TY - CONF
T1 - Social structure and lexical uniformity
T2 - 43rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Comparative Cognition: Animal Minds, CogSci 2021
AU - Mudd, Katie
AU - Lutzenberger, Hannah
AU - de Vos, Connie
AU - de Boer, Bart
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank all KK signers as well as the research assistants in the KK community. Thanks to Tessa and Ross for all your ideas and support on this project (it would not have happened without you!), as well as to Yannick and Marnix for your support and help. A special thanks to Limor for sharing her insights and providing extensive feedback on a draft. This research was supported by the FWO-NWO grant “The emergence of phonology within six generations” awarded to Connie de Vos, Paula Fikkert and Bart de Boer, the Flemish AI plan, and the ERC Starting Grant ”Emergence of Language in Social Interaction” awarded to Connie de Vos.
Publisher Copyright:
© Cognitive Science Society: Comparative Cognition: Animal Minds, CogSci 2021.All rights reserved.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Language emergence is characterized by a high degree of lexical variation. It has been suggested that the speed at which lexical conventionalization occurs depends partially on social structure. In large communities, individuals receive input from many sources, creating a pressure for lexical convergence. In small, insular communities, individuals can remember idiolects and share common ground with interlocuters, allowing these communities to retain a high degree of lexical variation. We look at lexical variation in Kata Kolok, a sign language which emerged six generations ago in a Balinese village, where women tend to have more tightly-knit social networks than men. We test if there are differing degrees of lexical uniformity between women and men by reanalyzing a picture description task in Kata Kolok. We find that women’s productions exhibit less lexical uniformity than men’s. One possible explanation of this finding is that women’s more tightly-knit social networks allow for remembering idiolects, alleviating the pressure for lexical convergence, but social network data from the Kata Kolok community is needed to support this explanation.
AB - Language emergence is characterized by a high degree of lexical variation. It has been suggested that the speed at which lexical conventionalization occurs depends partially on social structure. In large communities, individuals receive input from many sources, creating a pressure for lexical convergence. In small, insular communities, individuals can remember idiolects and share common ground with interlocuters, allowing these communities to retain a high degree of lexical variation. We look at lexical variation in Kata Kolok, a sign language which emerged six generations ago in a Balinese village, where women tend to have more tightly-knit social networks than men. We test if there are differing degrees of lexical uniformity between women and men by reanalyzing a picture description task in Kata Kolok. We find that women’s productions exhibit less lexical uniformity than men’s. One possible explanation of this finding is that women’s more tightly-knit social networks allow for remembering idiolects, alleviating the pressure for lexical convergence, but social network data from the Kata Kolok community is needed to support this explanation.
KW - Input Variability
KW - Kata Kolok
KW - Language Emergence
KW - Lexical Uniformity
KW - Sign Language
KW - Social Structure
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126518624&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Paper
AN - SCOPUS:85126518624
SP - 2692
EP - 2698
Y2 - 26 July 2021 through 29 July 2021
ER -