Cultural Evolution (Paperback)

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.

General

Imprint:	Cambridge UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	May 2010
First published:	May 2010
Authors:	Kate Distin
Dimensions:	228 x 155 x 19mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - Trade
Pages:	282
ISBN-13:	978-0-521-18971-2
Categories:	Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > Philosophy of science Books > Language & Literature > Language & linguistics > Historical & comparative linguistics > General Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > General Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Life sciences: general issues > Evolution Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Anthropology > Social & cultural anthropology > General Promotions
LSN:	0-521-18971-3
Barcode:	9780521189712

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