Evolucionismo, integración sociocognitiva y cambio semántico

The paper focuses on an influential evolutionary approach to language change, namely the Utterance Selection Theory of Language Change developed by Croft (2000). Croft’s evolutionary approach takes its inspiration from neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory, particularly the Generalized Theory of Selection developed by Hull (1988), a philosopher of science. The touchstone idea states that linguistic change is an instance of cultural evolution and is therefore submitted to the same general evolutionary mechanisms driving biological evolution. Language is as a system of use governed by convention, and language change results from breaking with convention and propagating this innovation through the linguistic community until it becomes a new convention. We will argue within the framework of Cognitive Linguistics (Geeraerts & Cuyckens 2007) for a more systematic integration of cognitive and social factors in the explanation of language change, particularly semantic change. Taking some semantic changes from Portuguese and Spanish as illustration, we will show that the mechanisms for language innovation are cognitive whereas the mechanisms for propagation are essentially social. Determining how cognitive factors interact with social factors along semantic change and linguistic change in general remains a major challenge for the evolutionary approach to language change.