Evolutionary linguistics
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Evolutionary linguistics or Darwinian linguistics is a sociobiological approach to the study of language.[1][2] Evolutionary linguists consider linguistics as a subfield of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. The approach is also closely linked with evolutionary anthropology, cognitive linguistics and biolinguistics. Studying languages as the products of nature, it is interested in the biological origin and development of language.[3] Evolutionary linguistics is contrasted with humanistic approaches, especially structural linguistics.[4]
A main challenge in this research is the lack of empirical data: there are no archaeological traces of early human language. Computational biological modelling and clinical research with artificial languages have been employed to fill in gaps of knowledge. Although biology is understood to shape the brain, which processes language, there is no clear link between biology and specific human language structures or linguistic universals.[5]
For lack of a breakthrough in the field, there have been numerous debates about what kind of natural phenomenon language might be. Some researchers focus on the
History
1863–1945: social Darwinism
Although pre-Darwinian theorists had compared languages to living organisms as a
August Schleicher and his friend
This gave rise to the dominance of structural linguistics in Europe. There had long been a dispute between the Darwinists and the French intellectuals with the topic of language evolution famously having been banned by the
From 1959 onwards: genetic determinism
In the
Chomsky became an influential opponent of the French intellectuals during the following decades, and his supporters successfully confronted the
Chomsky eventually claimed that syntactic structures are caused by a random mutation in the human genome,[7] proposing a similar explanation for other human faculties such as ethics.[22] But Steven Pinker argued in 1990 that they are the outcome of evolutionary adaptations.[26]
From 1976 onwards: Neo-Darwinism
At the same time when the Chomskyan paradigm of
View of linguistics
Evolutionary linguistics is part of a wider framework of Universal Darwinism. In this view, linguistics is seen as an ecological environment for research traditions struggling for the same resources.[4] According to David Hull, these traditions correspond to species in biology. Relationships between research traditions can be symbiotic, competitive or parasitic. An adaptation of Hull's theory in linguistics is proposed by William Croft.[3] He argues that the Darwinian method is more advantageous than linguistic models based on physics, structuralist sociology, or hermeneutics.[4]
Approaches
Evolutionary linguistics is often divided into functionalism and formalism,[29] concepts which are not to be confused with functionalism and formalism in the humanistic reference.[30] Functional evolutionary linguistics considers languages as adaptations to human mind. The formalist view regards them as crystallised or non-adaptational.[29]
Functionalism (adaptationism)
The adaptational view of language is advocated by various frameworks of cognitive and evolutionary linguistics, with the terms 'functionalism' and 'Cognitive Linguistics' often being equated.
It is thought that the brain links action schemes to form–meaning pairs which are called
The bad reputation of social Darwinism and memetics has been discussed in the literature, and recommendations for new terminology have been given.
Functional evolutionary linguistics is not to be confused with functional humanistic linguistics.
Formalism (structuralism)
Advocates of formal evolutionary explanation in linguistics argue that linguistic structures are crystallised. Inspired by 19th century advances in
In modern biolinguistics, the X-bar tree is argued to be like natural systems such as ferromagnetic droplets and botanic forms.[48] Generative grammar considers syntactic structures similar to snowflakes.[9] It is hypothesised that such patterns are caused by a mutation in humans.[7]
The formal–structural evolutionary aspect of linguistics is not to be confused with structural linguistics.
Evidence
There was some hope of a breakthrough at the discovery of the FOXP2 gene.[49][50] There is little support, however, for the idea that FOXP2 is 'the grammar gene' or that it had much to do with the relatively recent emergence of syntactical speech.[51] There is no evidence that people have a language instinct.[52] Memetics is widely discredited as pseudoscience[14] and neurological claims made by evolutionary cognitive linguists have been likened to pseudoscience.[13] All in all, there does not appear to be any evidence for the basic tenets of evolutionary linguistics beyond the fact that language is processed by the brain, and brain structures are shaped by genes.[5]
Criticism
Evolutionary linguistics has been criticised by advocates of (humanistic) structural and functional linguistics. Ferdinand de Saussure commented on 19th century evolutionary linguistics:
"Language was considered a specific sphere, a fourth natural kingdom; this led to methods of reasoning which would have caused astonishment in other sciences. Today one cannot read a dozen lines written at that time without being struck by absurdities of reasoning and by the terminology used to justify these absurdities”[53]
Mark Aronoff, however, argues that historical linguistics had its golden age during the time of Schleicher and his supporters, enjoying a place among the hard sciences, and considers the return of Darwinian linguistics as a positive development. Esa Itkonen nonetheless deems the revival of Darwinism as a hopeless enterprise:
"There is ... an application of intelligence in linguistic change which is absent in biological evolution; and this suffices to make the two domains totally disanalogous ... [Grammaticalisation depends on] cognitive processes, ultimately serving the goal of problem solving, which intelligent entities like humans must perform all the time, but which biological entities like genes cannot perform. Trying to eliminate this basic difference leads to confusion.”[54]
Itkonen also points out that the principles of natural selection are not applicable because language innovation and acceptance have the same source which is the speech community. In biological evolution, mutation and selection have different sources. This makes it possible for people to change their languages, but not their genotype.[55]
See also
References
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Further reading
- Atkinson QD, Meade A, Venditti C, Greenhill SJ, Pagel M (2008). "Languages evolve in punctuational bursts". Science. 319 (5863): 588. S2CID 29740420.
- Botha, R; Knight, C., eds. (2009). The Cradle of Language. Oxford Series in the Evolution of Language. Oxford.: OCLC 804498749.
- Diller, Karl C.; Cann, Rebecca L. (2009). Rudolf Botha; Chris Knight (eds.). Evidence Against a Genetic-Based Revolution in Language 50,000 Years Ago. Oxford Series in the Evolution of Language. Oxford.: Oxford University Press. pp. 135–149. )
- Power, Camilla (2009). Rudolf Botha; Chris Knight (eds.). Sexual Selection Models for the Emergence of Symbolic Communication: Why They Should be Reversed. Oxford Series in the Evolution of Language. Oxford.: Oxford University Press. pp. 257–280. )
- Watts, Ian (2009). Rudolf Botha; Chris Knight (eds.). Red Ochre, Body Painting, and Language: Interpreting the Blombos Ochre. Oxford Series in the Evolution of Language. Oxford.: Oxford University Press. pp. 62–92. )
- Cangelosi, A.; hdl:10026.1/3619.
- Carstairs-McCarthy, Andrew (2007). "Language evolution: What linguists can contribute". Lingua. 117 (3): 503–509. .
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- Christiansen, Morten H.; Kirby, Simon. (2003). Language evolution. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. OCLC 51235137.
- Bickerton, Derek (2003). Morten H. Christiansen; Simon Kirby (eds.). Symbol and Structure: A Comprehensive Framework for Language Evolution. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 77–93. )
- Hurford, James R. (2003). Morten H. Christiansen; Simon Kirby (eds.). The Language Mosaic and Its Evolution. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 38–57. )
- Lieberman, Philip (2003). Morten H. Christiansen; Simon Kirby (eds.). Motor Control, Speech, and the Evolution of Language. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 252–271. )
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- Dor, Daniel; Jablonka, Eva (2001). Jürgen Trabant; Sean Ward (eds.). How language changed the genes: toward an explicit account of the evolution of language (PDF). Berlin; N.Y.: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 149–175. )
- Dor, Daniel; Jablonka, Eva (2000). "From Cultural Selection to Genetic Selection: A Framework for the Evolution of Language" (PDF). Selection 1. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
- Elvira, Javier (2009). Evolución lingüística y cambio sintáctico. Fondo Hispánico de Lingüística y Filología. Bern et al.: Peter Lang. OCLC 475438932.
- Fitch, W. Tecumseh (2010). The Evolution of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge. OCLC 428024376.
- Gabrić P (2021). "Book Review: Neanderthal Language: Demystifying the Linguistic Powers of Our Extinct Cousins". Frontiers in Psychology. 12 702361: 702361. PMC 8194866.
- Gabrić P (2021). "Differentiation between agents and patients in the putative two-word stage of language evolution". Frontiers in Psychology. 12 684022: 684022. PMID 34456797.
- Gabrić P (2022). "Overlooked evidence for semantic compositionality and signal reduction in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)". Animal Cognition. 25 (3): 631–643. PMID 34822011.
- Hauser, Marc D. (1996). The evolution of communication. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press. OCLC 750525164.
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- Steklis, Horst D.; Harnad, Stevan R. (1976). Stevan R Harnad; Horst D Steklis; Jane Beckman Lancaster (eds.). From hand to mouth : some critical stages in the evolution of language. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. )
- Hauser MD, Chomsky N, Fitch WT (2002). "The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve?" (PDF). Science. 298 (5598): 1569–79. PMID 12446899. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2007-09-26. Retrieved 2007-09-09.
- Heine, Bernd; Kuteva, Tania (2007). The genesis of grammar : a reconstructio. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. OCLC 849464326.
- Hurford, James R. (2007). The origins of meaning. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. OCLC 263645256.
- Jackendoff, Ray (2002). Foundations of language : brain, meaning, grammar, evolution. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. OCLC 48053881.
- Johanson, Donald C.; Edgar, Blake (2006). From Lucy to Language (Revised, updated, and expanded ed.). New York, NY: Simon and Schuster. OCLC 72440476.
- Johansson, Sverker (2005). Origins of language : constraints on hypothese. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. OCLC 803876944.
- Kenneally, Christine (2007). The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language. New York, NY: Viking. OCLC 80460757.
- Knight, Chris (2010). Ulrich J Frey; Charlotte Störmer; Kai P Willführ (eds.). The origins of symbolic culture (PDF). Berlin; New York: Springer. pp. 193–211. )
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- Mithen, Steven J. (2005). The singing Neanderthals : the origins of music, language, mind and body. London: Weidenfeld Nicolson. OCLC 58052344.
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External links
- Agent-Based Models of Language Evolution
- ARTI Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
- Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory
- Computerized comparative linguistics
- Fluid Construction Grammar
- Language Evolution and Computation Bibliography Archived 2014-04-21 at the Wayback Machine
- Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit, University of Edinburgh