Cultural evolution: implications for understanding the human language faculty and its evolution

被引:101
|
作者
Smith, Kenny [1 ]
Kirby, Simon [2 ]
机构
[1] Northumbria Univ, Div Psychol, Cognit & Commun Res Ctr, Newcastle Upon Tyne NE1 8ST, Tyne & Wear, England
[2] Univ Edinburgh, Sch Philosophy Psychol & Language Sci, Language Evolut & Computat Res Unit, Edinburgh EH8 9AD, Midlothian, Scotland
基金
英国经济与社会研究理事会;
关键词
language; communication; language faculty; cultural evolution; biological evolution;
D O I
10.1098/rstb.2008.0145
中图分类号
Q [生物科学];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
Human language is unique among the communication systems of the natural world: it is socially learned and, as a consequence of its recursively compositional structure, offers open-ended communicative potential. The structure of this communication system can be explained as a consequence of the evolution of the human biological capacity for language or the cultural evolution of language itself. We argue, supported by a formal model, that an explanatory account that involves some role for cultural evolution has profound implications for our understanding of the biological evolution of the language faculty: under a number of reasonable scenarios, cultural evolution can shield the language faculty from selection, such that strongly constraining language-specific learning biases are unlikely to evolve. We therefore argue that language is best seen as a consequence of cultural evolution in populations with a weak and/or domain-general language faculty.
引用
收藏
页码:3591 / 3603
页数:13
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