Human Communication as an Extra-Biological Gift

When I began studying communication in college I came across a number of theories about the origins of human beings' communicative capacity. I was intrigued — and still am.

Most of these theories are naturalistic. They assume that it is possible today to account for the complexity of human communication biologically by examining the historical processes of natural selection and other bio-evolutionary dynamics. These theories — really only hypotheses — suggest that by examining communication among extant precursors to humankind we modern humans can locate the origins of our own verbal and nonverbal fluency.

For instance, anthropologists, linguists, and biologists have studied the great apes' use of vocalizations and gestures. Like common bird calls that signal danger, some chimpanzee gestures seem to be genetically fixed. When my wife and I go bird-watching, we hear the same bird calls from place to place, across the country. One common call is chickadees' warning, "CHICK'-a DEE DEE DEE." Recent research has determined that the number of "dees" after the "chicka" correlates with the level of danger. Since my wife and I don't want to frighten these fine creatures, we are comforted when nearby chickadees chant no more than two or three "dees" as we approach their territory.

But chimps, too, seem to be able to "read" other creatures' danger signals and then to signal to one another the associated threats. Since species-specific bird calls are not part of the chimps' own genetic makeup, they must learn to "interpret" the calls that birds use to signal possible danger. If true, this is remarkable.

When apes communicate with one another, they apparently use gestures more than vocalizations to signal complex messages. They can point to what they want, as if to say, "Gimme that." I don't know of any studies in which apes have been found to gesture what they don't want — like holding your nose to tell a friend that he or she stinks and ought to go somewhere else. But maybe these simple gestures are the beginning of more complex ones such as offering somebody a thumbs-up.

The research on linguistic or "spoken" language is more problematic. We humans tend to chat. Where two or more are gathered, conversation generally ensues. Some people seem to become so lonely when they don't have others to talk with that they turn on a TV or radio to comfort themselves with others' voices. Monkeys are chatterers, too. But not great apes, presumably the species that are genetically closer to humans. Apes often are content sitting around, occasionally offering each other gestures — or so it seems to human observers. The scientific consensus today suggests that "glottogenesis" (the beginning of speech) emerged from a preexisting gestural language system. In other words, nonverbal communication preceded verbal communication. I contemplate this thesis when I teach public speaking since I have to remind loquacious students about the importance of nonverbal communication (gestures!). Am I being evolutionarily regressive!?

All of this research, speculation, and theorizing about pre-human communication might not be so significant except that speech is an important dividing line between humans and the rest of the animal world. Somehow language seems to be either the key or one of the keys to humans' amazing capacities for memory, emotion, self-awareness, reason, religion, and the like. We humans not only speak and gesture. We try to figure out what it means to speak and gesture, how it works, how to do it better. We communicate about communication (often called "metacommunication").

Moreover, we formulate moral theories about when we should communicate and when we should keep our words and gestures to ourselves. Rather than just contemplating our own communication merely for evolutionary benefit, we also place upon ourselves various moral codes that challenge our own self-interest. Why not lie when deception will at least temporarily give us an advantage at work? Why not dominate dinner conversation to demonstrate how articulate we are? Why not remain silent even if our silence will cause someone else grief? Why not communicate selfishly for attention, affection, or pecuniary benefit?

If we can't yet say for certain precisely how human language "evolved," perhaps we can use our communicative ability to discuss with each other one thought worth contemplating: Communication is a gift.

You and I did not create our communicative abilities. We did not fabricate the capacity for gesturing or speaking, lying or truthtelling, remaining silent or speaking up on behalf of others. That ability was forged before we came along, before historical records. Communication is a gift that we have received and that we surely ought to pass along for the benefit of future generations.

A somewhat mysterious gift? Yes. At least I think so. I'm astonished that the ancient Hebrew scriptures captured God as a speech agent, not just a thinker, listener, or creator. Perhaps there is something extra-biological in humans' capacity to converse deeply, morally, and faithfully about nearly anything. Maybe even something extra-natural, supernatural. Like prayer, one of the most widely practiced forms of human communion with God on behalf of others.

The twentieth-century rhetorical critic and theorist Kenneth Burke wrote about human beings' symbol-using (and misusing) abilities. According to Burke, humans invented "the negative" (the capacity for moralizing, for saying "no" as well as "yes") and created their own, unnatural communications "instruments" (or media). In today's world, this is a compelling way to look at the origin of language as a purely human concoction. But as Burke adds, humans' symbol-using and symbol-misusing ability, when viewed from such a purely humanly creative standpoint, results in a strange conclusion; humans are "rotten with perfection." If we are a bit god-like (perfect) in our speech, we are also a bit devilish (rotten). We are simultaneously devils and angels.

While the research about the origins of language continues, we can still accept the gift, no matter how perfect or rotten the gift seems to make us at times. Generally speaking, gifts engender gratefulness even when they are not exactly what we wanted. We tend to be thankful enough to accept a gift because of the generosity of the giver. We don't just study the gift. We don't contemplate the motive of the giver — at least not usually. Instead we celebrate the gift and, if appropriate, use it well in order to reciprocate by honoring the giver.

So I offer thanks to my parents for teaching me the value of language. To the teachers who helped me learn how to speak and write well. To pastors and friends who guided me as an adult to use the gift as wisely as possible. Indeed, I offer thanks to all of those who contributed along the line, through the centuries and even millennia, to the forms of speaking and gesturing that equip us to know and love each other, near and far. May we all have enough grace to avoid rotten communication while never pretending perfection. Finally, and most mysteriously, thanks to the extra-biological instigator beyond and before the apes.

Communicative Diversity in the Information Age

Among the popular words of our day is "diversity." Writer and Kentucky farmer Wendell Berry, who refuses to own a computer, says that diversity is capacity. I experience that truth every time I write a book, plan a conference, or teach a class with others. We all can stretch our minds and deepen our hearts through the contrasting perspectives that we discover intentionally or accidentally.

But what should diversity include? What kinds of "differences" among people and cultures merit our study, understanding, appreciation, and perhaps even adoption?

Imagine diversity in terms of communication, especially the range of people we might interact with during the week. Most of us spend most of our time communicating with those who are like us. For instance, we feel more comfortable communing with people who share our social class, values, and beliefs. We prefer interacting with people who look like us, or at least dress like us.

My college students think of themselves as individuals, but by and large they dress alike. And speak alike. So do the faculty. I always chuckle when someone brings a toddler to campus. Students stand around watching and smiling as if they have never seen a child before. Suddenly their campus conformity is delightfully challenged.

By limiting our discourse with different others, we lack what I call "communicative diversity."

For instance, Christian worship services tend to be among the least diverse social gatherings if diversity is defined in terms of categories like race and ethnicity. Moreover, Christians segregate by doctrine as well as worship style. Understandably, few church communities see doctrinal diversity in a positive light. The easiest way to avoid being challenged about doctrine is gather together people committed to the same beliefs.

These sorts of religious exclusivism do suggest a lack of diversity. But they also indicate unity. Church historian Martin Marty once said about denominations, "We can't live with them and we can't live without them." Somehow we need unity as well as diversity in order to function as social beings. If our differences are too great, communication is virtually impossible. If we are too unified, we risk becoming complacent or tribalistic, even uncreative.

Most social groups that become too homogeneous naturally split apart as people seek fresh distinctions and new opportunities to grow, learn, and delight. When churches grow numerically, they frequently beget other congregations. Denominations divide. Occasionally they reunite. They accomplish all of this unity and diversity via the gift of communication, which equips them to define what they have in common and what they no longer want to have in common, who they are and who they are not collectively.

So unity and diversity are two sides of social life, the yin and the yang of schisms and reunifications. All groups, apparently because of human nature, go through such changes in their lives as they interact with others. In fact, the struggles over unity and diversity are part of what unifies all people. They are humanly universal aspects of living.

In the digital age, however, diversity is becoming more significant than unity to many people. We rarely hear public discourse about the need for unity. The media are abuzz instead with rhetoric about the need for diversity, such as multiculturalism.

Moreover, it seems that today we tend to view diversity almost "exclusively" in terms of existing differences among individuals and especially groups. We look across geography, from place to place, nation to nation, North and South, for diversity that might enhance out capacity. Rightly so.

Nevertheless, this view of diversity itself lacks diversity. Maybe a fuller, more robust view of diversity should include differences through time, from generation to generation, age to age. In the 1970s the anthropologist Margaret Mead wrote a book (Culture and Commitment) about the so-called "generation gap," arguing that whereas youth used to learn from the elders of their communities the tables were turning: Youth were beginning to teach elders about life (At least we know this is true about many technologies today!). Mead was rather optimistic about this diversity, wherein communication would flow influentially from younger to older persons, not just the traditional direction. But how diversifying is that kind of communication if youth's life experiences (their own diversity) are fairly limited? Caught up in the anti-establishment attitudes of the time, Mead never really addressed that issue.

Another way of viewing diversity is chronologically from century to century. In other words, we might generate human capacity if we commune with "different" people from past generations. This is what the word "tradition" has tended to mean in English, apart from more recent connotations that equate it with old-fashioned, antiquated, and even rigid cultures. From the Latin, the word suggests something of value that is passed along from generation to generation, people to people. The wise Catholic writer G.K. Chesterton picked up on this kind of age-old diversity when he wrote that tradition is "the democracy of the dead." Tradition can give the dead a voice in our current discourse. Traditional practices and beliefs can expand our discourse.

Perhaps this age of information should lead us to commune with the voices of the past available to us in the records that they have left behind. Age-old texts offer this type of communicative diversity. When I read Plato or Pascal, for instance, I get a sense (always imperfectly, partly because it's not easy to commune with the dead!) of what they valued, how they thought, what they believed. I also grasp, however imperfectly, the groups, movements and controversies of their day. Their communication with others in their day becomes a means for me to become more diverse in my day. I might accept or reject their ideas, often after critical discourse with my living friends and colleagues. But I do find nuggets of value in their words from long ago. I am often impressed. Even a bit jealous (no, very covetous) of their minds.

When St. Augustine says that a believer in God should be an "alleluia from head to toe," I want to contemplate his ancient wisdom. I seek to ponder anew, in the midst of today's busy and frightening world, what it might be like to be a person of walking, talking, working, playing gratitude. I wonder why I grumble as much as I do. Why I sweat the little things and overlook the cosmic picture of peace and beauty.

Then, with the help of my college librarians who are more linguistically gifted (diverse!) than I am, I discover that Augustine was really paraphrasing one of the ancient Hebrew psalms. He learned from others who were long gone. Suddenly I realize that I am the beneficiary of not only Augustine's diversity, but the ancient psalmist's, too. Maybe even King David himself. Of course Augustine was African. What a long, strange road to my own diversity training!

Today I can search many of Augustine's and David's writings online. If I have the time. And the commitment to diversity beyond the here and now. Perhaps this is a major calling for those of us committed to communicative diversity.