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Smith, K. (2001) The evolution of learning mechanisms supporting symbolic communication.
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The evolution of learning mechanisms supporting symbolic communication
Kenny Smith (kenny@ling.ed.ac.uk)
Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit
Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics
University of Edinburgh
Adam Ferguson Building, 40 George Square
Edinburgh EH8 9LL
Abstract Oliphant (1998;1999) contends that language is the only naturally­occurring, learned symbolic communica­ tion system, because only humans can accurately observe meaning during the cultural transmission of communica­ tion. This paper outlines two objections to Oliphant's ar­ gument. Firstly, it may be that only humans possess the necessary learning mechanism to support learned sym­ bolic communication. Secondly, such learning mecha­ nisms may be unlikely to evolve in other species, irre­ spective of their capacity for observing meaning.
Introduction Language is unique among the communication systems of the natural world ­ it is culturally transmitted, the rela­ tionship between basic lexical tokens and their meanings is arbitrary and those basic lexical tokens are combined to form structured forms which are used to communicate complex structured meanings. How did language come to be as it is and why is it unique? Much recent work in the field has focused on the evo­ lution of syntactic communication. Explanations of the human capacity for syntax have placed emphasis on two contrasting adaptive processes: Genetic adaptation of the genetically­encoded human language acquisition device to support syntactic com­ munication due to fitness advantages offered by syn­ tactic communication (e.g. Nowak, Plotkin and Jansen, 2000; Pinker & Bloom, 1990). Cultural adaptation of language in favour of composi­ tionality, due to cultural selection resulting from lan­ guage learner biases during cultural transmission of communication (e.g. Batali, in press; Kirby, 2000). Such models are not primarily concerned with the ori­ gin of the language learner's biases. These two opposing styles of ...
BibTex
@unpublished{smith01theEvolution,
  author={Kenny Smith},
  title={The evolution of learning mechanisms supporting symbolic communication},
  year={2001},
  note={},
  url={http://www.isrl.uiuc.edu/~amag/langev/paper/smith01theEvolution.html}
}

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