Von subhumaner zu humanspezifischer Interaktion. Tomasello und die Qualität des Zeigens

Abstract

Summary. Michael Tomasello, whose research is increasingly recognized in socio-the­oretical discourses, describes deictic gestures as the crucial milestone on the way from animal interaction to specific human forms of interaction. On a mentalistic principle, he does not shy away from comparing the pointing gesture to language and from defining the deictic gesture as ontogenetic and phylogenetic earliest form of specific human coope­rative communication. This article initially shows that the expression-theoretical const­ruction of the research program creates contradictions and circularities. With reference to Karl Bühler’s works, a semiotic analysis of Tomasello’s examples of the special qua­lity of pointing gestures is provided. This approach also casts a new light on Tomasello’s explanation of the transition to verbal language and argues that Tomasello’s theoretical construction hardly yields reliable statements according to social interaction as a process and to the emergence of cognitive capacities and communication means, but that his findings on the actual cognitive capacities of children and nonhu­man primates could additionally be taken into account to unlock the secret of the ori­gins of language.