Language evolution seminar

Speaker: Paula Rubio-Fernandez (Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo)

Title: Cultural evolutionary pragmatics: Investigating the co-evolution of language and social cognition

Abstract: Language and social cognition come together in communication, but their relation has been intensely contested. Here I propose that these two distinctively human abilities are connected in a positive feedback loop, whereby the development of one cognitive skill boosts the development of the other. More specifically, I hypothesize that language and social cognition co- develop in ontogeny and co-evolve in diachrony through the acquisition, mature use and cultural evolution of reference systems (e.g., demonstratives: ‘this’ vs ‘that’; articles: ‘a’ vs ‘the’; pronouns: ‘I’ vs ‘she’). An exploratory study on the use of demonstratives in six different languages (Mandarin Chinese, English, Hebrew, Hindi, Italian and Polish) illustrates how cross- linguistic differences and universals in reference systems may result in different developmental pathways to human social cognition. I discuss the evidence of attention monitoring in demonstrative use observed in all languages against the backdrop of great apes’ ability to adapt their communicative signals to a recipient’s attentional state. I conclude with a discussion of the cultural co-evolution of cognitive gadgets.  

Contact

Seminars are organised by the Centre for Language Evolution

Lauren Fletcher

Centre for Language Evolution