The Lawrence Jacobsen Library
Books Received (Primate-Science/PrimateLit)

THE DYNAMIC DANCE NONVOCAL COMMUNICATION IN AFRICAN GREAT APES

By: Barbara J. King

(Description taken from the book jacket)
Mother and infant negotiate over food; two high-status males jockey for
power; female kin band together to get their way.  It happens among humans
and it happens among our closest living relatives in the animal kingdom,
the great apes of Africa.  In this eye-opening book, we see precisely how
such events unfold in chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas: through a
spontaneous, mutually choreographed dance of actions, gestures, and
vocalizations in which social partners create meaning and come to
understand each other.

Using dynamic systems theory, an approach employed to study human
communication, Barbara King is able to demonstrate the genuine complexity
of apesÔø‡Ôø‡ social communication, and the extent to which their interactions
generate meaning.  As King describes, apes create meaning primarily through
their body movementsÔø‡Ôø‡and go well beyond conveying messages about food,
mating, or predators,  Readers come to know the captive apes she has
observed, and others across Africa as well, and to understand Ôø‡Ôø‡the process
of creating social meaning.Ôø‡Ôø‡

This new perspective not only acquaints us with our closest living
relatives, but informs us about a possible pathway for the evolution of
language in our own species.  KingÔø‡Ôø‡s theory challenges the popular idea
that human language is instinctive, with rules and abilities hardwired into
our brains.  Rather, The Dynamic Dance suggests, language has its roots in
the gestural Ôø‡Ôø‡building up of meaningÔø‡Ôø‡ that was present in the ancestor we
shared with the great apes, and that we continue to practice to this day.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

(Taken from the book jacket)
Barbara J. King is Professor of Anthropology at the College of William and
Mary.  To arrange an interview with Barbara J. King, please contact Rose
Ann Miller at 617-495-4714 or roseann_miller@harvard.edu.

CONTENTS

1          Social Communication as Dance                       Page 1
2          Gesture and Dynamic Systems Theory   Page 42
3          Gesture in Captive African Great Apes                Page 84
4          Gesture in Wild African Great Apes                  Page 136
5          The Evolution of Gesture                                   Page 177
6          Imagined
Futures                                              Page 220

Notes                                           Page 241
Bibliography                                    Page 255
Acknowledgments                                            Page 271
Index                                                                Page 273

WHERE TO ORDER

Harvard University Press
79 Garden Street
Cambridge MA 02138

ISBN 0-674-01515-0 Paperback $29.95

Harvard University Press Website:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/
Direct link to the online catalog entry:
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/KINDYN.html


Posted Date: 11/03/04