The Pre-Linguistic Infrastructure of Conventional Language: An Inquiry into the Path of Mead, Habermas and Tomasello

Abstract

This paper aims at 1) criticizing the self-sufficiency of human language taken as a conventional system of signs and showing
its vital roots; 2) exploring the “infrastructure” that supports the conventional human language. The first point focuses on the ideas of George Hebert Mead and Jürgen Habermas, who affirm that conventional language arises from a natural context. It is argued that both authors assume an unjustified breach between natural and conventional communication which leads them to
the presupposition that human conventional communication is self-sufficient. The second point discusses the proposal of Michael Tomassello, who bases linguistic meaning on a pre-linguistic structure shared to a large extent with our primate relatives.