Great-ape pragmatics

Organisers

• Richard Moore, University of Warwick

• Bart Geurts, University of Nijmegen

Invited speakers

• Catherine Crockford, CNRS Lyon and MPI Leipzig

• Marlen Fröhlich, University of Tübingen

• Erica Cartmill, UCLA 

Theme

In the past decade or two, empirical research has begun to show how non-human great apes communicate with one another. Our knowledge of great-ape semantics has advanced considerably and we are learning more about possible (pre-)syntactic elements of great-ape vocal and gestural communication. Moreover, evolutionary pragmatics — encompassing research on both the evolution of skills for pragmatic interpretation, and of pragmatically rich forms of communication — is now recognised as fundamentally important to language evolution research. However, while recent theoretical papers have sought to identify characteristic limitations on the pragmatic flexibility of chimpanzee communication, we still know very little about the pragmatics of great-ape communication and how it compares and contrasts with human pragmatics. This lack of knowledge hinders our understanding of the evolution of language.  

The objective of the workshop is to take stock of what is currently known about great-ape pragmatics, establish continuities and discontinuities between human and great-ape pragmatics, and discuss directions for future research.

Format

The workshop brings together five researchers from diverse backgrounds, all of whom are involved theoretical and/or empirical research on great-ape pragmatics. Each researcher will give a brief talk. The remainder of the workshop will consist of a panel discussion between these researchers, discussing the implications of their research for language evolution.