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Language as an emergent group-level trait

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2014

Lan Shuai  and
Tao Gong
Lan Shuai
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218. susan.shuai@gmail.comhttp://www.ece-jhu.org/
Tao Gong
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong. gtojty@gmail.comhttp://www.linguistics.hku.hk/
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Abstract

Following Smaldino's definition, we claim that language is also an emergent group-level trait, and propose two facets (human groups tend to organize in a way to efficiently trigger language and linguistic interactions can render formation of certain social organization) to verify this statement, both of which also provide a general framework to address the future work about group-level traits.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , June 2014 , pp. 274 - 275
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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