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From One Bilingual to the Next: An Iterated Learning Study on Language Evolution in Bilingual Societies
Pauline Palma1,2, Sarah Lee1,2, Vegas Hodgins1,2
1Department of Psychology, McGill University.
Cognitive Science
|May 15, 2023
Summary
Bilingual adults learning artificial languages showed that prior language experience, not just practice, shapes how new languages gain structure over generations. English-like languages developed structure only when learned first, unlike French-like languages.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Linguistics
- Psychology
Background:
- Language evolution studies often use iterated learning to model cultural transmission.
- Agent-based simulations indicate prior biases significantly influence cultural transmission outcomes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how bilingual individuals' prior language experience affects the cultural transmission of novel artificial languages.
- To explore the impact of language learning order and phonological similarity on the emergence of linguistic structure.
Main Methods:
- An iterated learning experiment involving English-French bilingual adults learning two artificial languages.
- Languages were designed to mimic English and French phonology, learned in counterbalanced orders over 10 generations.
- Individual differences in language usage were recorded and analyzed.
Main Results:
- English-like artificial languages gained structure over generations only when learned first.
- French-like artificial languages developed structure irrespective of learning order, suggesting an asymmetric switch cost.
- Individual language usage patterns correlated with the amount of structure generated.
Conclusions:
- Bilingual experience influences individual novel language acquisition, which subsequently impacts group-level cultural transmission.
- The findings highlight the role of pre-existing linguistic biases and learning order in shaping emergent language structure.
Keywords:
BilingualismCultural transmissionIndividual differencesIterated learningLanguage evolutionLinguistic structureMore Related Videos
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