Pantomimic Conceptions of Language Origins

Abstract

Could pantomime have been the key step in the evolutionary emergence of symbolic communication? Such a possibility has been consistently present in the intellectual reflection on language origins. What makes pantomime interesting from this perspective is its rich expressive potential, since it can convey open-ended, semantically universal and displaced meanings without relying on semiotic conventions, so that spontaneous pantomimes can be recognized as such and successfully interpreted. Definitions are important in classifying a particular scenario as “pantomimic”. In this chapter, we employ a ‘rich’ definition of pantomime: we describe it as bodily-mimetic communication which is non-conventional, improvised, performed with the whole body, holistic, communicatively and semantically complex. Based on this foundation, we review and evaluate pantomimic accounts of language origins, from the past to the present, and we particularly focus on the contemporary pantomime accounts given by Michael Arbib, Michael Tomasello, and Jordan Zlatev.