Human Nature and Language:

Sociolinguistic Theory and Mimetic Theory Connect

Christina Biava
Dept. of English, Southwest Missouri State University
Springfield, MO 65804

Mimetic Theory Background

Mimetic theory holds that a basic aspect of human nature is mimesis and its primary

effects: violence and the sacred/religion. Several theorists have presented strong

evidence for situating the origin of language in this early proto-brew of mimesis, violence,

and the sacred. Thus, signifying/language abilities should be added into this mix of

mimesis, violence, and the sacred to further define so-called “human nature,” as perhaps

all linguistics would. In this paper, I want to explore some basic sociolinguistic concepts

that support the idea of the origin of language abilities in the social group.

Language Resulted from Originary Violence

Both Rene Girard and Eric Gans see the linguistic sign developing from the originary

scene, albeit in different ways. Girard’s view is that language gradually developed out of

originary violence. He argues that the reenactment of the founding murder, which became

sacrificial ritual, must have been accompanied by vocalizations and chanting. With the

victim’s body as the original all-encompassing signifier, these proto-vocalizations eventually

became representational. What is essential to Girard is that representation only occurred

over a long period of development rather than instantaneously, similar to the development

of the sacred. He describes this in a 1996 interview with Markus Müller:

To make a long story short, the first representations to me would be false

representations of scapegoating, which are the sacred. . . . The sacred is right

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 there as a powerful experience that precedes representation but constantly moves

towards representation. And at a certain stage which of course cannot be defined

it must become a kind of representation. . . .

Moving towards representation would be an extremely slow process. . . . Before

representation, rituals and prohibitions would be born. . . . [and they] do not demand

full representation yet, just as the sacred does not demand an understanding of

scapegoating. . . . In other words, . . . in some way the process of the sacred and the

process that moves towards representation could be one and the same, but we

would need countless repetitions of rituals to bring it about. (2)

Girard describes this long process as a “genetic engine of representation”; one advantage

to seeing the development of representation as a long process is that it “avoid[s] the

philosophical dilemma of a sudden shift from non-representation to representation” (3).

Gans, on the other hand, sees the linguistic sign developing from the deferral of

violence brought about by “an abortive gesture” among groups of male proto-humans

gathered around a collectively killed animal, as they paused before “rending the victim.”

Mishler, in his 1999 Anthropoetics article, summarizes Gans:

Statis, produced by the countervailing energy of many desires in balancing

opposition to each other, opens a force field around the universally desired object,

and it is here that the sign is born. (4)

Gans argues that the original sign defers violence in the group rather than resulting from

group violence, as in Girard’s view. Also, Gans sees an almost instantaneous generation of

the sign rather than a long developmental process.

Thus, both Girard and Gans, then, see the sign as originating in a social setting. As

Girard puts it, “[T]he production of the sign is a collective enterprise, the result of an

unthinking collective frenzy” (Mishler 4), with prohibitions serving to separate the warring

individuals in order to keep them from falling into a mimetic crisis again (Muller 2). Gans,

too, of course, sees the group as the locus of the birth of representation.

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Language Developed in the Social Group
Thus, an essential outcome of the originary scene was the ability to differentiate.

In Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World, Girard describes this:

Because of the victim, in so far as it seems to emerge from the community and the

community seems to emerge from it, for the first time there can be something like

an inside and an outside, a before and after, a community and the sacred. (102 )

Gans, too, frequently refers to the differentiation between inner and outer.

Language must then have taken on a fundamental role in quelling mimetic desire in

groups, eventually helping early proto-people differentiate places, time—and each other.

We can see human grouping developing out of the originary violence—eventually the sacred

and the non-sacred, us and them, etc.

One basic argument among Origin of Language people today is about the early

function of language. Some argue that language’s communicative function must have been

evolutionarily favored; that is, that proto-people who could communicate where and when

to hunt, for instance, were more likely to survive than those who could not. I, however,

take the opposite view—that although the communicative function of language has

obviously been important, it was probably not the earliest function and so not the function

that helped get the “engine of representation” going in the first place, historically

speaking. In fact, one of the classic divisions of language functions was tripartite: the

communicative function, the social function, and the expressive function. Since they are

often listed in this order, it is easy to assume that an evolutionary process must have

proceeded like this. (In fact, in second language acquisition, this is more than implied—

there is strong evidence that as one learns a second language, one’s abilities to perform

these functions satisfactorily do proceed in this order. But this is one of those times

when second language acquisition does not mimic first language acquisition or, I would

argue, evolution.) In fact, I would argue that the social function, and perhaps even the

expressive function, preceded the communicative function, at least in some preliminary

ways.

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 My first argument is that language is a naturally diverse phenomenon that is shaped

by the social groups using it. This is supported by two basic linguistic facts. First,

language varies from person to person--every individual speaks an idiolect, an individual

version of his/her native language. Reflecting on this for a moment will cause us to agree,

I’m sure. When you take all aspects of language into account, no two people speak exactly

alike. A second, related fact is that language changes over time. For my argument it’s

important to note that both of these types of variation are shaped by human societies.

Even though there is individual variation in language, it is more important that individuals,

at least in part, shape their language through imitation of a group. In other words, people

define themselves as members of various social groups through, among other things but

perhaps most importantly, their linguistic behavior. This group will then help give the

individual his/her identity.

So, the important concept here is that language developed in the social group;

however, when we switch over to looking at linguistic and sociolinguistic theory, we see

that this view is not the only one.

Autonomous versus Socio Views of Language

Chomsky
Modern linguistics has been dominated by the ideas introduced by Noam Chomsky in the

late 1950s. His ideas are usually described as “revolutionizing” the discipline and, indeed,

in many ways they did.

The iconoclast Chomsky took on Behaviorism, the dominant school in psychology at

the time; many of us are familiar with Chomsky’s infamous article that brought him to the

limelight, his 1957 “Review of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior” in which he presented his ideas

on why a behaviorist model of learning could not account for language acquisition. As such,

he broke ranks with the dominant view of American linguistics, American structuralism,

begun in the 1930s when Leonard Bloomfield wrested interest away from the

anthropological school of American linguistics championed by Edward Sapir and Benjamin

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Lee Whorf. Bloomfield ushered in a way of analyzing languages that was “scientific” and,

so, looked on favorably by the American establishment of the time. In fact, Bloomfield

himself felt his methods were so [perfect] that he is said to have remarked that

eventually they would run out of languages to analyze and, then, what would there be left

for linguists to do?

Although Chomsky broke from the empirically-based analysis of language in

Bloomfieldian structuralism, there was one important way in which he did not deviate, and

that is focusing on the individual person as the locus of language. In his 1957 classic,

Syntactic Structures, Chomsky declared that his model of language was based on a
hypothetical “idealized speaker-listener in a homogenous speech community”; this was to

become an early transformational grammar mantra taught to graduate students for the

next few decades. This led to a research method of the researcher making assertions

about language based on an analysis of his own language use, or what is called

“introspective data.” However, as with many other of his basic ideas, it was not the case

that there were no objections to this narrow view of language and its resulting research

method.

Labov
Opposing Chomskian “autonomous” linguistics is what is loosely referred to as

“sociolinguistics” and, although it had European and even earlier American roots, its

founding in the U.S. is usually credited to William Labov. In the 1960s, Labov began a

research program that investigated language as it was actually used in various social

groups. For instance, his study of Black English Vernacular was among the first, and is

frequently cited as THE, study that began the favorable attitude toward seeing all

dialects as rule-governed.

Other detailed investigations into language as it was actually used in the social

context were also conducted by Labov in the 1960s. His famous study of changes in two

diphthongs among groups of people living on Martha’s Vineyard was the impetus for what

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has become his hallmark--that language change could be socially motivated. This went

against the dictum of the Neogrammarians—19th century historical linguists in Germany--

that sound change operated without exception—i.e., sound change was only linguistically

motivated. Another important study was his investigation of five sounds in the English

spoken in the Lower East Side of New York City. This study led Labov to argue that

speakers used different speech styles, depending on how formal or informal the context

of the speech situation was.

The results of these and other investigations led Labov to view the term

“sociolinguistics” as redundant more and more. In fact, he begins his important book

Sociolinguistic Patterns, published in 1972, with the following: “I have resisted the term
sociolingistics for many years, since it implies that there can be a successful linguistic

theory or practice which is not social” (p.xiii). In this book, Labov discusses his studies

done in the previous decade but, most importantly, he presents his theoretical ideas that

had developed as a result.

Using the concepts already mentioned, Labov developed a theory of sound change in

progress. Specifically, he wanted to see if any indication of future sound change could be

detected if a researcher looked at present use of a language and analyzed it socially—by

groups stratified by social variables such as social class, age, gender, and ethnicity, and by

various social contexts. Previous to this time, linguists in the Chomskian vein had argued

language change was “too slow, too subtle, or too elusive” to pin down.

Labov started by defining the very idea of sound change: in fact, he wrote,

language change does not originate

in the act of some one individual whose tongue slips. . . . Rather, we define language

as an instrument used by the members of the community to communicate with one

another. . . . [and] we can say that the language ha changed only when a group of

speakers use a different pattern to communicate with each other” (277).

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 These dialectal differences also serve to identify groups as different from other

groups; overall language change results as these differences move from group to group.

Among the many useful concepts he has developed, Labov has identified the

“sociolinguistic variable.” This is a language form that varies and whose variations have

taken on social significance. So, an example would be a word that is pronounced in

different ways and which different pronunciations are associated with different groups of

people (or some other difference in the situation, such as the setting or the audience); in

proto-times, say one pronunciation is associated with males and another with females, or

one with those who led the ritual enactment of the originary violence and another with the

others.

In fact, Labov argued that sociolinguistic patterning is robust even among small

groups: “ [T] he patterning within this variation is by no means obscure. . . . We find that

the basic patterns of class stratification emerge from samples as small as 25 speakers”

(204).

Labov identified three stages in the development of the sociolinguistic variable: a

“social indicator” developed into a “social marker” and, finally, into a “social stereotype.”

Interestingly, the first two stages are below the level of consciousness. At the earliest

level, social indicators exist as different usages among various groups—they “show a

regular distribution over socioeconomic, ethnic, or age groups, but are used y each

individual in more or less the same way in any context” (237). The next level, that of social

markers, are more highly developed in that they not only show social group distribution but

also show stylistic differentiation—that is, differences depending on the formality of the

setting, such as a casual, intimate setting (home) or a formal setting (a public speech).

Finally, some sociolinguistic markers become sociolinguistic stereotypes; these are

differentiated by the overt awareness speakers have of them—in fact, a group may be

identified by this variable (such as the “hoi-toiders” in the islands off the coast of North

Carolina.) Social stereotypes are also differentiated in that their use is criticized and

even proscribed against (e.g., don’t use double negatives) (248).

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Gender Research
Another piece of sociolinguistic evidence that supports the primary role of social

groups is gender tendencies in language use. Thirty years of research into gender

differences in language use have established that language use reflect male and female

society roles. In modern western societies, language is used differently by the sexes, but

in a curious way. Study after study has lent support to what is called “the sociolinguistic

gender pattern,” in which, in general, women are more likely to use the standard language

while men consistently use non-standard language to a larger degree, especial

sociolinguistic stereotypes such as double negatives, etc. In other words, it’s women who

are using more prestigeous “correct” (by prescriptive views) language forms, and men who

are using more stigmatized “incorrect” forms.

Why should this be so? Various linguists, Labov among them, have suggested some

reasons: that women try to gain status in one of the few ways open to them (before other

ways were more available to them in recent years such as job status and economic status);

that women are more concerned than men about the upbringing of offspring and want to

pass on a prestigious form of the language to their children; that women use language to

build social relationships, and this is accomplished by using prestigious linguistic forms.

Ralph Fasold, on the other hand, has suggested that we should look at what men do

with language: that they avoid standard usage since it is, in fact, associated with women’s

language—and that men will need to identify themselves as non-women and as not

constrained by socially-approved behavior as much as women. Here we can see the notion

of inner and outer again. Women, along with their children, occupy the safe haven of the

inner group, where they are stereotypically more concerned with maintaining social

relationships, as they must be to raise children. One means for doing this that they have

at their disposal is linguistic behavior, which often means using and reinforcing the

standard language. Interestingly, studies as well as many of our personal experience

indicate that it is women who correct children’s grammar and women teachers who are

more concerned with standard usage.

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 Men, on the other hand, identify themselves as defenders of the inner group. To

do this, they live on the perimeter of the familial groups to which they belong but where

they are freer to compete against other males in various ways, often ways that are

proscribed against, such as using nonstandard language. In fact, linguists have coined the

term “covert prestige” to explain the linguistic phenomenon of men having a positive

attitude toward using nonstandard language, often unconsciously.

Finally, we might consider the widespread belief that girls and women are “better”

at languages and the fact that boys and men have more neurological linguistic problems,

such as dyslexia, etc. I feel it’s easy to imagine that better linguistic skills were

evolutionarily advantageous for women for social reasons, whereas they were not as

important for men, physical strength perhaps being more important.

Language Acquisition Research

A final area of linguistic research—but this time not sociolinguistic, strictly

speaking—is language acquisition research. Many aspects of language are biologically

determined, as Michael Long describes in his article “Maturational Constraints on Language

Development,” and thus can be seen as reinforcing the survival of the infant inside the

social group.

Language acquisition begins immediately at birth (or even in the womb) and

continues relentlessly as the infant first distinguishes and then produces sounds of the

language (or languages) he/she is hearing. By a few months of age, the child can identify

his mother’s voice as well as her face. Sounds will be combined into syllables and the first

word, the first signifier, will appear around the first birthday.

Two- and three-word sentences will be built during the next year and a half,

culminating in a very important linguistic and social event around the age of 2 ½ : the child

will begin to acquire the grammatical functors of language—in English, things like plural –s

and progressive –ing, and grammatical words like the and in. Along with many other

syntactic structures being acquired by the age of 6 or so, a child also develops the ability

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to distinguish spoken accents—in other words, distinguish others as being part of his/her

group.

All of this is important to making the child a full-fledged member of the social

group. Especially interesting is this last point, as communication is certainly possible

before a child hits this grammatical functor stage, as the existence of what are called

“pidgin” languages shows. Why does a child begin to acquire these somewhat-unnecessary

functors so early, before he or she can walk with a steady gait or throw a ball well? Of

course, most linguists would agree with Chomsky here, that the child’s brain contains

neural structures that dictate when language will be acquired (or at least they agree in the

mild sense that children will acquire language in a set fashion as dictated by something in

their brains). But the point interesting for us is, why did the brain evolve in this way?

Why did human children evolve to have language acquired at such an early fashion? The

answer must be that it makes their living in their human group more possible.

Even more interesting than this is the fact that there seems to be a cut-off point

for the acquisition of language—making it more difficult for older children to acquire the

language of another group, should he or she need to. The critical period hypothesis argues

that there is a point after which it is more difficult for a child to acquire a language

naturally, that is, without overt instruction. Although it is still controversial, many

linguists do agree that there are maturational constraints on the acquisition of language.

But the age is different for different parts of language. For instance, if a child hasn’t

acquired a language by the age of 7 or 8, he will likely have a non-native accent, as

pronunciation is heavily constrained by mouth, tongue, and jaw muscles. But the period is

later for the acquisition of grammatical functors, perhaps around puberty to 15 years; this

is probably reflective of brain maturation, as the brain undergoes various chemical and

cognitive changes. Interestingly, vocabulary acquisition does not seem to have a critical

period except at the other end of the lifespan, when age and various pathologies can result

in lexical loss.

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 In this paper I have explored some of the research from sociolinguistics and

language acquisition that supports basic ideas about the origin of human language

occurring—and being an essential part of—social groups.

Works Cited

Chomsky, Noam. Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton, 1957.

Fasold, Ralph. The Sociolinguistics of Language. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1990.

Girard, René, with Jean-Michel Oughourlian and Guy Lefort. Things Hidden Since the

Foundation of the World. . Stanford: Stanford UP, 1978. (trans. Stephen Bann

and Michael Metteer, Athlone Press, 1987).

Labov, William. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania UP, 1972.

Long, Michael H. “Maturational Constraints on Language Development.” Studies in

Second Language Acquisition 12 (1990): 251-85.

Mishler, William. “The Question of the Origin of Language in René Girard, Eric Gans,

and Kenneth Burke.” Anthropoetics 5.1 (1999): 10 pp.

<http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/anthropoetics/ap0501/mishler.htm>

Müller, Markus. “Interview with René Girard.” Anthropoetics 2.1 (1996): 11 pp.

http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/humnet/anthropoetics/ap0201/interv.htm

Copyright 2004, Christina Biava. All Rights Reserved.

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