John Haiman, Talk is cheap: Sarcasm, alienation, and the evolution of language. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Pp. ix, 220. Hb $40.00, pb $18.95.

Abstract

In this “idiosyncratic personal essay,” Haiman applies his formidable erudition and powers of social observation to questions that North American linguists in general are, unfortunately, content to ignore: the evolutionary origins and historical development of metalanguage, i.e. the property of language that allows us to say “that which is not,” including something other than what we “really” mean. The interdisciplinary nature of this project – engaging evolutionary biology, anthropology, and psychology, in addition to virtually all the traditional subfields of formal/theoretical linguistics – makes it an especially pioneering work, and represents a theoretical overture which, I hope, other linguists and social scientists of all stripes will follow up.