scholarly journals Pragmatics and Language Evolution

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marieke Woensdregt ◽  
Kenny Smith
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Computational Models ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Food Sources ◽  
Evolutionary Mechanisms

Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that deals with language use in context. It looks at the meaning linguistic utterances can have beyond their literal meaning (implicature), and also at presupposition and turn taking in conversation. Thus, pragmatics lies on the interface between language and social cognition. From the point of view of both speaker and listener, doing pragmatics requires reasoning about the minds of others. For instance, a speaker has to think about what knowledge they share with the listener to choose what information to explicitly encode in their utterance and what to leave implicit. A listener has to make inferences about what the speaker meant based on the context, their knowledge about the speaker, and their knowledge of general conventions in language use. This ability to reason about the minds of others (usually referred to as “mindreading” or “theory of mind”) is a cognitive capacity that is uniquely developed in humans compared to other animals. What we know about how pragmatics (and the underlying ability to make inferences about the minds of others) has evolved. Biological evolution and cultural evolution are the two main processes that can lead to the development of a complex behavior over generations, and we can explore to what extent they account for what we know about pragmatics. In biological evolution, changes happen as a result of natural selection on genetically transmitted traits. In cultural evolution on the other hand, selection happens on skills that are transmitted through social learning. Many hypotheses have been put forward about the role that natural selection may have played in the evolution of social and communicative skills in humans (for example, as a result of changes in food sources, foraging strategy, or group size). The role of social learning and cumulative culture, however, has been often overlooked. This omission is particularly striking in the case of pragmatics, as language itself is a prime example of a culturally transmitted skill, and there is solid evidence that the pragmatic capacities that are so central to language use may themselves be partially shaped by social learning. In light of empirical findings from comparative, developmental, and experimental research, we can consider the potential contributions of both biological and cultural evolutionary mechanisms to the evolution of pragmatics. The dynamics of types of evolutionary processes can also be explored using experiments and computational models.

scholarly journals Pragmatics and Language Evolution

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marieke Woensdregt ◽  
Kenny Smith
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Food Sources ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Oxford University Press

Pragmatics is the branch of linguistics that deals with language use in context. It looks at the meaning linguistic utterances can have beyond their literal meaning (implicature), and also at presupposition and turn taking in conversation. Thus, pragmatics lies on the interface between language and social cognition.From the point of view of both speaker and listener, doing pragmatics requires reasoning about the minds of others. For instance, a speaker has to think about what knowledge they share with the listener to choose what information to explicitly encode in their utterance and what to leave implicit. A listener has to make inferences about what the speaker meant based on the context, their knowledge about the speaker, and their knowledge of general conventions in language use. This ability to reason about the minds of others (usually referred to as “mindreading” or “theory of mind”) is a cognitive capacity that is uniquely developed in humans compared to other animals.What we know about how pragmatics (and the underlying ability to make inferences about the minds of others) has evolved. Biological evolution and cultural evolution are the two main processes that can lead to the development of a complex behavior over generations, and we can explore to what extent they account for what we know about pragmatics.In biological evolution, changes happen as a result of natural selection on genetically transmitted traits. In cultural evolution on the other hand, selection happens on skills that are transmitted through social learning. Many hypotheses have been put forward about the role that natural selection may have played in the evolution of social and communicative skills in humans (for example, as a result of changes in food sources, foraging strategy, or group size). The role of social learning and cumulative culture, however, has been often overlooked. This omission is particularly striking in the case of pragmatics, as language itself is a prime example of a culturally transmitted skill, and there is solid evidence that the pragmatic capacities that are so central to language use may themselves be partially shaped by social learning.In light of empirical findings from comparative, developmental, and experimental research, we can consider the potential contributions of both biological and cultural evolutionary mechanisms to the evolution of pragmatics. The dynamics of types of evolutionary processes can also be explored using experiments and computational models.Woensdregt, M., & Smith, K. (2017). Pragmatics and Language Evolution. In Aronoff, M. (Ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.321. Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press. Published version available at: http://linguistics.oxfordre.com/abstract/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-321?rskey=YdHgxy&result=18

Modeling Social Learning and Culture

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Hoppitt ◽  
Kevin N. Laland
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Reaction Diffusion ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Mathematical Expressions ◽  
Mathematical Techniques ◽  
Neutral Models

This chapter describes a variety of approaches to modeling social learning, cultural evolution, and gene-culture coevolution. The model-building exercise typically starts with a set of assumptions about the key processes to be explored, along with the nature of their relations. These assumptions are then translated into the mathematical expressions that constitute the model. The operation of the model is then investigated, normally using a combination of analytical mathematical techniques and simulation, to determine relevant outcomes, such as the equilibrium states or patterns of change over time. The chapter presents examples of the modeling of cultural transmission and considers parallels between cultural and biological evolution. It then discusses theoretical approaches to social learning and cultural evolution, including population-genetic style models of cultural evolution and gene-culture coevolution, neutral models and random copying, social foraging theory, spatially explicit models, reaction-diffusion models, agent-based models, and phylogenetic models.

Cultural evolution

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Mameli ◽  
Kim Sterelny
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Phenotypic Traits ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
Cumulative Change ◽  
Cultural Traits ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

Cultural traits are those phenotypic traits whose development depends on social learning. These include practices, skills, beliefs, desires, values, and artefacts. The distribution of cultural traits in the human species changes over time. But this is not enough to show that culture evolves. That depends on the mechanisms of change. In the cultural realm, one can often observe something similar to biology’s ‘descent with modification’: cultural traits are sometimes modified, their modifications are sometimes retained and passed on to others through social learning, until new modifications are added. In this way, new modifications are piled on top of old modifications, generating cumulative change. But, again, this is not enough to show that culture evolves. For culture to evolve, cumulative change must be the result of hidden-hand mechanisms similar to those that explain cumulative biological change. If cumulative cultural change cannot be explained in these terms, the analogy between cultural change and biological evolution is unhelpful. The best-known biological mechanism is natural selection. There are reasons to think that cultural change is at least sometimes due to natural-selection-like mechanisms. The adaptive fit often found between cultural traits and the environment in many cases has been built gradually and in a way that involves natural selection operating at the cultural level. The parallel with morphological adaptation is compelling. No complete and universally accepted account of natural-selection-like processes operating at the cultural level exists at this stage. But at least three kinds of processes seem possible: - A natural-selection-like process can be generated by culturally heritable differences in fitness between individuals. - A natural-selection-like process can be generated by culturally heritable differences in fitness between groups. - A natural-selection-like process can operate at the level of cultural variants themselves, independently of the effects that cultural variants have on the fitness of individuals or groups. The theory of memes (initially presented by Dawkins and then developed by Dennett) is one possible account of how (iii) might work; but other accounts exist too.

COMPLEX SYSTEMS IN LANGUAGE EVOLUTION: THE CULTURAL EMERGENCE OF COMPOSITIONAL STRUCTURE

2003 ◽  
Vol 06 (04) ◽  
pp. 537-558 ◽  
Author(s):  
KENNY SMITH ◽  
HENRY BRIGHTON ◽  
SIMON KIRBY
Keyword(s):  
Language Learners ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Complex Adaptive Systems ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Compositional Structure ◽  
Complex Adaptive ◽  
Iterated Learning

Language arises from the interaction of three complex adaptive systems — biological evolution, learning, and culture. We focus here on cultural evolution, and present an Iterated Learning Model of the emergence of compositionality, a fundamental structural property of language. Our main result is to show that the poverty of the stimulus available to language learners leads to a pressure for linguistic structure. When there is a bottleneck on cultural transmission, only a language which is generalizable from sparse input data is stable. Language itself evolves on a cultural time-scale, and compositionality is language's adaptation to stimulus poverty.

7. Human behaviour, mind, and culture

2019 ◽  
pp. 101-118
Author(s):  
Samir Okasha
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Psychology ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Human Behaviour ◽  
Dual Inheritance Theory ◽  
Nature Vs Nurture ◽  
Dual Inheritance

‘Human behaviour, mind, and culture’ examines the implications of biology for humans, asking whether human behaviour and culture can be explained in biological terms. The intelligence, language use, cultural inventions, technological prowess, and social institutions of our own species, Homo sapiens, seem to set us apart from other species. Can biology shed any light on humanity and its achievements? One way to tackle this question is to ask whether human behaviour can be understood in biological terms. The nature vs nurture debate is discussed, followed by the approaches of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology to the study of human behaviour. Finally, cultural evolution—or dual inheritance theory—is considered and how this relates to biological evolution.

scholarly journals Social learning and the replication process: an experimental investigation

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1808) ◽  
pp. 20150719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxime Derex ◽  
Romain Feron ◽  
Bernard Godelle ◽  
Michel Raymond
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Fitness Landscape ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Multiple Sources ◽  
Replication Process ◽  
Gradual Process ◽  
Observed Behaviour ◽  
Cultural Traits

Human cultural traits typically result from a gradual process that has been described as analogous to biological evolution. This observation has led pioneering scholars to draw inspiration from population genetics to develop a rigorous and successful theoretical framework of cultural evolution. Social learning, the mechanism allowing information to be transmitted between individuals, has thus been described as a simple replication mechanism. Although useful, the extent to which this idealization appropriately describes the actual social learning events has not been carefully assessed. Here, we used a specifically developed computer task to evaluate (i) the extent to which social learning leads to the replication of an observed behaviour and (ii) the consequences it has for fitness landscape exploration. Our results show that social learning does not lead to a dichotomous choice between disregarding and replicating social information. Rather, it appeared that individuals combine and transform information coming from multiple sources to produce new solutions. As a consequence, landscape exploration was promoted by the use of social information. These results invite us to rethink the way social learning is commonly modelled and could question the validity of predictions coming from models considering this process as replicative.

scholarly journals Studying cumulative cultural evolution in the laboratory

2008 ◽  
Vol 363 (1509) ◽  
pp. 3529-3539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine A Caldwell ◽  
Ailsa E Millen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Experimental Methods ◽  
Cultural Processes ◽  
Cumulative Cultural Evolution ◽  
Adaptive Complexity ◽  
Over Time

Cumulative cultural evolution is the term given to a particular kind of social learning, which allows for the accumulation of modifications over time, involving a ratchet-like effect where successful modifications are maintained until they can be improved upon. There has been great interest in the topic of cumulative cultural evolution from researchers from a wide variety of disciplines, but until recently there were no experimental studies of this phenomenon. Here, we describe our motivations for developing experimental methods for studying cumulative cultural evolution and review the results we have obtained using these techniques. The results that we describe have provided insights into understanding the outcomes of cultural processes at the population level. Our experiments show that cumulative cultural evolution can result in adaptive complexity in behaviour and can also produce convergence in behaviour. These findings lend support to ideas that some behaviours commonly attributed to natural selection and innate tendencies could in fact be shaped by cultural processes.

Cultural Evolution and Cultural Ecology

2020 ◽  
pp. 70-114
Author(s):  
Robyn M. Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Sickle Cell Anemia ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Intergroup Contact ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Cultural Ecology ◽  
Key Terms ◽  
And Diffusion ◽  
Adaptive Tool

Chapter 3 explores cultural evolution, cultural ecology, and the ways environments shape the cultures that exist within them. It discusses whether only humans have culture, Darwin and natural selection, and biological and cultural evolution, and provides examples of biological evolution. It also addresses cultural evolution, a comparison of biological and cultural evolution, how communities change, creative cultural inventions, globalization and diffusion, revolution, and intergroup contact. It explores cultural ecology, a case study in cultural ecology, how culture and environment interconnect, sickle cell anemia, diet, lactose intolerance, culture as an adaptive tool, and cultural variability. This chapter includes a case study, Culture Across Disciplines box, chapter summary, key terms, a What Do Other Disciplines Do? section, thought-provoking questions, and class and experiential activities.

Cultural Evolution in Non-Human Animals

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert F. Lachlan ◽  
Andrew Whiten
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Sampling Error ◽  
Japanese Macaque ◽  
Genetic Material ◽  
Darwinian Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Capacity ◽  
Primary System ◽  
Inheritance System ◽  
Nonhuman Species

“Culture” is generally regarded as a population’s shared array of traditions, transmitted between individuals by processes of social learning, and which may persist from one generation to later ones. If we consider genetic material to provide the primary system of inheritance in living things, then social learning—learning from others—provides a second inheritance system in those species of animals that have the cognitive capacity to learn in this way. Once it was thought that cultural traditions inherited in this way were unique to, and defining of, our own species. This view was challenged by research arising particularly in the middle of the 20th century, which revealed evidence of the spread of innovations in the behavior of nonhuman species, generating traditions that passed from one generation to the next. Early examples included regional birdsong dialects and novel foraging techniques in Japanese macaque monkeys. Research over the last seventy years or so has accumulated a wealth of evidence that animal traditions exist in many aspects of behavior, from migration to mate choice and predator avoidance, and in numerous taxa including fish, birds, and mammals. Social learning has also been well documented in insects, although the existence of traditions in the wild remains less clear. Once such a second inheritance system does emerge, supporting the transmission of behavioral traditions, the potential exists for a second system of evolution—cultural evolution—which can be defined most simply as changes in culture over time. As in the case of organic evolution based on genetic inheritance, imperfect copying and sampling error may be sufficient to cause evolutionary changes, known as drift. Alternatively, some innovations may prove to be more adaptive than others, in which case we can expect the essential Darwinian processes of variation, selection, and inheritance to generate some directional cultural evolution. Both drift and Darwinian evolution have long been evident in human cultural evolution, but evidence has begun to accumulate for them also in nonhuman species. Humans additionally display cumulative culture, in which some form of progress builds cumulatively on the achievements of previous generations. Examples are legion, from the evolution of wheeled vehicles to languages and religions. A currently contentious issue is whether such cumulative cultural evolution is unique to our species, or is shared in some ways with others. Other current areas of uncertainty include which cognitive mechanisms underlie animal social learning and whether the precision of animal social learning can support long-lasting traditions; the degree to which animal cultures extend broadly enough across behavioral repertoires, or deeply enough in the complexity of individual traits, to be usefully compared to those of humans; and whether culture creates selection pressures that are long lasting enough to shape animals’ genomes. In general, while it is very clear that human culture is more extensive than in any other species, there is less agreement about which qualitative differences in psychological and cultural processes are responsible for this gulf.

A long way to understanding cultural evolution

2006 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 358-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Werner Mende ◽  
Kathleen Wermke
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Biological Evolution ◽  
Task Demands

Understanding cultural evolution is one of the most challenging and indispensable scientific tasks for the survival of humankind on our planet. This task demands, besides an adoption of theories and models from biological evolution, theories for culture-specific processes as well. Language evolution and language acquisition offer interesting objects of study in this respect.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document