Friday, October 13, 2006
Self-organization and Language Evolution: System, Population and Individual
Self-organization and Language Evolution: System, Population and Individual (large .PDF)
Jinyun Ke
"Abstract
This thesis proposes a framework adopting the self-organization theory for the study of language evolution. Self-organization explains collective behaviors and evolution with the observation that the patterns at the global level in a complex system are often properties spontaneously emergent from the numerous local interactions among the individual components, and they cannot be understood by only examining the individual components.
Language can be viewed as such emergent properties instead of products from some innate blueprint in humans. We highlight the importance of recognizing language at two distinctive but inter-dependent levels of existence, i.e. in the idiolect and in the communal language, and a self-organizing process existing at each of the two levels. It is necessary to clarify what phenomena are properties of the idiolects, and what properties are the collective behaviors at the population level."
Jinyun Ke
"Abstract
This thesis proposes a framework adopting the self-organization theory for the study of language evolution. Self-organization explains collective behaviors and evolution with the observation that the patterns at the global level in a complex system are often properties spontaneously emergent from the numerous local interactions among the individual components, and they cannot be understood by only examining the individual components.
Language can be viewed as such emergent properties instead of products from some innate blueprint in humans. We highlight the importance of recognizing language at two distinctive but inter-dependent levels of existence, i.e. in the idiolect and in the communal language, and a self-organizing process existing at each of the two levels. It is necessary to clarify what phenomena are properties of the idiolects, and what properties are the collective behaviors at the population level."
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