A simulation study exploring the role of cultural transmission in language evolution

Abstract

This paper proposes a language acquisition framework that includes both intra-generational transmission among children and inter-generational transmission between adults and children. A multi-agent computational model that adopts this framework is designed to evaluate the relative roles of these forms of cultural transmission in language evolution. It is shown that intra-generational transmission helps accelerate the convergence of linguistic knowledge and introduce changes in the communal language, while inter-generational transmission helps preserve an initial language to a certain extent. Due to conventionalisation during transmission, both forms of transmission collectively achieve a dynamic equilibrium of language evolution: On short time-scales, good understandability is maintained among individuals across generations; in the long run, language change is inevitable.