The effect of cultural transmission on shared sign language persistence

Mudd, Katie; Vos, Connie De; Boer, Bart de

doi:10.1057/s41599-020-0479-3

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…From 2005 onward, the field has started to investigate the many sign languages to have emerged in rural areas with a high incidence of deafness (Zeshan & de Vos, 2012). In a handful of cases, such complex gene-culture coevolution has led to longstanding rural signing communities, but in most cases the unique circumstances that lead to emergent signing varieties do not allow them to persist across multiple generations (Mudd, de Vos, & De Boer, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expression unleashed: The evolutionary and cognitive foundations of human communication

Heintz

Scott‐Phillips²

2022

Behav Brain Sci

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Human expression is open-ended, versatile and diverse, ranging from ordinary language use to painting, from exaggerated displays of affection to micro-movements that aid coordination. Here we present and defend the claim that this expressive diversity is united by an interrelated suite of cognitive capacities, the evolved functions of which are the expression and recognition of informative intentions. We describe how evolutionary dynamics normally leash communication to narrow domains of statistical mutual benefit, and how they are unleashed in humans. The relevant cognitive capacities are cognitive adaptations to living in a partner choice social ecology; and they are, correspondingly, part of the ordinarily developing human cognitive phenotype, emerging early and reliably in ontogeny. In other words, we identify distinctive features of our species’ social ecology to explain how and why humans, and only humans, evolved the cognitive capacities that, in turn, lead to massive diversity and open-endedness in means and modes of expression. Language use is but one of these modes of expression, albeit one of manifestly high importance. We make cross-species comparisons, describe how the relevant cognitive capacities can evolve in a gradual manner, and survey how unleashed expression facilitates not only language use but novel behaviour in many other domains too, focusing on the examples of joint action, teaching, punishment and art, all of which are ubiquitous in human societies but relatively rare in other species. Much of this diversity derives from graded aspects of human expression, which can be used to satisfy informative intentions in creative and new ways. We aim to help reorient cognitive pragmatics, as a phenomenon that is not a supplement to linguistic communication and on the periphery of language science, but rather the foundation of the many of the most distinctive features of human behaviour, society and culture.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expression unleashed: The evolutionary and cognitive foundations of human communication

Heintz

Scott‐Phillips²

2022

Behav Brain Sci

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“…Thus, individuals born in a society where there is already a pre‐existing language (language change scenario) would be more likely to use homogenous forms of language. In turn, this would explain why emerging sign languages in small remote villages (such as Al Sayyid Bedouin Sign Language in Israel; Jaraisy & Stamp, 2022) usually exhibit more variation than official deaf community sign languages taught at schools, even though these official languages are characterized by sparser and larger populations of signers (Meir et al., 2012; Mudd, de Vos, & de Boer, 2020). We suggest that the pressure for conformity (and more specifically, for using the dominant variant in the population) is the main factor underlying the differences between an established language (language change scenario) and an emerging language (language emergence scenario).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Network Structure Shapes Languages: Disentangling the Factors Driving Variation in Communicative Agents

Josserand,

Allassonnière‐Tang,

Pellegrino

et al. 2024

Cognitive Science

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Languages show substantial variability between their speakers, but it is currently unclear how the structure of the communicative network contributes to the patterning of this variability. While previous studies have highlighted the role of network structure in language change, the specific aspects of network structure that shape language variability remain largely unknown. To address this gap, we developed a Bayesian agent‐based model of language evolution, contrasting between two distinct scenarios: language change and language emergence. By isolating the relative effects of specific global network metrics across thousands of simulations, we show that global characteristics of network structure play a critical role in shaping interindividual variation in language, while intraindividual variation is relatively unaffected. We effectively challenge the long‐held belief that size and density are the main network structural factors influencing language variation, and show that path length and clustering coefficient are the main factors driving interindividual variation. In particular, we show that variation is more likely to occur in populations where individuals are not well‐connected to each other. Additionally, variation is more likely to emerge in populations that are structured in small communities. Our study provides potentially important insights into the theoretical mechanisms underlying language variation.

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“…For example, more than 40 years have passed since Frishberg's ( 1975 ) groundbreaking study of diachronic change in ASL, and few scholars have attempted to refine or to add to Frishberg's insights (see Shaw and Delaporte, 2014 ; Supalla and Clark, 2015 ). Another promising area for future research is the use of simulation studies to model the effects of differing processes of language transmission on language change (Gong et al, 2010 ; Gong and Shuai, 2016 ; Mudd et al, 2020 ) and to understand how iconicity may shape language change (Greenhill et al, 2009 ; Currie et al, 2010 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical Linguistics of Sign Languages: Progress and Problems

Power

2022

Front. Psychol.

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In contrast to scholars and signers in the nineteenth century, William Stokoe conceived of American Sign Language (ASL) as a unique linguistic tradition with roots in nineteenth-century langue des signes française, a conception that is apparent in his earliest scholarship on ASL. Stokoe thus contributed to the theoretical foundations upon which the field of sign language historical linguistics would later develop. This review focuses on the development of sign language historical linguistics since Stokoe, including the field's significant progress and the theoretical and methodological problems that it still faces. The review examines the field's development through the lens of two related problems pertaining to how we understand sign language relationships and to our understanding of cognacy, as the term pertains to signs. It is suggested that the theoretical notions underlying these terms do not straightforwardly map onto the historical development of many sign languages. Recent approaches in sign language historical linguistics are highlighted and future directions for research are suggested to address the problems discussed in this review.

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The effect of cultural transmission on shared sign language persistence

Cited by 11 publications

References 38 publications

Expression unleashed: The evolutionary and cognitive foundations of human communication

Expression unleashed: The evolutionary and cognitive foundations of human communication

How Network Structure Shapes Languages: Disentangling the Factors Driving Variation in Communicative Agents

Historical Linguistics of Sign Languages: Progress and Problems

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