Marc D. Hauser (1996). The evolution of communication. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Pp. xiii+760.

Abstract

This volume impressively synthesises vast literatures from the fields of linguistics, bioacoustics, psychology, neurobiology, evolutionary biology, ethology and anthropology, and in the process raises a number of provocative questions regarding the contentious issue of human language origins. Because the book is so far-reaching, both in terms of the breadth of communicative phenomena which it covers and the depth in which it discusses them, a short review such as the present one can only scratch the surface of the wealth of information and ideas which it contains.

This book was written to fill a perceived need for a text covering a wide range of issues in comparative communication, for which it is certainly well suited. Those interested in the production and perception of auditory and visual signals, as well as in issues as diverse as evolutionary biology and cognitive psychology, will find it an easily readable – or browseable – piece of work. As Hauser notes, he has ‘attempted to write a book that is aimed primarily at the expert while being useful to those wishing to pick out pieces...for undergraduate and graduate instruction’ (p. 14). The book is successful along both lines. It is extremely well organised and well indexed, making it easy to select case studies relevant to specific communicative phenomena (e.g. audition, vocalisation, acquisition, signed languages, etc.) or particular species (humans, monkeys, anurans, birds, etc.). Particularly useful are the large number of graphics and illustrations, as well as conceptual ‘boxes’ which succinctly summarise key concepts or theoretical perspectives which may be unfamiliar to some readers (e.g. statistical information theory, neural tuning curves, source-filter theory and sexual selection theory, to name just a few).