Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T21:37:10.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An evolutionary approach to sign language emergence: From state to process

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 April 2017

Yasamin Motamedi ,
Marieke Schouwstra  and
Simon Kirby
Yasamin Motamedi
Affiliation:
School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, Centre for Language Evolution, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9AD, Scotland, United Kingdom. [email protected]@[email protected]
Marieke Schouwstra
Affiliation:
School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, Centre for Language Evolution, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9AD, Scotland, United Kingdom. [email protected]@[email protected]
Simon Kirby
Affiliation:
School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, Centre for Language Evolution, The University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, EH8 9AD, Scotland, United Kingdom. [email protected]@[email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Understanding the relationship between gesture, sign, and speech offers a valuable tool for investigating how language emerges from a nonlinguistic state. We propose that the focus on linguistic status is problematic, and a shift to focus on the processes that shape these systems serves to explain the relationship between them and contributes to the central question of how language evolves.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 40 , 2017 , e65
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Cornish, H., Smith, K. & Kirby, S. (2013) Systems from sequences: An iterated learning account of the emergence of systematic structure in a non-linguistic task. In: Proceedings of the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, ed. Knauf, M., Pauen, M., Sebanz, N. & Wachsmuth, I., pp. 340–45.Google Scholar
Goldin-Meadow, S., So, W. C., Özyürek, A. & Mylander, C. (2008) The natural order of events: How speakers of different languages represent events nonverbally. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105(27):9163–68. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0710060105.Google Scholar
Kirby, S., Cornish, H. & Smith, K. (2008) Cumulative cultural evolution in the laboratory: An experimental approach to the origins of structure in human language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 105(31):10681–86. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0707835105.Google Scholar
Kirby, S., Griffiths, T. & Smith, K. (2014) Iterated learning and the evolution of language. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 28C:108–14. doi: 10.1016/j.conb.2014.07.014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirby, S., Tamariz, M., Cornish, H. & Smith, K. (2015) Compression and communication in the cultural evolution of linguistic structure linguistic structure. Cognition 141:87–102.Google Scholar
Motamedi, Y., Schouwstra, M., Smith, K. & Kirby, S. (submitted) Evolving artificial sign languages in the lab: From improvised gesture to systematic sign. Manuscript submitted for publication.Google Scholar
Schouwstra, M. (2012) Semantic structures, communicative principles and the emergence of language. Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics (LOT Dissertation series; No. 312). LOT.Google Scholar
Schouwstra, M. & de Swart, H. (2014) The semantic origins of word order. Cognition 131(3):431–36. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2014.03.004.Google Scholar
Smith, K., Abramova, K., Cartmill, E. & Kirby, S. (under revision) The experimental study of sign language emergence. Google Scholar