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Culture, language and lifecycles: manifestations and transmission of cultural and linguistic information(abstract)

Both culture and, more specifically, language are phenomena that can manifest themselves in three different ontological dimensions: psychological predispositions, behaviors and material products. From an evolutionary standpoint such manifestations can be considered as different phases of cultural information lifecycles, with a replication based on the procedure of imitation. Nevertheless, there exists an important difference between genetic and cultural information lifecycles: genetic transfer takes place through the so-called germline, an encapsulating mechanism which keeps genes relatively safe from environmental interferences, whereas cultural lifecycles lack this mechanism. So, cultural replication is inherently inaccurate and, accordingly, unable to develop a cumulative evolutionary process. By introducing an additional cultural behavior, linguistic performance, humans granted the processes of social information acquisition the necessary fidelity for ensuring, up to a point, durability of advantageous cultural knowledge. This way, successive improvements and cultural advances can start from the set of experiences already cumulated by the community