scholarly journals The cognitive prerequisites for language: insights from iterated learning

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenny Smith
Keyword(s):  
Learning Process ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Experimental Models ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Communicative Interaction ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Linguistic Structure ◽  
Compositional Structure ◽  
Iterated Learning ◽  
Structured Meaning

Human languages are transmitted by iterated learning: we learn the language of our community by observing language use in communicative interaction, and then in turn we produce linguistic behaviours which become the basis for learning in others. Computational and experimental models of iterated learning show that linguistic structure (including compositional structure, which underpins the open-ended expressivity of human language) evolves on a cultural timescale as a result of this iterated learning process. I consider the implications of this work for our understanding of the cognitive capacities required to support linguistic structure, highlighting the importance of the capacities to acquire compositionally-structured meaning-signal mappings from data, and to reason about the minds of others during learning and use.

Spelling and simulated shibboleths in Nigerian computer-mediated communication

English Today ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 35-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Presley A. Ifukor
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Computer Mediated Communication ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Mobile Technologies ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Communicative Interaction ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Computer Mediated

Since its coinage by Hiltz and Turoff (1978) the term computer-mediated communication (CMC) has been adapted and broadly conceptualised as interactive communication by and among human beings via networked computers and mobile devices. Several definitions of CMC have been offered in the literature but Herring's (2007) definition of CMC as ‘predominantly text-based human–human interaction mediated by networked computers or mobile telephony’ is adopted in this article because it stresses the textual aspect of the communicative interaction and accommodates all forms of textual language use mediated by the Internet, the World Wide Web and mobile technologies. This approach to CMC focuses on the production, transmission and exchange of naturally-occurring text-based human language and highlights the fact that human beings (as opposed to automated or artificial systems) are both the agents or initiators and recipients of the communication under investigation. Although communication is not unique to humans, the ability to use human language for meaningful social interactions is the exclusive preserve of the human species. Thus the perspective human beings bring to virtual interactions is accounted for in CMC. Internet interlocutors (also known as online interactants, netizens or textizens in the case of regular SMS texts composers/senders) employ textual data to convey and exchange their thoughts, opinions, observations, feelings as well as messages from other people or sources (Ifukor, 2011). These interactive possibilities make CMC a technology, medium, and engine of social relations (Jones, 1995:11) and language use is at the core.

scholarly journals Models of Language Evolution

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cathleen O'Grady ◽  
Kenny Smith
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Experimental Models ◽  
Linguistic Structure ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Learning Biases ◽  
Evolutionary Linguistics ◽  
The Individual

Models of Language Evolution reviews the models that provide evidence for the role of cultural evolution in the emergence of linguistic structure. This chapter discusses the levels of linguistic structure, and why the emergence of structure in language is a central question for evolutionary linguistics. It reviews the computational and experimental models which demonstrate that pressures operating during language learning and language use can give rise to the appearance of design in language, through the repeated cycle of learning and use that characterise language transmission. Finally, it discusses how learning biases at the individual level lead to the presence of typological universals: systematic patterns in how the world’s languages tend to be structured.

scholarly journals Speakers exhibit a multimodal Lombard effect in noise

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
James Trujillo ◽  
Asli Özyürek ◽  
Judith Holler ◽  
Linda Drijvers
Keyword(s):  
Motion Capture ◽  
Natural Environment ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Visual Channel ◽  
Lombard Effect ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Acoustic Analyses ◽  
Acoustic Modulation ◽  
Action Verbs

AbstractIn everyday conversation, we are often challenged with communicating in non-ideal settings, such as in noise. Increased speech intensity and larger mouth movements are used to overcome noise in constrained settings (the Lombard effect). How we adapt to noise in face-to-face interaction, the natural environment of human language use, where manual gestures are ubiquitous, is currently unknown. We asked Dutch adults to wear headphones with varying levels of multi-talker babble while attempting to communicate action verbs to one another. Using quantitative motion capture and acoustic analyses, we found that (1) noise is associated with increased speech intensity and enhanced gesture kinematics and mouth movements, and (2) acoustic modulation only occurs when gestures are not present, while kinematic modulation occurs regardless of co-occurring speech. Thus, in face-to-face encounters the Lombard effect is not constrained to speech but is a multimodal phenomenon where the visual channel carries most of the communicative burden.

scholarly journals Human language evolution: a view from theoretical linguistics on how syntax and the lexicon first came into being

Primates ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haruka Fujita ◽  
Koji Fujita
Keyword(s):  
Language Evolution ◽  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Action Planning ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Motor Action ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Gradual Evolution ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Evolutionary Continuity

AbstractHuman language is a multi-componential function comprising several sub-functions each of which may have evolved in other species independently of language. Among them, two sub-functions, or modules, have been claimed to be truly unique to the humans, namely hierarchical syntax (known as “Merge” in linguistics) and the “lexicon.” This kind of species-specificity stands as a hindrance to our natural understanding of human language evolution. Here we challenge this issue and advance our hypotheses on how human syntax and lexicon may have evolved from pre-existing cognitive capacities in our ancestors and other species including but not limited to nonhuman primates. Specifically, we argue that Merge evolved from motor action planning, and that the human lexicon with the distinction between lexical and functional categories evolved from its predecessors found in animal cognition through a process we call “disintegration.” We build our arguments on recent developments in generative grammar but crucially depart from some of its core ideas by borrowing insights from other relevant disciplines. Most importantly, we maintain that every sub-function of human language keeps evolutionary continuity with other species’ cognitive capacities and reject a saltational emergence of language in favor of its gradual evolution. By doing so, we aim to offer a firm theoretical background on which a promising scenario of language evolution can be constructed.

scholarly journals Task Based Learning (TBL) in EFL Classroom: from theory to practice

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 139-144
Author(s):  
Muhammad Badrus Sholeh ◽  
Sahril Nur ◽  
Kisman Salija
Keyword(s):  
Learning Process ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Education ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Learning Goals ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Learning Framework ◽  
Theory To Practice ◽  
Efl Teachers

Task-Based Learning (TBL) is one of the contemporary approaches, which has attracted a great deal of study in recent decades. It is a language education approach that offers students the opportunity to use authentic target language use by tasks. Task-Based Learning drives skill-based teaching and learning, engages students in the learning process, motivates and enhances student imagination. This paper focuses on some fundamental aspects of TBL in literature: (1) the task-based learning definition, (2) the task-based learning characteristics, (3) the task-based learning framework, (4) the task-based learning benefits, and (5) a proposed task-based learning practice for EFL learners. The paper gives useful suggestions to EFL teachers who have similar teaching strategies to help students meet such learning goals in their classrooms and continue positive TBL patterns in teaching and learning.

scholarly journals Compositional Hierarchical Structure Evolves through Cultural Transmission: An Experimental Study

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 83-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Saldana ◽  
Simon Kirby ◽  
Robert Truswell ◽  
Kenny Smith
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Hierarchical Structure ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Compositional Structure ◽  
Evolutionary Linguistics ◽  
Artificial Language Learning ◽  
Learning Techniques ◽  
Iterated Learning

AbstractCompositional hierarchical structure is a prerequisite for productive languages; it allows language learners to express and understand an infinity of meanings from finite sources (i.e., a lexicon and a grammar). Understanding how such structure evolved is central to evolutionary linguistics. Previous work combining artificial language learning and iterated learning techniques has shown how basic compositional structure can evolve from the trade-off between learnability and expressivity pressures at play in language transmission. In the present study we show, across two experiments, how the same mechanisms involved in the evolution of basic compositionality can also lead to the evolution of compositional hierarchical structure. We thus provide experimental evidence showing that cultural transmission allows advantages of compositional hierarchical structure in language learning and use to permeate language as a system of behaviour.

scholarly journals A Dynamic Network Approach to the Study of Syntax

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holger Diessel
Keyword(s):  
Argument Structure ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Model Building ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Dynamic Network ◽  
Linguistic Knowledge ◽  
Network Approach ◽  
Linguistic Structure ◽  
Network Analyses

Usage-based linguists and psychologists have produced a large body of empirical results suggesting that linguistic structure is derived from language use. However, while researchers agree that these results characterize grammar as an emergent phenomenon, there is no consensus among usage-based scholars as to how the various results can be explained and integrated into an explicit theory or model. Building on network theory, the current paper outlines a structured network approach to the study of grammar in which the core concepts of syntax are analyzed by a set of relations that specify associations between different aspects of a speaker’s linguistic knowledge. These associations are shaped by domain-general processes that can give rise to new structures and meanings in language acquisition and language change. Combining research from linguistics and psychology, the paper proposes specific network analyses for the following phenomena: argument structure, word classes, constituent structure, constructions and construction families, and grammatical categories such as voice, case and number. The article builds on data and analyses presented in Diessel (2019; The Grammar Network. How Linguistic Structure is Shaped by Language Use) but approaches the topic from a different perspective.

scholarly journals The emergence of duality of patterning through iterated learning: Precursors to phonology in a visual lexicon

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 381-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alex Del Giudice
Keyword(s):  
Design Feature ◽  
Combinatorial Structure ◽  
Human Language ◽  
Lexical Structure ◽  
Small Stock ◽  
Iterated Learning ◽  
Human Participants ◽  
Duality Of Patterning ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Infinite Set

AbstractDuality of Patterning, one of Hockett's (1960) proposed design features unique to human language, refers in part to the arrangements of a relatively small stock of distinguishable meaningless sounds which are combined to create a potentially infinite set of morphemes. Literature regarding the emergence of this design feature is less abundant than that exploring other levels of structure as focus is more often given to the emergence of syntax. In an effort to explore where combinatorial structure of meaningless elements arises the results of two pilot experiments are presented within which we observe human participants modifying a small lexicon of visual symbols through a process of iterated learning. As this lexicon evolves there is evidence that it becomes simpler and more learnable, more easily transmitted. I argue that these features are a consequence of spontaneous emergence of combinatorial, sub-lexical structure in the lexicon, that the pattern of emergence is more complex than the most widely espoused explanation suggests, and I propose ways in which future work can build on what we learn from these pilot experiments to confirm this hypothesis.

A feature of performed narrative: the conversational historical present

1978 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nessa Wolfson
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Strong Influence ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Theoretical Point ◽  
Linguistic Feature ◽  
Linguistic Structure ◽  
The Social ◽  
Present Tense ◽  
The Relationship

The historical present, the use of the present tense to refer to past events, is a feature of narrative which has long been recognized. The object of this analysis is the use of the historical present tense specifically in narratives which occur in everyday conversational interactions. This usage will be referred to as the conversational historical present to distinguish it from the use of this tense in other genres such as travelogues and jokes. In the analysis of the occurrence of the conversational historical present, it was found that features of the relationship between the speaker and the audience had a strong influence. This is true not because the use of the linguistic feature itself is socially stratified, but rather because it functions as one of a set of features which appear in a specific type of narrative and is therefore governed by norms of interaction which constrain the social behavior involved in the recounting of such narratives. The fact that the use of the conversational historical present is an interactional variable in this respect has had important theoretical and methodological implications for the analysis which is reported here. The basic theoretical point is that in the study of the conversational historical present one sees a perfect example of the relationship between linguistic structure and language use.

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