The emergence of human consciousness in the context of the evolution of language
Beyond Philology An International Journal of Linguistics, Literary Studies and English Language Teaching September 18, 2025 DOI: 10.26881/bp.2025.3.02 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that human consciousness can be understood as developing in tandem with the evolution of human speech, drawing on theory of mind, shared attention, the Recruitment Theory, and the Mirror System Hypothesis. Proposes that a set of characteristic mental features necessary for language evolution, consistent with Wacewicz and Żywiczyński (2015), most likely led to the emergence of consciousness. |
Abstract
The paper presents a proposal for perceiving the development of human consciousness as related to the evolution of human speech. It discusses the development of language in evolutionary terms, relying on the theory of mind (Premack and Woodruff 1978) – especially the phenomenon of shared attention (Tomasello 2019), the Recruitment Theory (Bickerton 2009) and the Mirror System Hypothesis (Arbib 2008). Furthermore, the emergence of speech as well as gradual changes, resembling in principle, the processes of biological evolution, are compared and used in order to account for the appearance of human consciousness. Furthermore, consciousness is discussed in relation to types of memory (Tulving 1985), and the relation of an individual to him or herself or to the world outside (Janczukowicz and Wenzel 2021). A set of characteristic mental features necessary for the evolution of language are drawn from these theories – consistently with those proposed by Wacewicz and Żywiczyński (2015) – and are argued as most likely to have led to the emergence of consciousness.