Christine Cuskley
Biographic Data
| ID | 1009048 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christine Cuskley |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christine |
| FAMILY NAME | Cuskley |
| SIGNATURE | CUSKLEY C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Newcastle University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5699-4556 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 6 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 6 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 6 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Evolving linguistic divergence on polarizing social media
Language change is influenced by many factors, but often starts from synchronic variation, where multiple linguistic patterns or forms coexist, or where different speech communities use language in increasingly different ways. Besides regional or economic reasons, communities may form and segregate based on political alignment. The latter, referred to as political polarization, is of growing societal concern across the world. Here we map and quan…
The Limitations of Large Language Models for Understanding Human Language and Cognition
Researchers have recently argued that the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) can provide new insights into longstanding debates about the role of learning and/or innateness in the development and evolution of human language. Here, we argue on two grounds that LLMs alone tell us very little about human language and cognition in terms of acquisition and evolution. First, any similarities between human language and the output of LLMs are p…
Noise resistance in communication
Smooth Signals and Syntactic Change
A large body of recent work argues that considerations of information density predict various phenomena in linguistic planning and production. However, the usefulness of an information theoretic account for explaining diachronic phenomena has remained under-explored. Here, we test the idea that speakers prefer informationally uniform utterances on diachronic data from historical English and Icelandic. Our results show that: (i) the information de…
Field of Linguistics, The
Mappings between linguistic sound and motion
This paper provides an overview of the possible function of non-arbitrary mappings between linguistic form and meaning, and presents new empirical evidence showing that shared cross-modal associations may underlie motion sound-symbolism in particular. In terms of function, several lines of empirical and theoretical evidence suggest that non-arbitrary form-meaning connections could have played a crucial role in lexical emergence during language ev…
Mappings between linguistic sound and motion
This paper provides an overview of the possible function of non-arbitrary mappings between linguistic form and meaning, and presents new empirical evidence showing that shared cross-modal associations may underlie motion sound-symbolism in particular. In terms of function, several lines of empirical and theoretical evidence suggest that non-arbitrary form-meaning connections could have played a crucial role in lexical emergence during language ev…
Mappings between linguistic sound and motion
This paper provides an overview of the possible function of non-arbitrary mappings between linguistic form and meaning, and presents new empirical evidence showing that shared cross-modal associations may underlie motion sound-symbolism in particular. In terms of function, several lines of empirical and theoretical evidence suggest that non-arbitrary form-meaning connections could have played a crucial role in lexical emergence during language ev…
Field of Linguistics, The
Noise resistance in communication
Smooth Signals and Syntactic Change
A large body of recent work argues that considerations of information density predict various phenomena in linguistic planning and production. However, the usefulness of an information theoretic account for explaining diachronic phenomena has remained under-explored. Here, we test the idea that speakers prefer informationally uniform utterances on diachronic data from historical English and Icelandic. Our results show that: (i) the information de…
Evolving linguistic divergence on polarizing social media
Language change is influenced by many factors, but often starts from synchronic variation, where multiple linguistic patterns or forms coexist, or where different speech communities use language in increasingly different ways. Besides regional or economic reasons, communities may form and segregate based on political alignment. The latter, referred to as political polarization, is of growing societal concern across the world. Here we map and quan…
The Limitations of Large Language Models for Understanding Human Language and Cognition
Researchers have recently argued that the capabilities of Large Language Models (LLMs) can provide new insights into longstanding debates about the role of learning and/or innateness in the development and evolution of human language. Here, we argue on two grounds that LLMs alone tell us very little about human language and cognition in terms of acquisition and evolution. First, any similarities between human language and the output of LLMs are p…
Linguistics (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Language and cultural evolution (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Artificial Intelligence (2 works) · Categorization, perception, and language (2 works) · Cognitive psychology (2 works) · Human language (2 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (2 works) · Mathematics (2 works)