2009/11/24 by Tao Gong, James W. Minett, William Yang Wang +1
Computer Science · Social Sciences · #Language and cultural evolution #Speech and dialogue systems
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/09540090903198819
openalex publication_date 2009/11/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
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.