Michael Tomasello's Book 'On Origins Of Human Communication'

Critical review On Origins of Human Communication

Michael Tomasello ’s book, On Origins of Human Communication (2008), is the third book that concludes his extended analysis on social cognition, learning and use of language/ communication between humans and primates ( CV -Michael Tomasello). In this study Tomasello analyzes Paul Grice’s fundamental basis of cooperative human communication and links it to the joint structure of social interaction that we, as humans, use today. He finalizes his study by presenting three conclusions that summarize the evolution of the origins of human communication, these being as follows:

The fundamental idea behind cooperative human communication lies on the psychological framework of what he calls, shared

He begins this comparative by referencing Karl Buhler’s, Theory of language, to help the reader distinguish simple forms of gesture that chimpanzees use to request certain things. We must consider that principle of “requesting” as one of the three basic pre-linguistic social purposes of communication, the other two being “sharing” and “informing”. With this in mind we move onto chapter three where the psychological framework of cooperative communication in apes and humans (children and adults) is distinguished. Tomasello summarizes that although chimpanzees are attributed with the skill of requesting, human children are additionally able to share and inform, and by the time they’ve reached adulthood they will also know how to identify and work with cooperation norms. Therefore, it’s not until chapter three where, as a reader, his hypotheses regarding the principles of natural gestures, shared intentionality and conventional forms of communication started to make sense to

In both chapters –and throughout the book- Tomasello either forgot or didn’t consider other ape groups, such as the Gelada-Baboons (as oxford colleague, Robin Dunbar suggests), which would challenge Tomasello’s empirical research on the inflexibility of vocal skills in chimpanzees. Therefore, a really big issue of “confirmation bias” arises, which is when researchers select their data in order to coincide with their own hypothesis rather than challenge it and prove its