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The Recruitment Theory of Language Origins

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Book cover Emergence of Communication and Language

Abstract

Tremendous progress has been made recently on the fascinating question of the origins and evolution of language (see e.g. (55), (7), (9), (31)). There is no widely accepted complete theory yet, but several proposals are on the table and observations and experiments are proceeding. This chapter focuses on the recruitment theory of language origins which we have been exploring for almost ten years now. This theory argues that language users recruit and try out different strategies for solving the task of communication and retain those that maximise communicative success and cognitive economy. Each strategy requires specific cognitive neural mechanisms, which in themselves serve a wide range of purposes and therefore may have evolved or could be learned independently of language.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    They are the Sony dog-like AIBO entertainment robots running programs designed specifically for these experiments.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. SONY Computer Science Laboratory, Paris, France

    Luc Steels

  2. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium

    Luc Steels

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  1. Luc Steels
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK

    Caroline Lyon  & Chrystopher L. Nehaniv  & 

  2. School of Computing Communications and Electronics, University of Plymouth, Plymouth, UK

    Angelo Cangelosi

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Steels, L. (2007). The Recruitment Theory of Language Origins. In: Lyon, C., Nehaniv, C.L., Cangelosi, A. (eds) Emergence of Communication and Language. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84628-779-4_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84628-779-4_7

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