A simulation study exploring the role of cultural transmission in language evolution
This paper proposes a language acquisition framework that includes both intra-generational transmission among children and inter-generational transmission between adults and children. A multi-agent computational model that adopts this framework is designed to evaluate the relative roles
of these forms of cultural transmission in language evolution. It is shown that intra-generational transmission helps accelerate the convergence of linguistic knowledge and introduce changes in the communal language, while inter-generational transmission helps preserve an initial language
to a certain extent. Due to conventionalisation during transmission, both forms of transmission collectively achieve a dynamic equilibrium of language evolution: On short time-scales, good understandability is maintained among individuals across generations; in the long run, language change
is inevitable.
Keywords: computational simulation; conventionalisation; cultural transmission; language evolution
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: Department of Linguistics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany 2: Department of Electronic Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, PR China
Publication date: 01 March 2010
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