The Oxford Handbook of Approaches to Language Evolution

This handbook provides a detailed account of the many methodological tools and approaches used in the field of language evolution. The field has seen a rapid growth over the last decade, with a greater focus on empirical data and interdisciplinary syntheses. This volume aims to make sense of these recent developments, to provide a clear map of the current research landscape, and to showcase some of the most important advances. Each chapter highlights a particular methodology and outlines a question or set of questions that can be addressed using that methodology, illustrated by a key example from the recent literature.

The volume is divided into three parts. Part I showcases the many ways in which humans can shed light on the evolution of language when placed in specific experimental settings, as well as discussing the use of clinical, genetic, observational and historical data. Part II is devoted to simulations and models that enable the careful control of biases, mechanisms, and environments, while Part III revolves around the idea that the study of non-human animals can provide valuable insights into the evolution of human language. The handbook as a whole demonstrates that multiple complimentary approaches are necessary to do justice to the complexity of language evolution.

Limor Raviv, Group Leader, Language Evolution in Diverse Situations, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Cedric Boeckx, ICREA Research Professor, Catalan Institute of Research and Advanced Studies

Limor Raviv leads the Language Evolution and Adaptation in Diverse Situations (LEADS) group at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, and is also a part-time lecturer in social interaction at the University of Glasgow. Her work simulates language evolution and diversification de novo and in silico by using a range of experimental and computational tools. She aims to uncover the major social, cognitive, and environmental pressures that shape human languages past and present, and to link core aspects of learning, cultural evolution, and ecology to explain the emergence and cross-linguistic variation of languages.

Cedric Boeckx is a research professor at ICREA, and the principal investigator of the Cognitive Biology of Language research group at the University of Barcelona, as well as a member of the University of Barcelona Institutes of Neuroscience and of Complex Systems. His current research focuses on the neurobiological foundations of the human language faculty, with special emphasis on evolutionary issues. His work is intended to facilitate integration among disciplines with the aim of achieving both better experimental testing of theoretical hypotheses and more solid interpretations of experimental findings.