The Baldwin effect in the evolution of language

Hajime Yamauchi

In 1896, James Mark Baldwin proposed "a new factor in evolution" (Baldwin 1896). In a nutshell, he assumed that if an individual is capable of acquiring an adaptive feature postnatally, addition of such a learning process in the context of evolutionary search potentially changes the profile of populational evolution.

Along with its recent reincarnation in computer science, not a few number of linguists have started to conceive that it would be a crucial factor of the evolution of language (e.g. Pinker & Bloom, 1990). The learning-guided evolution scenario possibly provides a strikingly attractive solution to a longstanding problem. Preliminary studies suggest that language evolution is out of the scope of natural selection mainly because of its dysfunctional nature: Language evolution is a consequence of exaptation or a big leap in evolution (Piatelli-Palmarini 1989). This no-intermediate scenario would be, however, explicable by natural selection when it is guided by learning since learning can bridge the gap. There is a further advantage of the Baldwin effect in the evolutionary study of the language acquisition mechanism. Its combination of genetically hardwired features and postnatal learning processes are perfectly compatible with Chomsky's P&P theory. Together with its genetic assimilation process, the Baldwin effect may shed a light on the nature of the current relationship between innateness and postnatal learning in language acquisition. I would like to talk about facts and myths of the Baldwin effect in language evolution together with its facts and myths.

References:

Baldwin, J. M. (1896) "A New Factor in Evolution" The American Naturalist 30.

Chomsky, N. (1981) Lectures on Government and Binding: The Pisa Lectures. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter

Piatelli-Palmarini (1989) "Evolution, Selection and Cognition" Cognition 31.

Pinker, S. & P. Bloom (1990) "Natural Language and Natural Selection" Behavioural and Brain Science 13.