Natural Causes of Language: Frames, Biases, and Cultural Transmission

97 Pages·2014·3.599 MB·

by  N. J. Enfield

Natural causes of
language
Frames, biases, and cultural
transmission
N. J. Enfield
language
Conceptual Foundations of science
press
Language Science 1
ConceptualFoundationsofLanguageScience
Serieseditors
MarkDingemanse,MaxPlanckInstituteforPsycholinguistics
N.J.Enfield,UniversityofSydney
Editorialboard
BalthasarBickel,UniversityofZürich,ClaireBowern,YaleUniversity,ElizabethCouper-Kuhlen,
UniversityofHelsinki,WilliamCroft,UniversityofNewMexico,Rose-MarieDéchaine,Universityof
BritishColumbia,WilliamA.Foley,UniversityofSydney,WilliamF.Hanks,UniversityofCalifornia
atBerkeley,PaulKockelman,YaleUniversity,KerenRice,UniversityofToronto,SharonRose,
UniversityofCaliforniaatSanDiego,FrederickJ.Newmeyer,UniversityofWashington,Wendy
Sandler,UniversityofHaifa,DanSperberCentralEuropeanUniversity
No scientific work proceeds without conceptual foundations. In language science, our concepts
aboutlanguagedetermineourassumptions,directourattention,andguideourhypothesesandour
reasoning.Onlywithclarityaboutconceptualfoundationscanweposecoherentresearchquestions,
design critical experiments, and collect crucial data. This series publishes short and accessible
booksthatexplorewell-definedtopicsintheconceptualfoundationsoflanguagescience.Theseries
providesavenueforconceptualargumentsandexplorationsthatdonotrequirethetraditionalbook-
lengthtreatment,yetthatdemandmorespacethanatypicaljournalarticleallows.
Inthisseries:
1. N.J.Enfield. Naturalcausesoflanguage.
Natural causes of
language
Frames, biases, and cultural
transmission
N. J. Enfield
language
science
press
N.J.Enfield.2014.Naturalcausesoflanguage:Frames,biases,andcultural
transmission(ConceptualFoundationsofLanguageScience1).Berlin:Language
SciencePress.
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©2014,N.J.Enfield
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In memory of Grant Evans: colleague, mentor, and friend

Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Preface ix
1 Causalunits 1
1.1 Howwerepresentlanguagechange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 Linguisticsystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Linguisticitems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.4 Thinkingcausallyaboutlanguagechange . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5 Theproblemwithtreediagrams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2 Causalframes 9
2.1 Distinctframesandforces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2.2 MOPEDS:Abasic-levelsetofcausalframes . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.1 Microgenetic(actionprocessing) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2.2 Ontogenetic(biography) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.3 Phylogenetic(biologicalevolution) . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.4 Enchronic(socialinteractional) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.5 Diachronic(social/culturalhistory) . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2.6 Synchronic(representationofrelations) . . . . . . . . . 16
2.3 Interrelatednessoftheframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.4 ThecaseofZipf’slength-frequencyrule. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
3 Transmissionbiases 21
3.1 Culturalepidemiology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.2 Biasedtransmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.3 Someknownbiases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.4 Aschemeforgroundingthebiases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.4.1 Exposure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.4.2 Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.4.3 Reproduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Contents
3.4.4 Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.4.5 Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.5 Causalanatomyoftransmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4 Theitem/systemproblem 37
4.1 Atransmissioncriterion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.2 Definingpropertiesofsystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.3 Relationsbetweenrelations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.4 Morecomplexsystems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.5 Areculturaltotalitiesillusory? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5 Themicro/macrosolution 51
5.1 Thecombinatoricnatureofculturalitemsingeneral . . . . . . . 53
5.2 Solvingtheitem/systemprobleminlanguage . . . . . . . . . . . 55
5.3 Centripetalandsystematizingforces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
5.4 Onnormaltransmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
5.4.1 Sociometricclosure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
5.4.2 Trade-offeffects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
5.4.3 Item-utterancefit,akacontent-framefit . . . . . . . . . 59
5.5 Asolutiontotheitem/systemproblem? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
6 Conclusion 63
6.1 Naturalcausesoflanguage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
6.2 Towardaframework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Bibliography 67
Index 78
Nameindex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Subjectindex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
vi
Acknowledgements
InwritingthisbookIhavebenefitedgreatlyfromcommunicationwithBalthasar
Bickel, Claire Bowern, Rob Boyd, Morten Christiansen, Jeremy Collins, Grev
Corbett, Stephen Cowley, Sonia Cristofaro, Bill Croft, Jennifer Culbertson, Dan
Dediu,MarkDingemanse,DanielDor,GrantEvans†,NickEvans,BillFoley,Bill
Hanks,MartinHaspelmath,LarryHyman,JenniferJohnson-Hanks,SimonKirby,
Wolfgang Klein, Chris Knight, Paul Kockelman, Michael Lempert, Steve Levin-
son,ElenaLieven,HugoMercier,PieterMuysken,CsabaPléh,JoannaRączaszek-
Leonardi,KerenRice,PeterRicherson,SeánRoberts,GiovanniRossi,WendySan-
dler,JackSidnell,ChrisSinha,HedvigSkirgård,KennySmith,DanSperber,Sune
Vork Steffensen, Monica Tamariz, Jordan Zlatev, and Chip Zuckerman. I thank
participantsattheconferenceNaturalisticApproachestoCulture(Balatonvilagos
2011), the conference Social Origins of Language (London 2011), the conference
Language,Culture,andMindV (Lisbon2012),theworkshopRethinkingMeaning
(Bologna2012),theMinerva-GentnerSymposiumonEmergentLanguagesandCul-
turalEvolution(Nijmegen2013), andtheretreatDependenciesamongSystemsof
Language (ChâteaudelaPoste2014)forcomments,reactions,andinspiration.
For troubleshooting with LATEX I am grateful to Sebastian Nordhoff and Seán
Roberts.ThisworkissupportedbytheEuropeanResearchCouncil(grant240853
Human Sociality and Systems of Language Use, 2010–2014), and the Max Planck
Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen. Chapters 2–5 are thoroughly revised
versionsofpreviouslypublishedworks:aschaptersinSocialOriginsofLanguage
(OUP,2014,editedbyD.Dor,C.Knight,andJ.Lewis),andTheCambridgeHand-
bookofLinguisticAnthropology(CUP,2014,editedbyN.J.Enfield,P.Kockelman,
and J. Sidnell). Further, certain parts draw on sections of Enfield (2008, 2013,
chap.11).
IdedicatethisbooktoGrantEvans(1948–2014):historian,sociologist,andan-
thropologistofSoutheastAsia.Inourconversationsovernearly20years,Grant
always challenged my natural tendency to focus on items. He never stopped
pushingmetoacknowledgethecausalrealityofsocio-culturalsystems. Hisin-
tellectualengagementhasbeenoneofthemainmotivationsformetoconfront
theitem/systemproblemthatisattheheartofthisbook.