“Scholarly and accessible, From Signal to Symbol gives us language without miracles—a subtle, gradualist account of the evolution of language richly informed by scientific evidence. Come for the philosophical clarity and stay for the 'firelight niche'.”
Cecilia Heyes, Professor of Psychology, University of Oxford
“In this rich and valuable book, Planer and Sterelny defend a plausible account of the evolution of human communication embedded in a deeply informed, interdisciplinary account of hominin ethology. The book is full of both fascinating ideas and provocative challenges to existing views. It will reward careful study.”
Richard Moore, Professor of Philosophy, University of Warwick
“Once banned by the Linguistic Society of Paris, research on language origins is now a diverse and vibrant field of study. Planer and Sterelny provide an innovative and authoritative synthesis of this expansive literature, ranging from Formal Language Theory to the evolutionary importance of fireside chats. Eschewing miraculous 'single cause' explanations, they develop a meticulous and incremental account of the complex origins of human language that is sure to stimulate further research and provide a key reference for anyone interested in this rapidly developing field.”
Dietrich Stout, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Emory University
“[A] clear step forward....provides a plausible, empirically grounded account of language evolution in a captivating format, striking a difficult balance between brevity, clarity, and richness of documentation and detail....This is not a technical, specialist monograph, rather an accessible synthesis that offers enough 'big picture' to satisfy most generalist cognitive science readers, and enough details to keep connoisseurs turning (and annotating) the pages.”
Language and Cognition
