs, gestures & symbols that have gained such a role that "successful understanding" is enabled. The gist of this story is a picture of language as successful communication of intentions. The orangutan in the Byrne experiments could be said to have something that is very similar to language because it makes itself understood by means of gestures. And the criteria of "having been understood" is something to the effect of "message received". However tempting this picture of language may be, it is, I would say, based on a mistaken or too simplistic idea. Instead of conceiving language as a practical means of getting across some piece of information, I would rather suggest that language is about having something to say in the context of a discussion (For that point, see Rush Rhees, Wittgenstein & the beginning of discourse). The more traditional view of language and meaning is that linguistic signs refer to something. In the example of the Byrne experiment, it's tempting to start to think of language as consisting of signs that somehow succeed to "point" at the intention of the gesturer. Linguistic understanding, in this sense, boils down to the fact that some signs succeed in this specific task - to convey intentions. One is quite inclined to think of this as the hard core of linguistic communication; the rest is ornaments, fluff, that builds upon this "message taken" idea.

The problem is of course that this idea emphasizes a very limited range of pictures of what we do when we talk and what understanding and misunderstanding is like. This point can be shown by reflecting on what role it has in the context of a specific discussion to say: "get to the point already!!" Sometimes this is an expression of my eagerness to hear your opinions on a specific subject matter, I am annoyed by your endless monologues on uninteresting things. But you might also find me to take the wrong attitude to the conversation. You are not trying to convey information, you are perhaps telling a story in which some specific fact is not important, but what you want to say concerns something else. Perhaps you tell me in what way you were hurt by the rude behaviour of another. I keep asking you to come to the "point", but in doing that, I am not really listening to what it is you say.

Even the idea of some hard core of language consisting in linguistic signs pointing at intentions of the speaker rests on a strange idea of inner intentions that are expressed in some outer machinery, language (or some pre-linguistic method of communication, as the quote above suggests). Of course, in some cases, it is quite fine to say that I am simply trying to get some message across. "My bus leaves half past, so I don't have much time." But even in these cases, the forms of misunderstanding is far richer than the message being "unsuccessfully delivered." "Oh, I know you're in a hurry, but let me finish my story...." "Understanding what is said" cannot be reduced to one form of communication.

I am not necessarily saying that apes "don't have language". I am venting some questions about what it means to say that somebody "has language". See here, for example, for an interesting account of language as relational, rather than referential.