Posted: Apr 09, 2020 2:55 pm
1. The Bilingual Mind and What it Tells us About language and Thought - Aneta Pavlenko
2. Social Interaction and L2 Classroom Discourse - Olcay Sert
3. The Grammar of Knowledge: A Cross-Linguistic Typology - Alexandra Aikhenvald and R.M.W. Dixon (Eds.)
4. Rethinking Language, Mind, and World Dialogically : Interactional and Contextual Theories of Human Sense-Making – Per Linnel
5. Salvation - Peter F Hamilton
6. The Expression of Negation - Laurence R. Horn (Ed.)
7. Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind - Arthur Zajon
8. Bad Words and What They Say About Us - Philip Gooden
9 & 10. Tintin on the Moon - Herge
11. The East, the West and Sex: A History = Richard Bernstein
12. A Pragmatic Approach to English Language Teaching and Production - Lala U. Takeda and Megumi Okugiri (Eds.)
13. Salvation Lost - Peter F. Hamilton
14. The Written Language Bias in Linguistics: Its Nature, Origins and Transformations- Per Linnel
15. Who Cut the Cheese? A Cultural History of the Fart - Jim Dawson
16. Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue - John McWhorter
17. The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War and the Evolution of Us – Adam Rutherford
259 pp.
The author sets out to investigate how we are – on the one hand just animals, and at the same time utterly unique in the natural world. Many of the traits that are seemingly completely human have analogues in the animal world. Tool use is found quite widely in the natural world from chimps and bonobos to dolphins and crows. Although creating fire is a human preserve, some animals utilize naturally occurring fires in a strategic way (a species of bird in Australia has been observed picking up burning twigs and dropping them to create new fires- and then waiting for the exodus of small creatures to feast on).
No doubt to the disappointment of the weirdos from the Abrahamic faiths, homosexual behavior and masturbation are also widely found in the animal kingdom and sex for reasons other than reproduction is the norm in a variety of species (as well as humans).
Rutherford is eloquent, measured, insightful and wears his deep learning lightly.
Our animal origins are clear and our human traits are not as unique as was once thought, but differ vastly in scale and complexity from our animal cousins.
Towards the end of the book Rutherford discusses the fact that it is not brains and hands and hyoid bones and bipedalism and language that have been the root of our species’ success. It is the Gestalt combination of these traits (and others).
Alluded to but not discussed in depth was the fact of our species’ astonishing capacity for sociality. We live together in huge numbers, are constantly surrounded by strangers, but mostly manage to get along without too much conflict. Most of us in one way or another are constantly expending time effort and energy in ways which benefit others, often strangers who we will never meet. Shelves are stacked, roads paved, floors cleaned, books written, devices assembled, goods delivered and so on and we know that it is for the benefit of others who we don’t know.
There is a nice quote from Darwin (Descent of Man) on page 266:
‘As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to men of all nations and races.’
We are social in ways that are unknown in the animal world and it this sociality that makes us unique and uniquely successful.
(Overlooked by the author is also the matter of footwear (despite the cover illustration)…another uniquely human invention.
)
(Slightly different cover to my edition, hence different subtitle. I like my one better)
2. Social Interaction and L2 Classroom Discourse - Olcay Sert
3. The Grammar of Knowledge: A Cross-Linguistic Typology - Alexandra Aikhenvald and R.M.W. Dixon (Eds.)
4. Rethinking Language, Mind, and World Dialogically : Interactional and Contextual Theories of Human Sense-Making – Per Linnel
5. Salvation - Peter F Hamilton
6. The Expression of Negation - Laurence R. Horn (Ed.)
7. Catching the Light: The Entwined History of Light and Mind - Arthur Zajon
8. Bad Words and What They Say About Us - Philip Gooden
9 & 10. Tintin on the Moon - Herge
11. The East, the West and Sex: A History = Richard Bernstein
12. A Pragmatic Approach to English Language Teaching and Production - Lala U. Takeda and Megumi Okugiri (Eds.)
13. Salvation Lost - Peter F. Hamilton
14. The Written Language Bias in Linguistics: Its Nature, Origins and Transformations- Per Linnel
15. Who Cut the Cheese? A Cultural History of the Fart - Jim Dawson
16. Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue - John McWhorter
17. The Book of Humans: A Brief History of Culture, Sex, War and the Evolution of Us – Adam Rutherford
259 pp.
The author sets out to investigate how we are – on the one hand just animals, and at the same time utterly unique in the natural world. Many of the traits that are seemingly completely human have analogues in the animal world. Tool use is found quite widely in the natural world from chimps and bonobos to dolphins and crows. Although creating fire is a human preserve, some animals utilize naturally occurring fires in a strategic way (a species of bird in Australia has been observed picking up burning twigs and dropping them to create new fires- and then waiting for the exodus of small creatures to feast on).
No doubt to the disappointment of the weirdos from the Abrahamic faiths, homosexual behavior and masturbation are also widely found in the animal kingdom and sex for reasons other than reproduction is the norm in a variety of species (as well as humans).
Rutherford is eloquent, measured, insightful and wears his deep learning lightly.
Our animal origins are clear and our human traits are not as unique as was once thought, but differ vastly in scale and complexity from our animal cousins.
Towards the end of the book Rutherford discusses the fact that it is not brains and hands and hyoid bones and bipedalism and language that have been the root of our species’ success. It is the Gestalt combination of these traits (and others).
Alluded to but not discussed in depth was the fact of our species’ astonishing capacity for sociality. We live together in huge numbers, are constantly surrounded by strangers, but mostly manage to get along without too much conflict. Most of us in one way or another are constantly expending time effort and energy in ways which benefit others, often strangers who we will never meet. Shelves are stacked, roads paved, floors cleaned, books written, devices assembled, goods delivered and so on and we know that it is for the benefit of others who we don’t know.
There is a nice quote from Darwin (Descent of Man) on page 266:
‘As man advances in civilization, and small tribes are united into larger communities, the simplest reason would tell each individual that he ought to extend his social instincts and sympathies to all members of the same nation, though personally unknown to him. This point being once reached, there is only an artificial barrier to prevent his sympathies extending to men of all nations and races.’
We are social in ways that are unknown in the animal world and it this sociality that makes us unique and uniquely successful.
(Overlooked by the author is also the matter of footwear (despite the cover illustration)…another uniquely human invention.
) (Slightly different cover to my edition, hence different subtitle. I like my one better)