What Language Change can Tell us About the Mental Organization of Linguistic Competence

Basic Assumptions and Purpose On a theoretical level, this presentation – which is based on my 2004 monograph Selfish Sounds and Linguistic Evolution – sketches and defends an approach to human linguistic competence that views it as a system of neural link patterns embodying schematic instructions for communicative behavior that are transmitted faithfully enough to qualify as mental or cultural replicators in the sense of Dawkins 1989. It is assumed that linguistic competences are replicator systems and best explained in terms of evolutionary theory, while the assumption of speakers as extra-systemic agents that control language acquisition and communicative behavioral is bound to confuse matters from the start. The approach differs in this respect from most established theories of language, because they assume such agents either explicitly (such as semiotic, functionalist theories, e.g. Dressler 1985), or implicitly (such as formalist approaches in the Chomskyan tradition). On the other hand it is compatible with the assumptions underlying much of contemporary cognitive science, and in particular with connectionist approaches to linguistic competence modeling (e.g. McClelland, Rumelhart et al. 1986), with evolutionary psychology (e.g. Plotkin 1998), with theories of cognition as a complex adaptive system (e.g. Hawkins & Gell-Mann (Eds.)1992), or with generalized Darwinian approaches to human cognition and culture (e.g. Dawkins 1989 or Hofstadter et al. 1995). What this presentation attempts to show is how the evidence of historical linguistic change can be made relevant to the question of how linguistic competence is implemented in, and transmitted among human mind/brains.