In this paper, we turn to languaging, defined here as activity in which wordings play a part. On such a view, while activity is paramount, people also orient to acts of vocalization as wordings. These physical wordings can be used as tools that shape attending, with recourse to neither mental representations nor symbols that store and transmit information. The view is consistent with macroevolutionary continuity and will be used to challenge appeal to a major evolutionary transition to ‘language’. On the languaging view, like many modern social primates, hominins have long undertaken encultured activities. Infants, human and nonhuman, act epistemically and, by so doing, align skills with objects to practice. They develop a ‘stance’ to pragmatic, goal-directed action. In human ontogenesis, we argue, both epistemic action and the stance-taking are extended by vocalizing. Caregiver-infant coordination enables vocalizing to be integrated with acting, attending, perceiving and managing one’s attention. Infants also self-entrain vocalizing through ‘babble’. Once the developmental threads unite, social reaching (Bates, 1976) favors a special stance to articulatory gestures (one that allows wordings to be made and heard). Just as in orienting to cultural tools, a child grasps a community’s ways-with-wordings. The latter often express abstract relations which we can illustrate with modern non-literate use of reciprocal expressions. In Australian and Pacific languages, reciprocals sustain coordinating that, for speakers, is neither symbolic nor arbitrary. Further, cross-linguistic comparison shows the same ‘patchy distribution’ of reciprocals that characterizes primate tool use. Of course, we do not deny that, in many language games, people can undertake activity that makes symbolic use of wordings. In modern literate societies, abilities based on social reaching are further extended into skills that use notational practices (e.g. letters, numbers, graphics). This opens up whole new fields or domains of languaging. Yet, ostensive use of symbols is plainly a cultural invention – not a direct legacy of hominin evolution.

在本文中，我们转向语言，这里将其定义为文字在其中发挥作用的活动. 根据这种观点，虽然活动是最重要的，但人们也将发声行为作为措辞。这些物理措辞可以用作塑造关注的工具，既不求助于存储和传输信息的心理表征也没有符号。该观点与宏观进化的连续性一致，并将用于挑战对“语言”的重大进化转变的诉求。从语言学的角度来看，像许多现代社会灵长类动物一样，人类长期以来一直从事文化活动。婴儿，无论是人类还是非人类，都在认知上行动，并通过这样做将技能与要练习的对象保持一致。他们对务实的、以目标为导向的行动形成“立场”。我们认为，在人类个体发生中，认知行为和立场采取都是通过发声来扩展的。照顾者-婴儿的协调使发声能够与表演、参与、感知和管理自己的注意力相结合。婴儿还通过“咿呀学语”自我引导发声。一旦发展的线索统一起来，社会影响力（Bates，1976）倾向于对清晰的手势（一种允许表达和听到措辞的手势）采取特殊立场。正如在面向文化工具方面一样，孩子通过语言来掌握社区的方式。后者通常表达抽象的关系，我们可以用现代非文学性的相互表达来说明。在澳大利亚和太平洋语言中，互惠维持协调，对于说话者来说，既不是象征性的，也不是任意的。此外，跨语言比较显示了表征灵长类工具使用特征的倒数的相同“不规则分布”。当然，我们不否认，在很多语言游戏中，人们可以进行象征性使用措辞的活动。在现代有文化的社会中，基于社会影响的能力进一步扩展为使用符号实践（例如字母、数字、图形）的技能。这开辟了全新的语言领域或领域。然而，明显地使用符号显然是一种文化发明，而不是人类进化的直接遗产。