Why Language Evolution Needs Memory: Systems and Ecological Approaches

Sukhoverkhov, Anton; Fowler, Carol A.

doi:10.1007/s12304-014-9202-3

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…In our view, this failure was due to the fact that languages were not addressed as intersubjective, transgenerational systems of communication that are embodied in multiple organisms and embedded into social communities or ecosystems (Steffensen, Fill, 2014). Languages are cumulative, sociocultural, and symbolic, and as such, languages presuppose not only fixed innate modules but also broad individual plasticity, cultural inheritance, and socially mediated learning and teaching at a community level (Sukhoverkhov, Fowler, 2014;Laland, 2017;Steels, Szathmáry, 2018).…”

Section: Language Beyond Dna: the Problem Of Language Origin And Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-genetic inheritance: Evolution above the organismal level

Sukhoverkhov

Gontier

2021

Biosystems

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The article proposes to further develop the ideas of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis by including into evolutionary research an analysis of phenomena that occur above the organismal level. We demonstrate that the current Extended Synthesis is focused more on individual traits (genetically or non-genetically inherited) and less on community system traits (synergetic/organizational traits) that characterize transgenerational biological, ecological, social, and cultural systems. In this regard, we will consider various communities that are made up of interacting populations, and for which the individual members can belong to the same or to different species. Examples of communities include biofilms, ant colonies, symbiotic associations resulting in holobiont formation, and human societies. The proposed model of evolution at the level of communities revises classic theorizing on the major transitions in evolution by analyzing the interplay between community/social traits and individual traits, and how this brings forth ideas of top-down regulations of bottom-up evolutionary processes (collaboration of downward and upward causation). The work demonstrates that such interplay also includes reticulate interactions and reticulate causation. In this regard, we exemplify how community systems provide various nongenetic 'scaffoldings', 'constraints', and 'affordances' for individual and sociocultural evolutionary development. Such research complements prevailing models that focus on the vertical transmission of heritable information, from parent to offspring, with research that instead focusses on horizontal, oblique and even reverse information transmission, going from offspring to parent. We call this reversed information transfer the 'offspring effect' to contrast it from the 'parental effect'. We argue that the proposed approach to inheritance is effective for modelling cumulative and distributed developmental process and for explaining the biological origins and evolution of language.

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Section: Language Beyond Dna: the Problem Of Language Origin And Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-genetic inheritance: Evolution above the organismal level

Sukhoverkhov

Gontier

2021

Biosystems

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“…We think that the origin of this microculture with its own language (1) has direct affordance in the environment of the classroom, as proposed by ecological linguistics, (2) is rooted in the innate competence and cognitive prerequisites of the learners, as nativists indicate, and (3) is the result of social interactions, as argued from symbolic interactionism and sociocultural approaches [65,66].…”

Section: Language Microculture Culture: Theoretical Aspects Of Langmentioning

confidence: 99%

Language and Culture in the Classroom Space: The Case Study of a Foreign Language Assistant in Russia

Nurdin¹,

DeWitt²,

Sukhoverkhov³

2020

Tomsk State University Journal

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This article presents the results of a case study that puts the classical and new educational models and methods to the test through practical implementation by a French foreign language assistant in Russia. On that basis, the authors revise the modern theories of language and intercultural communication. The research emphasises that for the efficient acquisition of foreign language and the development of cultural competences it is necessary to design a "learning microculture" and unique "ecology" of the classroom.

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“…Natural languages per se are hybrid, dynamic, context-sensitive and eco-logical [Sukhoverkhov, 2014;Steffensen, Fill, 2014;Sukhoverkhov, Fowler, 2015]. Each has its own syntax, multiple word meanings, idioms, innuendos, intertextualities, ecological and cultural embeddedness that sometimes do and sometimes do not coincide with each other.…”

Section: The Language Barrier and Machine Translationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lost in Machine Translation: Contextual Linguistic Uncertainty

Sukhoverkhov

DeWitt²,

Manasidi

et al. 2019

Vestn. Volgogr. gos. univ. Ser. 2 Jazykozn.

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The article considers the issues related to the semantic, grammatical, stylistic and technical difficulties currently present in machine translation and compares its four main approaches: Rule-based (RBMT), Corpora-based (CBMT), Neural (NMT), and Hybrid (HMT). It also examines some "open systems", which allow the correction or augmentation of content by the users themselves ("crowdsourced translation"). The authors of the article, native speakers presenting different countries (Russia, Greece, Malaysia, Japan and Serbia), tested the translation quality of the most representative phrases from the English, Russian, Greek, Malay and Japanese languages by using different machine translation systems: PROMT (RBMT), Yandex. Translate (HMT) and Google Translate (NMT). The test results presented by the authors show low "comprehension level" of semantic, linguistic and pragmatic contexts of translated texts, mistranslations of rare and culture-specific words,unnecessary translation of proper names, as well as a low rate of idiomatic phrase and metaphor recognition. It is argued that the development of machine translation requires incorporation of literal, conceptual, and content-and-contextual forms of meaning processing into text translation expansion of metaphor corpora and contextological dictionaries, and implementation of different types and styles of translation, which take into account gender peculiarities, specific dialects and idiolects of users. The problem of untranslatability ('linguistic relativity') of the concepts, unique to a particular culture, has been reviewed from the perspective of machine translation. It has also been shown, that the translation of booming Internet slang, where national languages merge with English, is almost impossible without human correction.

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Why Language Evolution Needs Memory: Systems and Ecological Approaches

Cited by 7 publications

References 84 publications

Non-genetic inheritance: Evolution above the organismal level

Non-genetic inheritance: Evolution above the organismal level

Language and Culture in the Classroom Space: The Case Study of a Foreign Language Assistant in Russia

Lost in Machine Translation: Contextual Linguistic Uncertainty

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