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Chapter 4 - Evolving Language in Interaction

from Part I - Language and Its Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2023

Anna M. Borghi
Anna M. Borghi
Affiliation:
University of Rome
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Summary

Chapter 4 shows how language has evolved through interaction. The first part focuses on the role that hand gestures, mouth movements, vocal actions, and the interplay of different modalities, together with the development of imitation capabilities, play in the evolution of language. In the second part, I show how language has evolved from interaction among people who progressively converged on the same meanings. I illustrate several new interdisciplinary approaches and methods adopted to study the emergence and evolution of language in dyads, groups, and populations, from agent-based simulations to experimental semiotics to culturomic approaches. Finally, I show how a combination of iconicity and arbitrariness might drive the cultural evolution of language. Iconic words, that is, words with a resemblance between form and meaning (e.g., "boom"), will emerge first, followed by more abstract ones, which are grounded in other words.

Keywords

language evolutiongesturesagent-based simulationsexperimental semioticsculturomicslanguage iconicitylanguage arbitrariness
Type
Chapter
Information
The Freedom of Words
Abstractness and the Power of Language
 , pp. 125 - 150
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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