Tracing back to the 19-century Neogrammarians and Dyer’s (1971) bilingual Stroop experiment respectively, language evolution and the psychology of cross-linguistic behaviours both have long empirical research histories. Recent works have also shown inspiring findings on the psychological basis of inter-species communication, for instance, the involvement of mirror system during inter-species communication, and behavioural findings regarding domestic animals’ usage of acoustic cues in the comprehension of human speech. Nevertheless, many questions remain open regarding how the micro-level interaction of individual minds can collectively influence larger-scale cross-linguistic phenomena, such as human language contact, and the co-evolution of human and animal communicative systems.
Seventy years after the 1951 Interdisciplinary Summer Seminar in Psychology and Linguistics at Cornell University, this Research Topic aims to bring psychological investigation closer to the evolutionary linguistic traditions again and investigate the psychological basis for language co-evolution. Linguistic phenomena to be investigated include social and individual bi- and multi-lingualism, accents, mutual intelligibility between languages, interspecies communication, and language emergence. Psychological entry points include cross-linguistic perception, the bilingual lexicon, memory consolidation of linguistic units, language acquisition, and cross-brain interaction. Novel experimental paradigms are encouraged, and both behavioural and neuroscientific measurements are welcomed.
We aim to have a collection of empirical studies addressing the collective influences of individual minds on the co-evolution of different linguistic varieties as well as inter-species communications. This Research Topic welcomes empirical studies addressing (but not limited to) the following two research questions:
1. Psychological explanations for classical language-contact phenomena, e.g., the cognitive basis for the emergence and social establishment of loanwords, intergenerational and within-peer transmission of accents, and the psychological influence of individuals’ long- and short-term bilingual experiences on natural sound change (e.g., chain shift, near merger, and lexical diffusion). The relevant works can compare individuals from different linguistic communities with various socio-linguistic profiles and/or use settings to simulate real-world language contact in the experiments.
2. The role of cross-brain mechanisms in cross-linguistic human and/or interspecies communication. In recent years, researchers have uncovered rich cross-linguistic and cross-individual variation and asymmetry in the mutual intelligibility phenomenon between human languages as well as across species. Neural measurements have also been introduced into interactive paradigms to investigate human social interactions. New paradigms can be used to study human linguistic interactions as well as interspecies communications. The comparison between humans and animals may contribute to the discussion on the role of biological and cultural evolutions in human language emergence. The relevant works can involve behavioural and/or neuroscientific findings comparing human and animal communitive processing revealed in within- and inter-species communications.
Image credit: Artwork by Ying Zheng
Tracing back to the 19-century Neogrammarians and Dyer’s (1971) bilingual Stroop experiment respectively, language evolution and the psychology of cross-linguistic behaviours both have long empirical research histories. Recent works have also shown inspiring findings on the psychological basis of inter-species communication, for instance, the involvement of mirror system during inter-species communication, and behavioural findings regarding domestic animals’ usage of acoustic cues in the comprehension of human speech. Nevertheless, many questions remain open regarding how the micro-level interaction of individual minds can collectively influence larger-scale cross-linguistic phenomena, such as human language contact, and the co-evolution of human and animal communicative systems.
Seventy years after the 1951 Interdisciplinary Summer Seminar in Psychology and Linguistics at Cornell University, this Research Topic aims to bring psychological investigation closer to the evolutionary linguistic traditions again and investigate the psychological basis for language co-evolution. Linguistic phenomena to be investigated include social and individual bi- and multi-lingualism, accents, mutual intelligibility between languages, interspecies communication, and language emergence. Psychological entry points include cross-linguistic perception, the bilingual lexicon, memory consolidation of linguistic units, language acquisition, and cross-brain interaction. Novel experimental paradigms are encouraged, and both behavioural and neuroscientific measurements are welcomed.
We aim to have a collection of empirical studies addressing the collective influences of individual minds on the co-evolution of different linguistic varieties as well as inter-species communications. This Research Topic welcomes empirical studies addressing (but not limited to) the following two research questions:
1. Psychological explanations for classical language-contact phenomena, e.g., the cognitive basis for the emergence and social establishment of loanwords, intergenerational and within-peer transmission of accents, and the psychological influence of individuals’ long- and short-term bilingual experiences on natural sound change (e.g., chain shift, near merger, and lexical diffusion). The relevant works can compare individuals from different linguistic communities with various socio-linguistic profiles and/or use settings to simulate real-world language contact in the experiments.
2. The role of cross-brain mechanisms in cross-linguistic human and/or interspecies communication. In recent years, researchers have uncovered rich cross-linguistic and cross-individual variation and asymmetry in the mutual intelligibility phenomenon between human languages as well as across species. Neural measurements have also been introduced into interactive paradigms to investigate human social interactions. New paradigms can be used to study human linguistic interactions as well as interspecies communications. The comparison between humans and animals may contribute to the discussion on the role of biological and cultural evolutions in human language emergence. The relevant works can involve behavioural and/or neuroscientific findings comparing human and animal communitive processing revealed in within- and inter-species communications.
Image credit: Artwork by Ying Zheng