Language learning, language use, and the evolution of linguistic structure

Registration not necessary, unless you also want lunch. Lunch will be provided if you register by November 20. 

Human languages persist via a repeated cycle of learning and use, where learners learn from linguistic data which represents the communicative behaviour of other individuals who learnt their language in the same way. Languages evolve as a result of this cycle of learning and use, and are therefore the product of a potentially complex interplay between the biases of human language learners, the communicative functions which language serves, and the ways in which languages are transmitted in populations. In my group we study these processes using computational models and experiments with humans and other animals. In this talk I will present a series of experiments, based around artificial language learning, dyadic interaction and iterated learning paradigms, which suggest that the structural features which make human language such a uniquely powerful system of communication are a product of this cycle of learning and use. Understanding how human languages evolve through iterated learning also provides insights into phenomena such as “model collapse” seen when one generative AI model is trained on data generated by another generative AI, and potentially shows model collapse can be prevented, so I’ll finish by highlighting those parallels.

Bio

Kenny Smith is the Director of the Centre for Language Evolution in the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. He uses computational and experimental methods to study the evolution of language and the human capacity for language. He is particularly interested in how languages are shaped by their repeated learning and use, and how this cultural evolutionary process in turn shapes the cognitive capacities underpinning language learning. Kenny Smith has an MA in Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence, an MSc in Cognitive Science, and a PhD in Linguistics, all from the University of Edinburgh. His first faculty position was in Psychology at Northumbria University in 2006; he returned to Edinburgh as a lecturer in 2010, and was promoted to professor in 2017.