scholarly journals The emergence of word order conventions: improvisation, interaction and transmission

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marieke Schouwstra ◽  
Kenny Smith ◽  
Simon Kirby
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Experimental Paradigm ◽  
Communicative Interaction ◽  
Event Type ◽  
Iterated Learning ◽  
Semantic Event ◽  
Semantic Distinction ◽  
Over Time

When people improvise to convey information by using only gesture and no speech (‘silent gesture’), they show language-independent word order preferences: SOV for extensional events (e.g., boy-ball-throw), but SVO for intensional events (e.g., boy-search-ball). Real languages tend not to condition word order on this kind of semantic distinction but instead use the same order irrespective of event type. Word order therefore exemplifies a contrast between naturalness in improvisation and conventionalised regularity in linguistic systems. We present an experimental paradigm in which initially-improvised silent gesture is both used for communication and culturally transmitted through artificial generations of lab participants. In experiments 1 and 2 we investigate the respective contributions of communicative interaction and cultural transmission on natural word order behaviour. We show that both interaction and iterated learning lead to a simplification of the word order regime, and the way in which this unfolds over time is surprisingly similar under the two mechanisms. The resulting dominant word order is mostly SVO, the order of the native language of our participants. In experiment 3, we manipulate the frequency of different semantic event types, and show that this can allow SOV order, rather than SVO order, to conventionalise. Taken together, our experiments demonstrate that where pressures for naturalness and regularity are in conflict, naturalness will give way to regularity as word order becomes conventionalised through repeated usage.

scholarly journals Systematicity and Variability in over time IL development: Developmental Sequences in the acquisition of order within VPs in English as a Foreign Language

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Sánchez Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Word Order ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Distributional Analysis ◽  
Developmental Sequences ◽  
Interlanguage Development ◽  
Crosslinguistic Influence ◽  
Over Time

Abstract: The study reported here contributes to investigation of over time interlanguage development in an instructed acquisition setting. In particular, it examines the development of word order within VP in the L3 English of 45 Spanish/ Catalan bilinguals with knowledge of L2 German. The analysis of the data (factorizing procedure, distributional analysis, implicational scaling) suggests that development can be sequenced into stages, though transition across stages is gradual. Moreover, development is constrained by knowledge of a non-native language previously learned (i.e., by crosslinguistic influence).Resumen: El estudio reportado aquí contribuye a la investigación del desarrollo de la interlengua a largo plazo en un contexto de adquisición formal. En particular, examina el desarrollo del orden de palabras en el SV en la L3 inglés de 45 aprendices bilingües Castellano/ Catalán con conocimiento previo de L2 alemán. El análisis de los datos (proceso de factorización, análisis distribucional, escala implicacional) sugiere que dicho desarrollo se puede secuenciar en estadios, aunque la transición entre estadios es gradual. Además, el desarrollo está condicionado por el conocimiento de una lengua no nativa aprendida anteriormente (es decir, influencia transversal).

Practical Issues of Translated Texts Editing

2019 ◽  
Vol 25242644 ◽  
pp. 38-41
Author(s):  
Maryna Aleksandrovych
Keyword(s):  
Word Order ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Original Text ◽  
Copy Editor ◽  
Proper Nouns ◽  
Units Of Measurement ◽  
Work Shifts ◽  
Basic Features

This article contains a summary of some practical issues of translated texts editing with clear examples. Copy editing of translated texts is different from copy editing of texts written in the native language, because the focus of the work shifts from how to deliver an author’s message in the most appropriate way to how to deliver author’s text, written in the native language, in another language (Ukrainian) in the most appropriate way. The first question is the versatility: does the copy editor need to know the language of the original text in order to do effective copy editing. And she/he should at least understand the basic features of the language of the original text such as phonetics, grammar and syntax. Also a copy editor should pay particular attention to such aspects as: at the lexical level – false friends, transliteration of proper nouns, excess of possessive pronouns, translation or adaptation of lexical gaps; at the syntactic level – copulative verb, word order in a sentence, contrastive stress in a phrase, address words, syntax simplification. A necessary aspect is the unification of certain elements in the translated text: address words, units of measurement (length, weight, area, time, volume, etc.), transliterated proper and common nouns. Described in this article principles of transliteration, unification, adaptation, lexical and syntactic aspects of copy editing of translated texts will help to improve the quality of translated books into Ukrainian.

The Role of Musical Development in Early Language Acquisition

2018 ◽  
pp. 565-591
Author(s):  
Anthony Brandt ◽  
L. Robert Slevc ◽  
Molly Gebrian
Keyword(s):  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Developmental Disorders ◽  
Native Language ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Early Language ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
Language And Music ◽  
Infant Brain

Language and music are readily distinguished by adults, but there is growing evidence that infants first experience speech as a special type of music. By listening to the phonemic inventory and prosodic patterns of their caregivers’ speech, infants learn how their native language is composed, later bootstrapping referential meaning onto this musical framework. Our current understanding of infants’ sensitivities to the musical features of speech, the co-development of musical and linguistic abilities, and shared developmental disorders, supports the view that music and language are deeply entangled in the infant brain and modularity emerges over the course of development. This early entanglement of music and language is crucial to the cultural transmission of language and children’s ability to learn any of the world’s tongues.

What the Hell, English?

2021 ◽  
pp. 2-38
Author(s):  
Arika Okrent ◽  
Sean O’Neill
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Word Order ◽  
English Language ◽  
Native Language ◽  
History Of ◽  
Dutch Language ◽  
Orderly System ◽  
The Way

This chapter provides an overview of the oddities of the English language. It begins by looking at the poem of Dutch writer Gerard Nolst Trenité and how he spent his career nitpicking defense of his own native language. Nolst Trenité saw that the Dutch language had its own inconsistencies. His complaints about the way his fellow citizens butchered the Dutch language were different from his complaints about English, but they came from the same expectation that language should be a logical, orderly system. The patterns are often overshadowed by what looks like randomness, and there are irregularities everywhere, not just in the spelling system. At every level of language, from spelling to vocabulary to grammar to word order to meaning there are violations of harmony and order. This book is thus a collection of answers to questions about English. It also presents a history of English that explores the tension between logic and habit in language development.

scholarly journals Physiological Synchrony in EEG, Electrodermal Activity and Heart Rate Detects Attentionally Relevant Events in Time

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivo V. Stuldreher ◽  
Nattapong Thammasan ◽  
Jan B. F. van Erp ◽  
Anne-Marie Brouwer
Keyword(s):  
Heart Rate ◽  
Stimulus Type ◽  
Electrodermal Activity ◽  
Physiological Signals ◽  
Independent Group ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Event Type ◽  
Physiological Synchrony ◽  
Electroencephalogram Eeg ◽  
Over Time

Interpersonal physiological synchrony (PS), or the similarity of physiological signals between individuals over time, may be used to detect attentionally engaging moments in time. We here investigated whether PS in the electroencephalogram (EEG), electrodermal activity (EDA), heart rate and a multimodal metric signals the occurrence of attentionally relevant events in time in two groups of participants. Both groups were presented with the same auditory stimulus, but were instructed to attend either to the narrative of an audiobook (audiobook-attending: AA group) or to interspersed emotional sounds and beeps (stimulus-attending: SA group). We hypothesized that emotional sounds could be detected in both groups as they are expected to draw attention involuntarily, in a bottom-up fashion. Indeed, we found this to be the case for PS in EDA or the multimodal metric. Beeps, that are expected to be only relevant due to specific “top-down” attentional instructions, could indeed only be detected using PS among SA participants, for EDA, EEG and the multimodal metric. We further hypothesized that moments in the audiobook accompanied by high PS in either EEG, EDA, heart rate or the multimodal metric for AA participants would be rated as more engaging by an independent group of participants compared to moments corresponding to low PS. This hypothesis was not supported. Our results show that PS can support the detection of attentionally engaging events over time. Currently, the relation between PS and engagement is only established for well-defined, interspersed stimuli, whereas the relation between PS and a more abstract self-reported metric of engagement over time has not been established. As the relation between PS and engagement is dependent on event type and physiological measure, we suggest to choose a measure matching with the stimulus of interest. When the stimulus type is unknown, a multimodal metric is most robust.

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.

Imitation as a Mechanism of Cultural Transmission

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Marriott ◽  
James Parker ◽  
Jörg Denzinger
Keyword(s):  
Control System ◽  
Reinforcement Learning ◽  
Foraging Behavior ◽  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Over Time

We study the effects of an imitation mechanism on a population of animats capable of individual ontogenetic learning. An urge to imitate others augments a network-based reinforcement learning strategy used in the control system of the animats. We test populations of animats with imitation against populations without for their ability to find, and maintain over generations, successful foraging behavior in an environment containing three necessary resources: food, water, and shelter. We conclude that even simple imitation mechanisms are effective at increasing the frequency of success when measured over time and over populations of animats.

scholarly journals The emergence of word-internal repetition through iterated learning: Explaining the mismatch between learning biases and language design

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mitsuhiko Ota ◽  
Aitor San José ◽  
Kenny Smith
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Transmission ◽  
Relative Strength ◽  
Language Design ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Artificial Language ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Learning Biases ◽  
Linguistic System ◽  
Iterated Learning ◽  
Cultural Evolutionary

The idea that natural language is shaped by biases in learning plays a key role in our understanding of how human language is structured, but its corollary that there should be a correspondence between typological generalisations and ease of acquisition is not always supported. For example, natural languages tend to avoid close repetitions of consonants within a word, but developmental evidence suggests that, if anything, words containing sound repetitions are more, not less, likely to be acquired than those without. In this study, we use word-internal repetition as a test case to provide a cultural evolutionary explanation of when and how learning biases impact on language design. Two artificial language experiments showed that adult speakers possess a bias for both consonant and vowel repetitions when learning novel words, but the effects of this bias were observable in language transmission only when there was a relatively high learning pressure on the lexicon. Based on these results, we argue that whether the design of a language reflects biases in learning depends on the relative strength of pressures from learnability and communication efficiency exerted on the linguistic system during cultural transmission.

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