Dynamic preferences and self-actuation of changes in language dynamics

Abstract

A puzzling fact about linguistic norms is that they are mainly stable, but the conventional variant sometimes changes. These transitions seem to be mostly S-shaped and, therefore, directed. Previous models have suggested possible mechanisms to explain these directed changes, mainly based on a bias favoring the innovative variant. What is still debated is the origin of such a bias. In this paper, we propose a refined taxonomy of mechanisms of language change and identify a family of mechanisms explaining self-actuated language changes. We exemplify this type of mechanism with the preference-based selection mechanism that relies on agents having dynamic preferences for different variants of the linguistic norm. The key point is that if these preferences align through social interactions, then new changes can be actuated even in the absence of external triggers. We present results of a multi-agent model and demonstrate that the model produces trajectories that are typical of language change.

A systems approach to cultural evolution

“…Evolving traits relationships may, under certain assumptions, give rise to very high rates of change typical of fashion or fashionlike phenomena (Acerbi et al, 2012, Michaud, 2019. To see this, suppose that there are two kinds of traits, both of which can be transmitted between individuals.…”

Problems Of The Development Of The Russian Language In The Digital Age

“…A particular interest in the system of changes in the "basic principles" of society is the fate of the language as the main tool of communication and the keeper of culture. The processes occurring in the language at the present time were studied by the following authors: Gee and Hayes, (2011), Oates, (2016), Wang and Winstead (2016), Fišer et al (2020), Karamalak and Pozhidaeva (2019), Karjus et al (2020), Michaud (2020), Nölle et al (2020). There is no doubt that the digitalization of the communicative sphere has led to a paradigm shift in the purpose: not enough for a modern person to transmit information over long distances (the telephone, telegraph, and other "gadgets" of the past have completely coped with this), now it is necessary to transform the volume: in a short message -maximum information.…”

Replicator–mutator dynamics of linguistic convergence and divergence

“…Although previous studies have modelled accommodation to community behaviour by way of various mechanisms of frequency matching [6,18,19,22,50], extrinsic fitness has rarely, if ever, been included as an explicit macro-level term in mathematical models of language dynamics. The proposal here is to consider, initially, two population substrata, which could be thought to correspond to two socioeconomic classes, two subgroups of an age cohort, two age cohorts in a single community, or in general any two subpopulations of a speech community whose members are inclined to converge toward the speech patterns of those in their own subpopulation but diverge from the usage of those in the other subpopulation.…”

“…A lively debate now exists about how many and what ingredients are minimally needed in a mathematical model of linguistic variation and change, with proposals ranging from neutral or near-neutral models [17][18][19] to models incorporating intrinsic biases acting on competing linguistic variants [4,20]. The crucial issue is whether simple frequency matching in an environment characterized by various accidental asymmetries and stochastic noise is sufficient to give rise to classical patterns of variation and change, such as the S-curve [21], or whether stronger assumptions about deterministic biases are needed (see [22] for pertinent discussion and a useful taxonomy of modelling approaches). The results presented in this paper suggest that classical patterns of variation and change can arise from an intuitively plausible source, but nevertheless one that has not received much attention in the modelling literature-the opposing forces arising from the dynamics of sub-populations which lie, in one sense or another, in an antagonistic relation to each other.…”