Cultural Evolutionary Pragmatics: Investigating the Codevelopment and Coevolution of Language and Social Cognition

Language and social cognition come together in communication, but their relation has been intensely contested. Here, I argue that these two distinctively human abilities are connected in a positive feedback loop, whereby the development of one cognitive skill boosts the development of the other. More specifically, I hypothesize that language and social cognition codevelop in ontogeny and coevolve in diachrony through the acquisition, mature use, and cultural evolution of reference systems (e.g., demonstratives: this vs. that ; articles: a vs. the ; pronouns: I vs. you ). I propose to study the connection between reference systems and communicative social cognition across three parallel timescales-language acquisition, language use, and language change, as a new research program for cultural evolutionary pragmatics. Within that framework, I discuss the coevolution of language and communicative social cognition as cognitive gadgets, and introduce a new methodological approach to study how universals and cross-linguistic differences in reference systems may result in different developmental pathways to human social cognition.

Automated summary

Language and social cognition are interconnected and mutually influence each other through a positive feedback loop. The hypothesis is that language and social cognition co-develop in individual development and co-evolve in historical evolution through the acquisition, mature use, and cultural evolution of reference systems. The research program proposed aims to study the connection between reference systems and communicative social cognition across three timescales - language acquisition, language use, and language change - as a new approach in cultural evolutionary pragmatics. The coevolution of language and communicative social cognition is discussed as cognitive gadgets within this framework, and a new methodological approach is introduced to explore how universals and cross-linguistic differences in reference systems contribute to different developmental pathways of human social cognition.