Geographical Origins and Economic Consequences of Language Structures

Galor, Oded; Özak, Ömer; Sarid, Assaf

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2820889

Cited by 30 publications

(46 citation statements)

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“…individuals with small‐ or large‐scale spatial associations) backgrounds (e.g. de Bot & Stoessel, ; Kaplan, Hooper & Gurven, ; Lupyan & Dale, ; Dale & Lupyan, ; Galor, Özak & Sarid, ; Laland, ; Lou‐Magnuson & Onnis, ), producing fundamental units and related variables of social grouping and organisation that could exchange and spread various types of information and knowledge through spatially and temporally distinct activities and flexible inter‐individual distances. The decreased risk of predation through group living, the use of fire, and tool technology, together with increased impacts of human disturbance (e.g. Bettridge & Dunbar, ; Gowlett, ; Smith et al ., ) associated with more complex social systems (e.g.…”

Section: Theories Of the Origins Of Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

The origins of gestures and language: history, current advances and proposed theories

et al. 2019

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Investigating in depth the mechanisms underlying human and non-human primate intentional communication systems (involving gestures, vocalisations, facial expressions and eye behaviours) can shed light on the evolutionary roots of language. Reports on non-human primates, particularly great apes, suggest that gestural communication would have been a crucial prerequisite for the emergence of language, mainly based on the evidence of large communication repertoires and their associated multifaceted nature of intentionality that are key properties of language. Such research fuels important debates on the origins of gestures and language. We review here three non-mutually exclusive processes that can explain mainly great apes' gestural acquisition and development: phylogenetic ritualisation, ontogenetic ritualisation, and learning via social negotiation. We hypothesise the following scenario for the evolutionary origins of gestures: gestures would have appeared gradually through evolution via signal ritualisation following the principle of derived activities, with the key involvement of emotional expression and processing. The increasing level of complexity of socioecological lifestyles and associated daily manipulative activities might then have enabled the acquisition and development of different interactional strategies throughout the life cycle. Many studies support a multimodal origin of language. However, we stress that the origins of language are not only multimodal, but more broadly multicausal. We propose a multicausal theory of language origins which better explains current findings. It postulates that primates' communicative signalling is a complex trait continually shaped by a cost-benefit trade-off of signal production and processing of interactants in relation to four closely interlinked categories of evolutionary and life cycle factors: species, individual and context-related characteristics as well as behaviour and its characteristics. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research to improve our understanding of the evolutionary roots of gestures and language.

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Section: Theories Of the Origins Of Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

The origins of gestures and language: history, current advances and proposed theories

et al. 2019

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“…The authors also investigate a sample of immigrants living in the United States-that is, all facing the same institutional and labor-market environment-and find consistent results. Galor et al (2016) also study the emergence of sex-based gender systems in languages and their effects on behavior. They advance the hypothesis and establish empirically that variation in caloric suitability for plough-positive/negative crops affects the emergence of grammatical gender in a language.…”

Section: 2mentioning

confidence: 99%

Gender: An Historical Perspective

Giuliano¹

2017

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Gender: An Historical Perspective july 2017Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but IZA takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The IZA Institute of Labor Economics is an independent economic research institute that conducts research in labor economics and offers evidence-based policy advice on labor market issues. Supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation, IZA runs the world's largest network of economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our time. Our key objective is to build bridges between academic research, policymakers and society. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. Gender: An Historical Perspective 1 Social attitudes toward women vary significantly across societies. This chapter reviews recent empirical research on various historical determinants of contemporary differences in gender roles and gender gaps across societies, and how these differences are transmitted from parents to children and therefore persist until today. We review work on the historical origin of differences in female labor-force participation, fertility, education, marriage arrangements, competitive attitudes, domestic violence, and other forms of difference in gender norms. Most of the research illustrates that differences in cultural norms regarding gender roles emerge in response to specific historical situations, but tend to persist even after the historical conditions have changed. We also discuss the conditions under which gender norms either tend to be stable or change more quickly. JEL Classification:N0, Z1, J16

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“…Gay et al's (2016Gay et al's ( , 2017 decomposition exercise suggests that two-thirds of the relationship between sex-based distinctions in language and female labour force participation among migrants to the United States "can be explained by correlated cultural factors, with about one third potentially explained by language having a causal impact". Interestingly, Galor et al (2017) show that gender-based grammatical distinctions correlate with gender specialization in historical agricultural practices. Gender-based grammatical distinctions may therefore provide a unique measure of historical gender roles that have been transmitted up to today.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, concerning gender distinctions in language, Boroditsky et al (2003) study whether sex-based distinctions in grammar shape individual perceptions of the characteristics of objects and their femininity and masculinity. Another possible mechanism is that sex-based distinctions capture historical gender roles that are transmitted through language, as Galor et al (2017) seem to suggest. This possibility implies that sex-based distinctions in language grammar can serve as a measure of culturally and historically determined gender roles.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In particular, the same researchers show that immigrant females from countries whose language relies on sex-based grammatical distinctions perform more housework and that gender norms are formed during childhood and persist throughout life. Galor et al (2017) suggest that these sex-based grammatical distinctions reflect historical gender specialization in agricultural practices. Language may convey gender norms through gender-based grammatical distinctions and provide a unique measure of historical gender roles that have been transmitted to the present day.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

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New avenues of research to explain the rarity of females at the top of the accountancy profession

Jeny¹,

Santacreu-Vasut²

2017

Palgrave Commun

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The rarity of females in leadership positions has been an important subject of study in economics research. The existing research on gender inequality has established that important variations exist across time and place and that these differences are partly attributable to the cultural differences regarding gender roles. The accounting research has also established that women are rarely promoted to the top of the Big Four audit firms (KPMG, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young). However, the majority of research in accountancy has focused on Anglo-Saxon contexts (the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia) or country case studies without explicitly considering the role that cultural variations may play. Because the Big Four are present in more than 140 countries, we argue that the accountancy research that attempts to explain gender disparities at the top of these organizations would benefit from considering cultural factors. Such research, however, faces a key methodological challenge-specifically, the measurement of the cultural dimensions that relate to gender. To address this challenge, we propose an emerging approach that uses the gender distinctions in language to measure cultural attitudes toward gender roles. The idea that language may capture gender roles and even influence their formation and persistence has been the focus of emerging research in linguistics and economics. To support our proposition, we follow two steps. First, we review the accounting research by performing a systematic query on the bibliographic databases of the accounting articles that study gender and language. Second, we present data regarding the diversity of the global boards of the Big Four and the diversity of the linguistic environments in which they operate. We find that half of the countries where the Big Four are present exhibit a sex-based grammatical system for their most-spoken language, while the other half of the countries do not exhibit this system. Our findings suggest that the use of language as a measure of culture is a novel approach in accounting research. We conclude by emphasizing some potential directions for future research, namely, studying the linguistic determinants of the rarity of females at the top of audit firms and exploring accountancy practices in countries with linguistically diverse environments, such as Canada or Belgium, among others. This article is published as part of a collection on the role of women in management and the workplace.

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Geographical Origins and Economic Consequences of Language Structures

Cited by 30 publications

References 60 publications

The origins of gestures and language: history, current advances and proposed theories

The origins of gestures and language: history, current advances and proposed theories

Gender: An Historical Perspective

New avenues of research to explain the rarity of females at the top of the accountancy profession

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