Semiotica 2013 (194):39-62 (2013)
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Abstract |
How is linguistic communication possible? How do we come to share the same meanings of words and utterances? One classical position holds that human beings share a transcendental “platonic” ideality independent of individual cognition and language use (Frege 1948). Another stresses immanent linguistic relations (Saussure 1959), and yet another basic embodied structures as the ground for invariant aspects of meaning (Lakoff and Johnson 1999). Here we propose an alternative account in which the possibility for sharing meaning is motivated by four sources of structural stability: 1) the physical constraints and affordances of our surrounding material environment, 2) biological constraints of our human bodies, 3) social normative constraints of culture and society, and 4) the local history of social interactions. These structures and constraints interact in dynamical ways in actual language usage situations: local dialogical and social dynamics motivate and stabilize the profiling of a conceptual space already highly structured by our shared biology, culture, and environment. We will substantiate this perspective with reference to recent studies in experimental pragmatics and semiotics in which participants interact linguistically to solve cooperative tasks. Three main cases will be considered: The dynamic grounding of linguistic categories, the construction of conceptual models to relate entities in a scene, and the construction of shared conceptual scales for assessing and appraising subjective experiences.
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Keywords | cognitive linguistics social interactions experimental semiotics dynamical approaches to cognition |
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DOI | 10.1515/sem-2013-0021 |
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References found in this work BETA
Philosophical Investigations.Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein - 1953 - New York, NY, USA: Wiley-Blackwell.
The Meaning of 'Meaning'.Hillary Putnam - 1975 - Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7:131-193.
Philosophical investigations.Ludwig Wittgenstein & G. E. M. Anscombe - 1953 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 161:124-124.
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Citations of this work BETA
Investigating Conversational Dynamics: Interactive Alignment, Interpersonal Synergy, and Collective Task Performance.Riccardo Fusaroli & Kristian Tylén - 2016 - Cognitive Science 40 (1):145-171.
Dialog as Interpersonal Synergy.Riccardo Fusaroli, Joanna Raczaszek-Leonardi & Kristian Tylén - 2013 - New Ideas in Psychology.
Environmental Constraints Shaping Constituent Order in Emerging Communication Systems: Structural Iconicity, Interactive Alignment and Conventionalization.Peer Christensen, Riccardo Fusaroli & Kristian Tylén - 2016 - Cognition 146:67-80.
Diagrammatic Reasoning: Abstraction, Interaction, and Insight.Kristian Tylén, Riccardo Fusaroli, Johanne Stege Bjørndahl, Joanna Raczaszek-Leonardi, Svend Østergaard & Frederik Stjernfelt - 2014 - Pragmatics and Cognition 22 (2):264-283.
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