21.3248, Books: Sociolinguistics: Distin

Wed Aug 11 20:31:18 UTC 2010

LINGUIST List: Vol-21-3248. Wed Aug 11 2010. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 21.3248, Books: Sociolinguistics: Distin

Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Eastern Michigan U <aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry at linguistlist.org>

Reviews: Monica Macaulay, U of Wisconsin-Madison  
Eric Raimy, U of Wisconsin-Madison  
Joseph Salmons, U of Wisconsin-Madison  
Anja Wanner, U of Wisconsin-Madison  
       <reviews at linguistlist.org> 

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/

The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, 
and donations from subscribers and publishers.

Editor for this issue: Maria Moreno-Rollins <maria at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  

Links to the websites of all LINGUIST's supporting publishers
are available at the end of this issue. 

===========================Directory==============================  

1)
Date: 11-Aug-2010
From: Daniel Davies < ddavies at cambridge.org >
Subject: Cultural Evolution: Distin

-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Wed, 11 Aug 2010 16:29:59
From: Daniel Davies [ddavies at cambridge.org]
Subject: Cultural Evolution: Distin

E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=21-3248.html&submissionid=2644351&topicid=2&msgnumber=1

Title: Cultural Evolution 
Publication Year: 2010 
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
	   http://us.cambridge.org

Book URL: http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780511784255 

Author: Kate Distin

Electronic: ISBN:  9780511784255 Pages: 280 Price: U.S. $ 22.00
Hardback: ISBN:  9780521769013 Pages: 280 Price: U.K. £ 55.00
Paperback: ISBN:  9780521189712 Pages: 280 Price: U.K. £ 17.99

Abstract:

In this book, Kate Distin proposes a theory of cultural evolution and shows 
how it can help us to understand the origin and development of human 
culture. Distin introduces the concept that humans share information not only 
in natural languages, which are spoken or signed, but also in artefactual 
languages like writing and musical notation, which use media that are made 
by humans. Languages enable humans to receive and transmit variations in 
cultural information and resources. In this way, they provide the mechanism 
for cultural evolution. The human capacity for metarepresentation - thinking 
about how we think - accelerates cultural evolution, because it frees cultural 
information from the conceptual limitations of each individual language. Distin 
shows how the concept of cultural evolution outlined in this book can help us 
to understand the complexity and diversity of human culture, relating her 
theory to a range of subjects including economics, linguistics, and 
developmental biology.

- Explains the origin of culture as the product of both natural and artefactual 
languages 
- Introduces a powerful new conceptual tool, namely the distinction 
between natural and artefactual languages 
- Presents evidence, from a range of academic disciplines, that cultural 
evolution is a defensible theory with genuine explanatory value 

Contents

1. Introduction: small consequences of one general law; 
Part I. The Inheritance of Cultural Information: 
2. What is information?; 
3. How is information inherited?; 
Part II. The Inheritance of Cultural Information: Natural Language: 
4. Natural language and culture: the biological building blocks; 
5. How did natural language evolve? Language, thought, and culture; 
Part III. In Inheritance of Cultural Information: Artefactual Language: 
7. How did artefactual language evolve?; 
8. Artefactual language, representation and culture; 
9. Money: an artefactual language; 
10. Money: the explanatory power of artefactual languages; 
Part III. The Receivers of Cultural Information: 
11. How does human diversity affect cultural evolution?; 
Part IV. The Expression of Cultural Information: 
12. Aspects of the cultural ecology; 
13. Patterns of cultural taxonomy; 
14. Conclusion: a representational understanding of cultural evolution; 
Appendix: what about memetics? 

Linguistic Field(s): Sociolinguistics

Written In: English  (eng)

See this book announcement on our website: 
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=49781

MAJOR SUPPORTERS

	Brill          
		http://www.brill.nl	

	Cambridge Scholars Publishing          
		http://www.c-s-p.org	

	Cambridge University Press          
		http://us.cambridge.org	

	Cascadilla Press          
		http://www.cascadilla.com/	

	Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd          
		http://www.continuumbooks.com	

	De Gruyter Mouton          
		http://www.degruyter.com/mouton	

	Edinburgh University Press          
		http://www.eup.ed.ac.uk/	

	Elsevier Ltd          
		http://www.elsevier.com/linguistics	

	Emerald Group Publishing Limited          
		http://www.emeraldinsight.com/	

	Equinox Publishing Ltd          
		http://www.equinoxpub.com/	

	European Language Resources Association - ELRA          
		http://www.elra.info.	

	Georgetown University Press          
		http://www.press.georgetown.edu	

	John Benjamins          
		http://www.benjamins.com/	

	Lincom GmbH          
		http://www.lincom.eu	

	MIT Press          
		http://mitpress.mit.edu/	

	Morgan & Claypool Publishers          

	Multilingual Matters          
		http://www.multilingual-matters.com/	

	Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG          
		http://www.narr.de/	

	Oxford University Press          
		http://www.oup.com/us	

	Palgrave Macmillan          
		http://www.palgrave.com	

	Peter Lang AG          
		http://www.peterlang.com	

	Rodopi          
		http://www.rodopi.nl/	

	Routledge (Taylor and Francis)          
		http://www.routledge.com/	

	Springer          
		http://www.springer.com	

	University of Toronto Press          
		http://www.utpjournals.com/	

	Wiley-Blackwell          
		http://www.wiley.com	

OTHER SUPPORTING PUBLISHERS	

	Association of Editors of the Journal of Portuguese Linguistics
		http://www.fl.ul.pt/revistas/JPL/JPLweb.htm 

	Graduate Linguistic Students' Association, Umass
		http://glsa.hypermart.net/ 

	International Pragmatics Assoc.
		http://www.ipra.be 

	Langues et Linguistique
		http://y.ennaji.free.fr/fr/ 

	Linguistic Association of Finland
		http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/sky/ 

	Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke - LOT
		http://www.lotpublications.nl/ 

	Pacific Linguistics
		http://pacling.anu.edu.au/ 

	SIL International
		http://www.ethnologue.com/bookstore.asp 

	St. Jerome Publishing Ltd
		http://www.stjerome.co.uk 

	Utrecht institute of Linguistics
		http://www-uilots.let.uu.nl/ 

-----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-21-3248	