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Not from Jove's brow
... That is why the mapping of relations is essential to sustain the proposed model. This notion is derived from current developments in the cognitive sciences, particularly research into conceptual metaphor (Johnson 1987; Sweetser 1990; Amstrong et al. 1994; Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 1998; McNeill 1992 McNeill , 2000 Wilcox 1993 Wilcox , 1996), studies of conceptual blending (Fauconnier and Turner 1996, 2002) and some approaches of embodied cognition (Anderson 2003; Dourish 2001; Iverson 1999; Rohrer 2001 Rohrer , 2002), which have theoretically and empirically reassessed the iconic and metaphoric processes, including in the areas of abstract and mathematical language (Goldin-Meadow et al. 2001; Lakoff and Núñez 2000; Núñez 2004). A mapping implies at least two conceptual domains, in which one domain (target) is understood in terms of the other (source). ...
An undisputable characteristic of cognitive science is its enormous diversity of theories. Not surprisingly, these often belong to different paradigms that focus on different processes and levels of analysis. A related problem is that researchers of cognition frequently seem to ascribe to incompatible approaches to research, creating a Tower of Babel of cognitive knowledge. This text presents a pragmatic model of meta-theoretical analysis, a theory conceived of to examine other theories, which allows cognitive theories to be described, integrated and compared. After a brief introduction to meta-theoretical analysis in cognitive science, the dynamic and structural components of a theory are described. The analysis of conceptual mappings between components and explanation strategies is also described, as well as the processes of intra-theory generalization and inter-theory comparison. The various components of the meta-theoretical model are presented with examples of different cognitive theories, mainly focusing on two current approaches to research: The dynamical approach to cognition and the computer metaphor of mind. Finally, two potential counter arguments to the model are presented and discussed.
We address the issue of deixis–anaphora in sign language (SL) discourse, focusing on the role of eye-gaze. According to the Semiological Approach, SL structuring stems from a maximum exploitation of the visuo-gestural modality, which results in two modes of meaning production, depending on the signer’s semiotic intent. Involving both non-manual and manual parameters, the first mode, expressing the intent to say while showing, uses constructions based on structures, the termed “transfer structures.” The second one, expressing the intent to say without showing, involves lexical, pointing and fingerspelling units. In order to situate our descriptive concepts with respect to those used by SL linguists who, like us, adopt a cognitive–functionalist perspective, we expose a specific theoretical foundation of our approach, the “enunciation theories.” The concept of “enunciation” is decisive for understanding the role of eye-gaze, as being at the foundation of deixis and the key vector of referential creation and tracking in SL discourse. “Enunciation” entails the opposition between “Enunciation” and “Utterance” Domains. The first links, as co-enunciators, the signer/speaker and his/her addressee, establishing them by the very “act of enunciation” as 1st and 2nd person. The second is internal to the discourse produced. Grounding on corpora of narratives in several SLs (some with no historical link), we illustrate this crucial role of eye-gaze and the diversity of functions it fulfills. Our analyses, carried out in this perspective, attest to the multiple structural similarities between SLs, particularly with regard to transfer structures. This result strongly supports the typological hypothesis underlying our approach, namely, that these structures are common to all SLs. We thus show that an enunciative analysis, based on the key role of eye-gaze in these visual languages that are SLs, is able to give the simplest account of their own linguistic economy and, in particular, of deixis–anaphora in these languages.
The language of signs is one of mass media used by deaf people. In the present study a qualitative analysis is made on the use of metaphors of a group of deaf adult people of the Community of Deaf people of Chile. Gestuals metaphors of varied nature are identified and the possible relations between these and the metaphors of the oral language in Chile are analyzed. Finally, possible implications of the present study for the education of deaf people and the evaluation of the cognitive and linguistic abilities are discussed.
Sign linguistics has always had to deal with the notion of iconicity
because sign languages are much more iconic than vocal languages.
Formal sign linguists have often tried to explain iconicity apart from
descriptions of sign language, considering it as contradictory to the
arbitrariness that must rule language organization as a natural consequence
of the autonomy and the separateness of language. More recently,
functional sign linguists have highlighted the presence of
iconicity as a function of the peculiar visual-gestural modality of sign
languages.
The topic construction of American Sign Language (ASL), within a topic-comment discourse structure framework, is explained as having emerged from gestural, communicative roots. In modern ASL, the prototypical topic construction is understood to grammatically mark pragmatic information that is accessible to both the signer and the addressee. But the construction is shown to have grammaticized further, with grammatical meaning having to do with text organization and with no reference to pragmatic, extra-linguistic information. The topic, however, is not seen as grammaticizing into a subject. Rather, the grammaticized topic remains prominent in ASL, with its own distinct set of resulting functions.
Discussion of language origins, since the nineteenth century not academically respectable, has revived in the last thirty years. Expanded knowledge of animal communication, cognitive capacities, human evolution and the nature of language itself has allowed speculation on this issue to be much more interesting than before. A central question is how behaviour came to serve conceptual representation. It is suggested that this could have originated in `trying out' courses of action before carrying them out completely. Evidence is cited that chimpanzees sometimes do this. Though chimpanzees may have the prerequisities for language, it has not developed among them because their social life does not require conceptual communication. `Division of Labour' between the sexes, unique to humans since it involves co-operation despite the different and spatially separated activities of members of the same group, could have precipitated language. The idea that speech may have had a separate evolutionary origin is briefly discussed.
This paper introduces a gestural theory for the origin of syntax, certainly one of the most difficult questions in the study of language origins. This proposal recognizes both visible and vocal gestures as having an evolutionary role but suggests that visible gestures played a special role in the emergence of syntax. The fundamental kernal of syntax is seen as inherent in visible gestural communication and available for extension by means of ordinary evolutionary processes. In manual gesturing, a hand (as agent) moves (what verbs imply) and may act on another part of the body (as patient). It is proposed, then, that the formation of a manual gesture entails a preadaptive elementary syntax. As gesture becomes linguistic sign, it carries with it the seed of the basic syntactic relationship-it refers and also relates. The social behavior of the hominids could have supplied conditions that enhanced the fitness of individuals and groups with increasingly sophisticated communication systems. The embryo sentences already present in gestural communication might then have constituted preadaptive behaviors available for extension into increasingly complex syntactic structures.
Human beings use at least two fundamentally different forms of communication. One includes language and some other closely related signals, the other most of our nonverbal communication. This second form of communication resembles the communication system of other primates much more closely than it resembles language, and it should be recognized as the primate communication system of the human species. Since our surviving primate communication system remains sharply distinct from language, it is implausible that it could have served as the base from which language evolved. The emergence of language from any earlier primate communication system is equally implausible. Given that language is inseparably bound up with human cognition, the most promising place to look for the antecedents of language is in primate cognitive abilities. We are more likely to find hints about language origins by studying how primates use their minds than by studying how they communicate.
Discusses an evolutionary perspective on human infancy, suggesting that infant information gathering and coordination of behavior with adults has been shaped by natural selection. Studies of primate social information transfer suggest that the guiding, teaching adult who is motivated to donate information to immatures is a relative novelty in primate evolution. Infant monkeys and apes are excellent information gatherers because they have to be in order to survive. The active role of the adult evolved incrementally during the long period of primate evolution, perhaps driven by ecological selection pressures such as those related to tool aided extractive foraging. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Presents a preliminary theoretical framework to characterize the lawful regularities in articulatory patterns that occur when people speak. A fundamental construct of the framework is the coordinative structure, an ensemble of articulators that functions cooperatively as a single task-specific unit. Direct evidence for coordinative structures in speech is presented, and a control scheme that realizes both the contextually varying and invariant character of their operation is outlined. The space–time behavior of a given articulatory gesture is viewed as the outcome of the system's dynamic parameterization, and the orchestration among gestures is examined in terms of intergestural phase information. An account of change in articulatory patterns based on the nonequilibrium phase transitions treated by the field of synergetics is also included. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
We have argued that dynamically defined articulatory gestures are the appropriate units to serve as the atoms of phonological representation. Gestures are a natural unit, not only because they involve task-oriented movements of the articulators, but because they arguably emerge as prelinguistic discrete units of action in infants. The use of gestures, rather than constellations of gestures as in Root nodes, as basic units of description makes it possible to characterise a variety of language patterns in which gestural organisation varies. Such patterns range from the misorderings of disordered speech through phonological rules involving gestural overlap and deletion to historical changes in which the overlap of gestures provides a crucial explanatory element.
Gestures can participate in language patterns involving overlap because they are spatiotemporal in nature and therefore have internal duration. In addition, gestures differ from current theories of feature geometry by including the constriction degree as an inherent part of the gesture. Since the gestural constrictions occur in the vocal tract, which can be charactensed in terms of tube geometry, all the levels of the vocal tract will be constricted, leading to a constriction degree hierarchy. The values of the constriction degree at each higher level node in the hierarchy can be predicted on the basis of the percolation principles and tube geometry. In this way, the use of gestures as atoms can be reconciled with the use of Constriction degree at various levels in the vocal tract (or feature geometry) hierarchy.
The phonological notation developed for the gestural approach might usefully be incorporated, in whole or in part, into other phonologies. Five components of the notation were discussed, all derived from the basic premise that gestures are the primitive phonological unit, organised into gestural scores. These components include (1) constriction degree as a subordinate of the articulator node and (2) stiffness (duration) as a subordinate of the articulator node. That is, both CD and duration are inherent to the gesture. The gestures are arranged in gestural scores using (3) articulatory tiers, with (4) the relevant geometry (articulatory, tube or feature) indicated to the left of the score and (5) structural information above the score, if desired. Association lines can also be used to indicate how the gestures are combined into phonological units. Thus, gestures can serve both as characterisations of articulatory movement data and as the atoms of phonological representation.
In the last two decades, the study of language parallels in nonhuman animals has generated considerable controversy and excitement. Many have perceived demonstrations of linguistic skills in nonhuman animals as a threat to human uniqueness, whereas others have been uncritical of claims for complex cognitive skills in animals. Two different paradigms for studying linguistic parallels have appeared. One approach teaches great apes linguistic analogues of human language using signs or arbitrary symbol systems; the other seeks to decode communicative complexity in the natural languages of nonhuman animals. This paper reviews the language analogue studies with great apes and cetaceans, examining the utility of the different methods and reviewing the animals' accomplishments. Studies of ontogeny, syntax, referential communication, audience effects, and perception of vocalizations in the natural communication of birds, squirrels, and primates are evaluated. Finally, the brain mechanisms underlying human speech and language are compared with those involved in vocal communication in nonhuman primates. Although chimpanzees and bonobos have accomplished much, they do not threaten human uniqueness with respect to speech and language. Many of the claims for language paralleles in natural communication systems of nonhuman animals are weak, and many can be interpreted without recourse to cognitive constructs. Whereas there exist many similarities between subcortical controls of language and of animal vocalizations, there are no parallels to Broca's and Wernicke's areas in monkeys. However, the critical studies have not been done.
One of the things that distinguishes science from nonscientific discourse is the incorporation of its hypotheses into theoretical structures. Like parapsychology, the study of human evolution lacks theoretical content and connections. This lack is due, in part, to the collapse of the classical primatological synthesis in the 1970s. It is due in larger measure to a persistent anthropological focus on human uniqueness as the phenomenon to be explained. Such supposedly unique human features as large brains, language, conceptual thinking, and upright bipedalism are uniquely human by definition rather than as a matter of empirical fact. Much scientific effort and ingenuity has gone into redefining such characteristics whenever discoveries about other animals have posed a threat to human uniqueness. But since by definition qualitatively unique phenomena do not conform to overarching laws that apply to similar cases, they must remain theoretically inexplicable. Paleoanthropology should aim at increasing its theoretical content by reducing the list of qualitative human uniquenesses-and eliminating it altogether if possible.
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