The Interaction Engine: Language in Social Life and Human Evolution

Stephen C. Levinson

doi:10.1017/9781009570343

The Interaction Engine

Language in Social Life and Human Evolution

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Stephen C. Levinson, Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik, The Netherlands

Publisher:: Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:: May 2025
Print publication year:: 2025
Online ISBN:: 9781009570343
DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009570343
Creative Commons:: This content is Open Access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence CC-BY-NC 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/creativelicenses

Subjects:: Evolution of Language, Language and Linguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics

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Communicative interaction forms the core of human experience. In this fascinating book Levinson, one of the world's leading scholars in the field, explores how human communicative interaction is structured, the demands it puts on our cognitive processing, and how its system evolved out of continuities with other primate systems. It celebrates the role of the 'interaction engine' which drives our social interaction, not only in human life, but also in the evolution of our species – showing how exchanges such as words, glances, laughter and face-to-face encounters bring us our greatest and most difficult experiences, and have come to define what it means to be human. It draws extensively on the author's fieldwork with speakers across multiple cultures and communities, and was inspired by his own experiences during the Covid lockdown, when humans were starved of the very social interaction that shapes our lives. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

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The Interaction Engine

Language in Social Life and Human Evolution

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Contents

The Interaction Engine
pp i-ii

The Interaction Engine - Title page
pp iii-iii

Copyright page
pp iv-iv

Dedication
pp v-vi

Contents
pp vii-vii

Figures
pp viii-ix

Tables
pp x-x

Preface
pp xi-xiv

1 - The Role of Social Interaction in the Human ‘Carrying Capacity’ for Language and Culture
pp 1-8

2 - Human Communication and the Interaction Engine
pp 9-29

3 - Universal Properties of Interaction
pp 30-53

4 - The Origin of the Interaction Engine and Its Role in Language Evolution
pp 54-106

5 - The Interaction Engine and Social Life
pp 107-148

6 - Conclusions
pp 149-167

References
pp 168-192

Index
pp 193-199

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The Interaction Engine

Language in Social Life and Human Evolution

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