Effects of population structure on the evolution of linguistic convention

Danovski, Kaloyan and Brede, Markus (2021) Effects of population structure on the evolution of linguistic convention. In Proceedings of Complex Networks 2021. Springer. 12 pp . (In Press)

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

We define a model for the evolution of linguistic convention in a population of agents embedded on a network, and consider the effects of topology on the population-level language dynamics. Individuals are subject to evolutionary forces that over time result in the adoption of a shared language throughout the population. The differences in convergence time to a common language and that language's communicative efficiency under different underlying social structures and population sizes are examined. We find that shorter average path lengths contribute to a faster convergence and that the final payoff of languages is unaffected by the underlying topology. Compared to models for the emergence of linguistic convention based on self-organization, we find similarities in the effects of average path lengths, but differences in the role of degree heterogeneity.

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