13.10.2026 Round Table: Chundra Cathcart & Turgut Ağabeyoğlu

Replicator systems like language, genetics, and culture can be analyzed through the lens of neo-Darwinianism (and related mechanisms), focusing on mechanisms like selection and drift. At the same time, although the application of biological models of selection and drift has shed new light on linguistic questions, linguistics lacks the same degree of consensus on what constitutes drift and selection that can be found in biological and cultural evolution. In this roundtable discussion, we encourage participants to clarify the mechanisms involved in language change and question the applicability of specific notions taken from biology and cultural evolution to linguistics.
 
We will provide an overview of agreed-upon definitions of key phenomena and terms (e.g., inclusive fitness) that leads into the following questions:
 
1. Do biological notions of fitness extend straightforwardly to linguistic questions?
2. What is the relationship between the social mechanisms that drive language change (and shift) and the notion of fitness and selection?
3. What are the prerequisites and desiderata for a model of language evolution comparable to the Darwinian synthesis?