A Critique of Language Evolution Studies for Blazing New Trails: A Translators’ Note on the Chinese Edition ofToward an Evolutionary Biology of Language

The Chomskyan Biolinguistic Model (CBM), a dominant one in Generative Biolinguistics over the last five decades, follows a pathway of analysis from language phenomena to mental models and neurophysiological mechanisms of the human brain.But it has failed to provide a coherent and convincing interpretation of language evolution, largely due to its neglect of the possible links between human languages and the “quasi-languages” of other species as well as those between linguistic competence and behavioral and cognitive abilities.To bridge the knowledge gap, such links are highlighted in the Darwinian Biolinguistic Model (DBM) as represented by Philip Lieberman.His monograph titled Toward an Evolutionary Biology of Languagebrings together the author’s long-term research findings on language evolution, following a pathway of analysis from the modern synthetic theory of evolution to neurophysiological mechanisms and language representations.The English edition was first published in 2006 but has not yet received due attention among the Chinese scholars working in this area ever since.It is worthy of note that in the present Chinese edition, Lieberman has added the latest developments in language evolution studies and his multidimensional reflections thereof.In a nutshell, Lieberman’s work holds both epistemological and methodological implications for further inquiry into some fundamental aspects of language evolution.