糖心TV Complexity Science Events
Complexity Centre and MathSys CDT events carry priority over room D1.07.
To book D1.07 please email Sheetal dot Sharma at warwick dot ac dot uk
Please note that your event booking is for D1.07 only. The adjacent common room is a private area for the MathSys Centre that cannot used as part of your booking.
Complexity Forum: "An evolutionary model of language change" Alan McKane (Manchester)
TITLE: An evolutionary model of language change
SPEAKER: Alan McKane (University of Manchester)
ABSTRACT:
In the first part of the talk we introduce a usage-based model of language
change which is strongly motivated by ideas from population genetics. In
the model, a community of speakers interact with different frequencies, and
through conversations, influence each others usage of different linguistic
variants. Both numerical simulations and mathematical analysis are used to
determine the mean time, T, taken for only one variant to be left in the
community. In the second part of the talk, the model is applied to study
the emergence of New Zealand English and the influence of network
structure on the value of T is investigated.