Full Description
The evolution of language has developed into a large research field. Two questions are particularly relevant for this strand of research: firstly, how did the human capacity for language emerge? And secondly, which processes of cultural evolution are involved both in the evolution of human language from non-linguistic communication and in the continued evolution of human languages? Much research on language evolution that addresses these two questions is highly compatible with the usage-based approach to language pursued in cognitive linguistics. Focusing on key topics such as comparing human language and animal communication, experimental approaches to language evolution, and evolutionary dynamics in language, this Element gives an overview of the current state-of-the-art of language evolution research and discusses how cognitive linguistics and research on the evolution of language can cross-fertilise each other. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Contents
1. Introduction; 2. Comparing the 'design features' of language and animal communication; 3. Signing apes and talking birds: language-trained animals; 4. Cooperation and communication: the joint attention hypothesis; 5. Language evolution in the lab; 6. Real-world language dynamics: what language emergence and change reveal about evolution; 7. A usage-based perspective on the evolution of language; References.
