Language can be studied independently, or as an aspect of human sociality. Theoretical linguistics could not exist as a discipline were it not for the relative autonomy of language as a system. Ultimately, however, this system functions within a wider domain of signals which include cosmetics, dress, art, ritual and much else whose study takes us beyond linguistics.

Primate vocalisations are irrepressible, context-bound indices of emotional states, in some cases conveying additional information about the sender’s condition, status and/or local environment. Speech has a quite different function: it permits communication of information concerning a shared, conceptual environment — a world of intangibles independent of currently perceptible reality.

As a feature of life on earth, language is one of science’s great remaining mysteries. A central difficulty is that it appears so radically incommensurate with nonhuman systems of communication as to cast doubt on standard neo-Darwinian accounts of its evolution by natural selection. Yet scientific (as opposed to religious or philosophical) arguments for a discontinuity between human and animal communication have come into prominence only over the past 40 years. As long as behaviourism dominated anglophone psychology and linguistics, the transition from animal calls to human speech seemed to offer no particular difficulty (see, for example, Mowrer 1960; Skinner 1957). But the generative revolution in linguistics, begun with the publication of Noam Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures in 1957 and developed in many subsequent works (e.g. Chomsky 1965, 1966, 1972, 1975, 1986; Chomsky and Halle 1968) radically altered our conception of language, and posed a challenge to evolutionary theory that we are still striving to meet.

Let me begin with a self-evident point, perhaps too often taken for granted. When academics participate in conferences and debates, we find ourselves operating under the rule of law. Protocols exist. We must keep to agreed time limits, disclose our sources, accept criticism and renounce any temptation to use threats, material inducements or force. There is status competition, certainly. But status is determined on an intellectual basis by peer evaluation alone; we compete to demonstrate relevance (Sperber and Wilson 1995 [1986]; Dessalles 1998) in one anothers’ eyes.

What applies in academic life applies wherever language is used. Protocols always exist. Compared with academic discourse, informal gossip may be livelier, more relaxed, less abstract and more intimately bound up with non-linguistic modes of expression. But despite such obvious differences, the same principles apply. Civilised intercourse depends on respect for the law. This has nothing to do with any behavioural dominance of certain individuals over others. Legality is a contractual entity, genuine insofar as it is collectively agreed. Once contractual understandings are in place, then and then only can we ‘do things with words’ (Austin 1978 [1955]; Searle 1996, Bourdieu 1990, Deacon 1997).