It’s International Women’s day! Language Evolution is a largely male dominated discipline: women account for only 8 out of the top 100 most cited authors, and only 14 out of 82 invited speakers at the Evolution of Language Conference (see here). To promote the contribution of women to our field, we’ve compiled a list of 100 female researchers in language evolution.
The list is by no means exhaustive, and is largely based on attendance at the most recent EvoLang conference. Topics cover both language origins and evolutionary approaches to linguistics more generally. A recent paper by each author is also included, though it may not be the best representation of their work. All mistakes with regards to links and citations are my own.
Goldberg, A. E. (2015). Subtle implicit language facts emerge from the functions of constructions. Frontiers in psychology, 6.
Bauernfeind AL, Soderblom EJ, Turner ME, Moseley MA, Ely JJ, Hof PR, Sherwood CC, Wray GA, Babbitt CC. Evolutionary divergence of gene and protein expression in the brains of humans and chimpanzees. Genome Biology and Evolution. doi: 10.1093/gbe/evv132
A Perfors (in press). On simplicity and emergence: Commentary on Johnson (2016) Psychonomic Bulletin and Review: Special issue on language evolution
Calude, A & Verkerk, A. (2016). How to build the Number Line in Indo-European – a Phylogenetic Study. Journal of Language Evolution [link]
Geambașu A., Ravigniani A. & Levelt C.C. (2016), Preliminary Experiments on Human Sensitivity to Rhythmic Structure in a Grammar with Recursive Self-Similarity, Frontiers in Neuroscience 10.
Jon-And (2016) Modeling language change triggered by language shift. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Sciullo (2016) Emergent syntax and syntactic variation. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Kandler, A., Wilder, B., & Fortunato, L. (2017). Inferring individual-level processes from population-level patterns in cultural evolution. bioRxiv, 111575.
Calude, A & Verkerk, A. (2016). How to build the Number Line in Indo-European – a Phylogenetic Study. Journal of Language Evolution [link]
(2016) Constituent order in pictorial representations of events is influenced by language. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Micklos (2016) Interaction for facilitating conventionalization: negotiating the silent gesture communication of noun-verb pairs. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Majid, A., Jordan, F., & Dunn, M. (2015). Semantic systems in closely related languages.
Beisner, B. A., Hannibal, D. L., Finn, K. R., Fushing, H., & McCowan, B. (2016). Social power, conflict policing, and the role of subordination signals in rhesus macaque society. American journal of physical anthropology.
Samuels, B. D. (2015). Can a bird brain do phonology?. Frontiers in psychology, 6.
Pakendorf, B. (2014). Coevolution of languages and genes. Current opinion in genetics & development, 29, 39-44.
Kriengwatana (2016) A general auditory bias for handling speaker variability in speech? evidence in humans and songbirds. . The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Power, C., Finnegan, M., & Callan, H. (2016). Human Origins: Contributions from Social Anthropology.
(2016) The cultural evolution of complexity in linguistic structure. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Padden, C., Meir, I., Aronoff, M. and Sandler, W. (in press) The grammar of space in two new sign languages. In D. Brentari (Ed.), Sign Languages: A Cambridge Survey. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hobaiter, C., Poisot, T., Zuberbühler, K., Hoppitt, W., & Gruber, T. (2014). Social network analysis shows direct evidence for social transmission of tool use in wild chimpanzees. PLoS Biol, 12(9), e1001960.
Silvey, C., Kirby, S., & Smith, K. (2015). Word meanings evolve to selectively preserve distinctions on salient dimensions. Cognitive Science, 39(1), 212-226.
Heyes, C. (2016). Blackboxing: social learning strategies and cultural evolution. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 371(1693), 20150369.
Barbieri, C., Güldemann, T., Naumann, C., Gerlach, L., Berthold, F., Nakagawa, H., … & Pakendorf, B. (2014). Unraveling the complex maternal history of Southern African Khoisan populations. American journal of physical anthropology, 153(3), 435-448.
Behme, C. (2015). Is the ontology of biolinguistics coherent?. Language Sciences, 47, 32-42.
Caldwell CA, Atkinson M & Renner E (2016) Experimental approaches to studying cumulative cultural evolution, Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25 (3), pp. 191-195.
Cuskley, C., Simner, J. and Kirby, S. (2015). Phonological and orthographic influences in the bouba-kiki effect. Psychological Research, doi: 10.1007/s00426-015-0709-2.
Reichmuth, C., & Casey, C. (2014). Vocal learning in seals, sea lions, and walruses. Current opinion in neurobiology, 28, 66-71.
(2016) Empirically assessing linguistic ability with stone tools. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Falk, D. (2016). Evolution of Brain and Culture. Journal of Anthropological Sciences, 94, 1.
(2016) The spontaneous emergence of linguistic diversity in an artificial language. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Gentner, D. (2016). Language as cognitive tool kit: How language supports relational thought. American Psychologist, 71(8), 650.
Maust-Mohl, M., Soltis, J., & Reiss, D. (2015). Acoustic and behavioral repertoires of the hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius). The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 138(2), 545-554.
(2016) Triadic ontogenetic ritualization: an overlooked possibility. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Irvine (2016) Deictic tools can limit the emergence of referential symbol systems. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Garcia-Casademont, E. (2017). A Case Study in the Emergence of Recursive Phrase Structure. In First Complex Systems Digital Campus World E-Conference 2015 (pp. 333-336). Springer, Cham.
(2016) Frequency-dependent regularization in iterated learning. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Cartmill, E. A., Hunsicker, D., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2014). Pointing and naming are not redundant: Children use gesture to modify nouns before they modify nouns in speech. Developmental psychology, 50(6), 1660.
Clarke, E., Reichard, U. H., & Zuberbühler, K. (2015). Context-specific close-range “hoo” calls in wild gibbons (Hylobates lar). BMC evolutionary biology, 15(1), 56.
(2016) A game theoretic account of semantic subjectification in the cultural evolution of languages. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Piantadosi, S. T., & Fedorenko, E. (2016). Infinitely productive language can arise from chance under communicative pressure.
Cavicchio (2016) Are emotional displays an evolutionary precursor to compositionality in language?. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Jordan, FM & Huber, B, 2013, ‘Evolutionary approaches to cross-cultural anthropology’. Cross-Cultural Research, vol 47., pp. 91-101
Reali, F., Chater, N., & Christiansen, M. H. (2014, March). The paradox of linguistic complexity and community size. In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on the Evolution of Language (EVOLANG X). Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd (pp. 270-279).
Tria (2016) Modeling the emergence of creole languages. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Vigliocco, G., Perniss, P., & Vinson, D. (2014). Language as a multimodal phenomenon: implications for language learning, processing and evolution.
(2016) Emergence of signal structure: effects of duration constraints. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Lyn, H. (2017). The question of capacity: Why enculturated and trained animals have much to tell us about the evolution of language. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 24(1), 85-90.
(2016) The effect of modality on signal space in natural languages. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Pepperberg, I. M. (2016). Animal language studies: What happened? Psychonomic Bulletin & Review Psychon Bull Rev. doi:10.3758/s13423-016-1101-y
Meir, I., Aronoff, M., Börstell, C., Hwang, S. O., Ilkbasaran, D., Kastner, I., … & Sandler, W. (2017). The effect of being human and the basis of grammatical word order: Insights from novel communication systems and young sign languages. Cognition, 158, 189-207.
Mann, J., & Singh, L. (2015). Culture, Diffusion, and Networks in Social Animals. Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Interdisciplinary, Searchable, and Linkable Resource.
(2016) The evolution of Zipf’s law of abbreviation. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Culbertson, J., & Newport, E. L. (2015). Harmonic biases in child learners: In support of language universals. Cognition, 139, 71-82.
Kocab, A., Senghas, A., & Snedeker, J. (2016). The emergence of temporal language in Nicaraguan Sign Language. Cognition, 156, 147-163.
Chen, J., & ten Cate, C. (2015). Zebra finches can use positional and transitional cues to distinguish vocal element strings. Behavioural processes, 117, 29-34.
Bybee, Joan. Language change. Cambridge University Press, 2015.
Bryson, J.J. (2007). Embodiment vs. Memetics. Mind & Society, 7(1):77-94. [Link]
Arnold, K & Zuberbuehler, K 2013, ‘Female putty-nosed monkeys use experimentally altered contextual information to disambiguate the cause of male alarm calls’ PLoS One, vol 8, no. 6, e65660. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0065660
Dudzinski, K., & Frohoff, T. (2014). Dolphin mysteries: Unlocking the secrets of communication. Yale University Press.
(2016) Dwarf mongooses combine meaningful alarm calls. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Fedurek, P., & Slocombe, K. E. (2011). Primate vocal communication: a useful tool for understanding human speech and language evolution?. Human Biology, 83(2), 153-173.
Bard, K. A. (2016). Dyadic interactions, attachment and the presence of triadic interactions in chimpanzees and humans. Infant Behavior and Development.
(2016) Intentional meaning of bonobo gestures. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Rissman (2016) Strategies in gesture and sign for demoting an agent: effects of language community and input . The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Progovac, L. (2016) A gradualist scenario for language evolution: Precise linguistic reconstruction of early human (and Neandertal) grammars. Frontiers in Psychology 2016
Raviv, L., & Arnon, I. (2016). Language evolution in the lab: The case of child learners. In A. Papagrafou, D. Grodner, D. Mirman, & J. Trueswell (Eds.), Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2016). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1643-1648). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
Perry (2016) Early learned words are more iconic. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
(2016) Evolution of convergent transcriptional specializations in the brains of humans and song-learning birds. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Tallerman M. Can the integration hypothesis account for language evolution?. Journal of Neurolinguistics 2016, (ePub ahead of Print).
Montant (2016) Make new with old: human language in phylogenetically ancient brain regions. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Schouwstra, M. (2016). Temporal Structure in Emerging Language: From Natural Data to Silent Gesture. Cognitive Science.
(2016) The cultural co-evolution of language and mindreading. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Fröhlich, M.; Müller, G.; Zeiträg, C.; Wittig, R. M.; Pika, S.: Gestural development of chimpanzees in the wild: the impact of interactional experience. Animal Behaviour (2017)
(2016) Signature whistles in an introduction context. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
(2016) Rule learning in birds: zebra finches generalize by positional similarities, budgerigars by the structural rules.. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Flaherty (2016) Do lab attested biases predict the structure of a new natural language? The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Lewis, M. & Frank, M. C. (2016). The length of words reflects their conceptual complexity. Cognition. 153, 182-195.
Tamariz, M., & Kirby, S. (2016). The cultural evolution of language. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8, 37-43.
Monika Pleyer
Pleyer, M. & Pleyer, M. (2016). The Evolution of Im/politeness. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Imai, M., Kanero, J., & Masuda, T.(2016). The Relation between Language, Culture and Thought. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8, 70–77.
Milward, S. J., & Sebanz, N. (2016). Mechanisms and development of self–other distinction in dyads and groups. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 371(1686), 20150076.
Clayton, N. S. (2015). Ways of thinking: from crows to children and back again. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 68(2), 209-241.
(2016) Arbitrariness of iconicity: the sources (and forces) of (dis)similarities in iconic representations . The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Fehér, O., Ljubicic, I., Suzuki, K., Okanoya, K. & Tchernichovski, O. (2017). Statistical learning in songbirds: from self-tutoring to song culture. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2016.0053.
(2016) Language evolution in ontogeny and phylogeny. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Perniss, P., & Vigliocco, G. (2014). The bridge of iconicity: from a world of experience to the experience of language. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B, 369(1651), 20130300.
Filippi (2016) Humans recognize vocal expressions of emotional states universally across species. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Grollemund, R., Branford, B., Bostoen, K., Meade, A., Venditti, C. & Pagel, M. (2015). Bantu expansion shows habitat alters the route and pace of human dispersals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 112:43, pp. 13296-13301. [link]
(2016) On a music-ready brain: neural basis, mechanisms, and their contribution to the language evolution. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Stamp (2016) The grammar of the body and the emergence of complexity in sign languages. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Sonnweber, R., Ravignani, A., & Fitch, W. T. (2015). Non-adjacent visual dependency learning in chimpanzees. Animal cognition, 18(3), 733-745.
(2016) Catergory learning in audition, touch, and vision. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
(2016) Meaningful call combinations and compositional processing in a social bird. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Hrdy, S. B. (2016). Development plus social selection in the emergence of “emotionally modern” humans. Childhood: Origins, Evolution, and Implications, 11.
Fedorenko, E., & Thompson-Schill, S. L. (2014). Reworking the language network. Trends in cognitive sciences, 18(3), 120-126.
Lev-Ari, S., & Peperkamp, S. (2017). Language for $200: Success in the environment influences grammatical alignment. Journal of Language Evolution. Advance online publication. doi:10.1093/jole/lzw012
Fröhlich, M.; Müller, G.; Zeiträg, C.; Wittig, R. M.; Pika, S.: Gestural development of chimpanzees in the wild: the impact of interactional experience. Animal Behaviour (2017)
Lewis, Jason E., and Sonia Harmand. “An earlier origin for stone tool making: implications for cognitive evolution and the transition to Homo.” Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371.1698 (2016): 20150233.
Vernes, S. C. (2016). What bats have to say about speech and language. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Advance online publication. doi:10.3758/s13423-016-1060-3
Goldin-Meadow, S., & Yang, C. (2016). Statistical evidence that a child can create a combinatorial linguistic system without external linguistic input: Implications for language evolution. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.
Verhoef (2016) Iconicity, naturalness and systematicity in the emergence of sign language structure. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Ferdinand (2016) Word learners regularize synonyms and homonyms similarly. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Sandler, Wendy (to appear). What Comes First in Language Emergence? In N. Enfield (Ed.). Dependencies in Language: On the Casual Ontology of Linguistic Systems. Language Science Press, Studies in Diversity Linguistics Series.
(2016) Linguistic structure emerges in the cultural evolution of artificial sign languages. The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)
Clay (2016) Functionally flexible vocalizations in wild bonobos (pan pansicus). The Evolution of Language: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference (EVOLANG11)