The Oxford Handbook of Approaches to Language Evolution

by Limor Raviv and Cedric Boeckx

• ISBN13: 9780192886491
• ISBN10: 0192886495
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2025-05-29
• Publisher: Oxford University Press Academic UK

Author Biography

Limor Raviv, Group Leader, Language Evolution in Diverse Situations, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics,Cedric Boeckx, ICREA Research Professor, Catalan Institute of Research and Advanced Studies

Limor Raviv leads the Language Evolution and Adaptation in Diverse Situations (LEADS) group at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, and is also a part-time lecturer in social interaction at the University of Glasgow. Her work simulates language evolution and diversification de novo and in silico by using a range of experimental and computational tools. She aims to uncover the major social, cognitive, and environmental pressures that shape human languages past and present, and to link core aspects of learning, cultural evolution, and ecology to explain the emergence and cross-linguistic variation of languages.

Cedric Boeckx is a research professor at ICREA, and the principal investigator of the Cognitive Biology of Language research group at the University of Barcelona, as well as a member of the University of Barcelona Institutes of Neuroscience and of Complex Systems. His current research focuses on the neurobiological foundations of the human language faculty, with special emphasis on evolutionary issues. His work is intended to facilitate integration among disciplines with the aim of achieving both better experimental testing of theoretical hypotheses and more solid interpretations of experimental findings.

Table of Contents

Introduction, Limor Raviv and Cedric BoeckxPart I. Human data1. Iterated learning experiments, Monica Tamariz and Aliki Papa2. Artificial language learning, Shira Tal, Inbal Arnon, and Jennifer Culbertson3. Communication experiments: Social interaction in the formation of novel communication systems, Thomas Franz Müller and Limor Raviv4. Virtual reality as a tool to study language evolution, Jonas Nölle and David Peeters5. Studying child-directed speech, Vera Kempe and Marisa Casillas6. Corpus-based approaches to evolutionary dynamics in language, Stefan Hartmann and Michael Pleyer7. Adaptation, Caleb Everett8. The evolution of the grammar of the body in sign languages, Wendy Sandler, Svetlana Dachkovsky, and Rose Stamp9. Silent gesture: Gesture studies with hearing participants, Danielle Naegeli and Marieke Schouwstra10. Methods to study evolution of iconicity in sign languages, Anita Slonimska and Asli Özyürek11. The study of Creole languages, Damian Blasi, Felicia Bisnath, and Pui Yiu Szeto12. Paleogenomics: A window into the genetic basis of derived traits in Homo sapiens, Juan Moriano, Cedrix Boeckx, and Martin Kuhlwilm13. Joint analysis of human linguistic and genomic variation, Yakov Pichkar and Nicole Creanza14. Studying long-term evolutionary processes over short time scales: Methods in cumulative cultural evolution, Maxime Derex and Charlotte Brand15. An integrative approach to early symbolic evolution: Experimenting with the past, Isobel Wisher and Kristian TylénPart II. Simulations16. The Bayesian iterated learning model, Vanessa Ferdinand17. Communication games: Modelling language evolution through dyadic agent interactions, Xenia Ohmer and Christine Cuskley18. Computational methods for language variation and convergence, Katie Mudd and Bart de Boer19. Language evolution with deep learning, Mathieu Rita, Paul Michel, Rahma Chaabouni, Olivier Pietquin, Emmanuel Dupoux, and Florian Strub20. Task-driven language evolution with swarm robotics, Nicolas Cambier and Roman Miletitch21. Linguistic evolution in time and space: Addressing the methodological challenges, Chundra Cathcart and Balthasar Bickel22. Information-theoretic and machine-learning methods for semantic categorization, Francis Mollica and Noga Zaslavsky23. Causal graphs as a tool for exploring language evolution, Kateryna Krykoniuk and Seán G. RobertsPart III. Animal data24. Observational work, Marco Gamba and Chiara De Gregorio25. Re-imagining great ape gesture (coding), Erica A. Cartmill, Emilie Genty, Kirsty E. Graham, Charlotte Grund, and Catherine Hobaiter26. Evolutionary roots of human cooperative communication: Using the CA-assisted comparative approach for quantitative and qualitative analyses, Simone Pika and Ray Wilkinson27. From species- to individual-level comparisons: What variation in great ape communication can tell us about language evolution, Marlen Fröhlich and Carel P. van Schaik28. ethods of examining the processing and production of rule-based sequences in animals, Mélissa Berthet, Maël Leroux, Simon W. Townsend, and Stuart K. Watson29. Bioacoustics and rhythm, Daria Valente and Andrea Ravignani30. Hominin tool evolution and its (surprising) relation to language origins, Ronald J. Planer, Elisa Bandini, and Claudio Tennie31. Comparative neuroimaging to study the neural infrastructure for language, Nicole Eichert and Rogier B. Mars32. How to study animal syntax, Toshitaka N. Suzuki