School of Psychology, Philosophy and Language Sciences, University of Edinburgh, 3 Charles Street, Edinburgh EH89AD, UK.
Trends Cogn Sci. 2010 Sep;14(9):411-7. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2010.06.006. Epub 2010 Aug 2.
The historical origins of natural language cannot be observed directly. We can, however, study systems that support language and we can also develop models that explore the plausibility of different hypotheses about how language emerged. More recently, evolutionary linguists have begun to conduct language evolution experiments in the laboratory, where the emergence of new languages used by human participants can be observed directly. This enables researchers to study both the cognitive capacities necessary for language and the ways in which languages themselves emerge. One theme that runs through this work is how individual-level behaviours result in population-level linguistic phenomena. A central challenge for the future will be to explore how different forms of information transmission affect this process.
自然语言的历史起源无法直接观察到。然而，我们可以研究支持语言的系统，也可以开发模型来探索语言是如何产生的不同假设的可能性。最近，进化语言学家开始在实验室中进行语言进化实验，在那里可以直接观察到人类参与者使用的新语言的出现。这使研究人员能够研究语言所必需的认知能力以及语言本身出现的方式。贯穿这项工作的一个主题是个体行为如何导致群体语言现象。未来的一个核心挑战将是探索不同形式的信息传递如何影响这一过程。
