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The Evolution of Egalitarian Sociolinguistic Conventions

Author

Listed:
  • Suresh Naidu
  • Sung-Ha Hwang
  • Samuel Bowles

Abstract

Motivated by historical examples and ideas from socio-linguistics, in particular the "non-reciprocal power semantic" of Brown and Gilman (1960), we extend evolutionary models of language to incorporate intentional linguistic innovations among conventions that may convey social superiority and inferiority, despite being ambiguous, in the sense of less efficiency in communicating information. We show that egalitarian and unambiguous linguistic conventions can be stochastically stable but also identify conditions under which ambiguous linguistic conventions that are imperfect signals of status differences may be stochastically stable.

Suggested Citation

  • Suresh Naidu & Sung-Ha Hwang & Samuel Bowles, 2017. "The Evolution of Egalitarian Sociolinguistic Conventions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 572-577, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:107:y:2017:i:5:p:572-77
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.p20171089
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Jetter, Michael, 2024. "On the Post-Enlightenment Evolution of Moral Universalism," IZA Discussion Papers 16947, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Roberto Rozzi, 2021. "Competing Conventions with Costly Information Acquisition," Games, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-29, June.
    3. Barber, Luke & Jetter, Michael & Krieger, Tim, 2023. "Foreshadowing Mars: Religiosity and Pre-enlightenment Warfare," IZA Discussion Papers 16586, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Hwang, Sung-Ha & Rey-Bellet, Luc, 2021. "Positive feedback in coordination games: Stochastic evolutionary dynamics and the logit choice rule," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 355-373.
    5. Jonathan Newton, 2018. "Evolutionary Game Theory: A Renaissance," Games, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-67, May.
    6. Bilancini, Ennio & Boncinelli, Leonardo & Marcos-Prieto, Pablo, 2024. "Conflict initiation function shapes the evolution of persistent outcomes in group conflict," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D02 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Institutions: Design, Formation, Operations, and Impact
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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