Language and Culture

Tomasello shows in Ch. 5 the significant role of language in the development of the human species. Essentially, language is a biologically adaptive capacity that the species homo sapiens has which allows for significant evolutionary and developmental processes to occur. By using and understanding language we move from a reflexive posture toward the environment to a creative one. We no longer need to always be on the defense, or experience life anew in each moment because of our capacity to categorize and generalize with our symbolic referents, called language.

Tomasello shows how the ages of 1-3 are important biologically for the development of language, and also how language is essentially a social phenomenon. We create symbolic referents for the purpose of communication. We communicate with one another because we see enough similarity in the other to deem them safe (as contrary to some primate groups) and deem them useful and worthy of the interaction.

This makes me think that Tomasello may have highlighted a significant point that separates humans from animals, namely, our capacity and application of language is beyond that of animals, biologically speaking, and as a result of this unique capacity, we have evolved culturally to where we are today. It's kind of an amazing thought to think that language may be a significant part of the key to our exciting evolution! To think that it plays such an important role! A question that follows, is whether we are capable of using language to develop the physiology of the brain in primates, such that they may be able to more sophisticatedly use language and develop their own culture to perhaps someday resemble more closely our own?