The Process Specification Language (PSL) has been designed to facilitate correct and complete exchange of process information among manufacturing systems, such as scheduling, process modeling, process planning, production planning, simulation, project management, work flow, and business process reengineering. We given an overview of the theories with the PSL ontology, discuss some of the design principles for the ontology, and finish with examples of process specifications that are based on the ontology.

In their 2002 seminal paper Hauser, Chomsky and Fitch hypothesize that recursion is the only human-specific and language-specific mechanism of the faculty of language. While debate focused primarily on the meaning of recursion in the hypothesis and on the human-specific and syntax-specific character of recursion, the present work focuses on the claim that recursion is language-specific. We argue that there are recursive structures in the domain of motor intentionality by way of extending John R. Searle’s analysis of (...) intentional action. We then discuss evidence from cognitive science and neuroscience supporting the claim that motor-intentional recursion is language-independent and suggest some explanatory hypotheses: linguistic recursion is embodied in sensory-motor processing; linguistic and motor-intentional recursions are distinct and mutually independent mechanisms. Finally, we propose some reflections about the epistemic status of HCF as presenting an empirically falsifiable hypothesis, and on the possibility of testing recursion in different cognitive domains. (shrink)

Using the artificial language paradigm, we studied the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations with exceptions by 160 German adult learners. We tested the acquisition of two types of alternations in two regularity conditions while additionally varying length of training. In the first alternation, a vowel harmony, backness of the stem vowel determines backness of the suffix. This process is grounded in substance (phonetic motivation), and this universal phonetic factor bolsters learning a generalization. In the second alternation, tenseness of the stem (...) vowel determines backness of the suffix vowel. This process is not based in substance, but it reflects a phonotactic property of German and our participants benefit from this language-specific factor. We found that learners use both cues, while substantive bias surfaces mainly in the most unstable situation. We show that language-specific and universal factors interact in learning. (shrink)

Using the artificial language paradigm, we studied the acquisition of morphophonemic alternations with exceptions by 160 German adult learners. We tested the acquisition of two types of alternations in two regularity conditions while additionally varying length of training. In the first alternation, a vowel harmony, backness of the stem vowel determines backness of the suffix. This process is grounded in substance, and this universal phonetic factor bolsters learning a generalization. In the second alternation, tenseness of the stem vowel determines (...) backness of the suffix vowel. This process is not based in substance, but it reflects a phonotactic property of German and our participants benefit from this language-specific factor. We found that learners use both cues, while substantive bias surfaces mainly in the most unstable situation. We show that language-specific and universal factors interact in learning. (shrink)

In two eye-tracking studies we investigated the influence of Mandarin numeral classifiers – a grammatical category in the language – on online overt attention. Mandarin speakers were presented with simple sentences through headphones while their eye-movements to objects presented on a computer screen were monitored. The crucial question is what participants look at while listening to a pre-specified target noun. If classifier categories influence Mandarin speakers' general conceptual processing, then on hearing the target noun they should look at objects (...) that are members of the same classifier category – even when the classifier is not explicitly present. The data show that when participants heard a classifier they shifted overt attention significantly more to classifiermatch objects than to distractor objects, but when the classifier was not explicitly presented in speech, overt attention to classifier-match objects and distractor objects did not differ. This suggests that although classifier distinctions do influence eye-gaze behavior, they do so only during linguistic processing of that distinction and not in moment-to-moment general conceptual processing. (shrink)

The language specificity of modern media texts and the aspects of studying it in the courses ‘Language and style of modern mass media‘ and ‘Modern mediatext‘ are considered in the article. The language specificity of contemporary media texts is connected, on the one hand, with the subjectivization of the text, enforcement of personality, democratization and with the increase of proportion of a foreign word, intertexuality, intellectualization of the text on the other hand. Subjectivization of the (...) text is connected with the personality enforcement, is determined by the influence of social processes - freedom of speech declaration - and demonstrates itself in the actualization of the author, in a high level of evaluation, emotionality, abundance of metatextual means. Democratization in the modern mass media texts shows itself in the joint functioning of means of different styles: bookish, substandard, jargon. Intertextuality is opposed to the excessive subjectivization of the text and demonstrates itself in the increased usage of foreign words, it is realized with the help of precedent phenomena. Intellectualization shows itself in the active usage of the means of indirect communication by the journalists: tropes, wordplay. Unnecessarily liberal usage of language means for the expressive-evaluating and wordplay on purposes is often contiguous to speech aggression. Consequently studying modern media texts allows students to not only detect and characterize the main features of the modern mass media language and style, structural-semantic peculiarities of a modern mediatext, but also to give its socio-ethical evaluation. (shrink)

Establishing and maintaining mutual understanding in everyday conversations is crucial. To do so, people employ a variety of conversational devices, such as backchannels, repair, and linguistic entrainment. Here, we explore whether the use of conversational devices might be influenced by cross‐linguistic differences in the speakers’ native language, comparing two matched languages—Danish and Norwegian—differing primarily in their sound structure, with Danish being more opaque, that is, less acoustically distinguished. Across systematically manipulated conversational contexts, we find that processes supporting mutual understanding (...) in conversations vary with external constraints: across different contexts and, crucially, across languages. In accord with our predictions, linguistic entrainment was overall higher in Danish than in Norwegian, while backchannels and repairs presented a more nuanced pattern. These findings are compatible with the hypothesis that native speakers of Danish may compensate for its opaque sound structure by adopting a top‐down strategy of building more conversational redundancy through entrainment, which also might reduce the need for repairs. These results suggest that linguistic differences might be met by systematic changes in language processing and use. This paves the way for further cross‐linguistic investigations and critical assessment of the interplay between cultural and linguistic factors on the one hand and conversational dynamics on the other. (shrink)

The current paper presents two experiments investigating the effect of presence versus absence of compulsory number marking in a native language on a speaker's ability to recall number information from photos. In Experiment 1, monolingual English and Japanese adults were shown a sequence of 110 photos after which they were asked questions about the photos. We found that the English participants showed a significantly higher accuracy rate for questions testing recall for number information when the correct answer was “2” (...) (instead of “1”) than Japanese participants. In Experiment 2, English and Japanese adults engaged in the same task as in Experiment 1 with an addition that explored reasons for the results found in Experiment 1. The results of Experiment 2 were in line with the results of Experiment 1, but also suggested that the results could not be attributed to differences in guessing patterns between the two groups or the type of linguistic constructions used in the test situations. The current study suggests that native language affects speakers' ability to recall number information from scenes and thus provides evidence for the Whorfian hypothesis. (shrink)

Language has been argued to arise, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically, from specific patterns of brain wiring. We argue that it can further be shown that core features of language processing emerge from particular phasal and cross-frequency coupling properties of neural oscillations; what has been referred to as the language ‘oscillome’. It is expected that basic aspects of the language oscillome result from genetic guidance, what we will here call the language ‘oscillogenome’, for which we will (...) put forward a list of candidate genes. We have considered genes for altered brain rhythmicity in conditions involving language deficits: autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia, specific language impairment and dyslexia. These selected genes map on to aspects of brain function, particularly on to neurotransmitter function. We stress that caution should be adopted in the construction of any oscillogenome, given the range of potential roles particular localized frequency bands have in cognition. Our aim is to propose a set of genome-to-language linking hypotheses that, given testing, would grant explanatory power to brain rhythms with respect to language processing and evolution. (shrink)

Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in lowland Peru, this study examines linguistic resources used for coding agreements in Alto Perené conversation. The study draws on the anthropological tradition of conversation analysis-informed ethnographies. The investigation of agreeing responses is limited to those which allow a projectedly ‘knowing’, or K-plus, participant to raise his or her epistemic status from the sequentially second position. It is shown that Alto Perené K-plus response formats include the evaluative property word kametsari ‘good’ with an intensifier and/or (...) upgraded prosody, argument focus structures, two polarity verbs ari ‘it is the case’ and omapero ‘it is true’, and the verb ñakiro ‘as you can see’. This analysis demonstrates a relationship between the Alto Perené practices of expressing K-plus agreements and the collateral effects arising from the particular meanings and functions of structures which are used for accomplishing an agreeing action. (shrink)

First published in 1959, this original study argues that the main characteristic of music is that it expresses and evokes emotion, and that all composers whose music has a tonal basis have used the same, or closely similar, melodic phrases, harmonies, and rhythms to affect the listener in the same ways. He supports this view with hundreds of musical examples, ranging from plainsong to Stravinsky, and contends that music is a language in the specific sense that we can identify (...) idioms and draw up a list of meanings. The book's final section analyzes two symphonies, Mozart's Fortieth and Vaughan Williams's Sixth, to explore the nature of musical inspiration and the process whereby the notes actually convey emotion from composer to listener. (shrink)

Sighted speakers of different languages vary systematically in how they package and order components of a motion event in speech. These differences influence how semantic elements are organized in gesture, but only when those gestures are produced with speech, not without speech. We ask whether the cross-linguistic similarity in silent gesture is driven by the visuospatial structure of the event. We compared 40 congenitally blind adult native speakers of English or Turkish to 80 sighted adult speakers as they described three-dimensional (...) motion scenes. We found an effect of language on co-speech gesture, not on silent gesture—blind speakers of both languages organized their silent gestures as sighted speakers do. Humans may have a natural semantic organization that they impose on events when conveying them in gesture without language—an organization that relies on neither visuospatial cues nor language structure. (shrink)

The target article attempted to draw connections between broad swaths of evidence by noticing a common thread: Abstract, symbolic, compositional codes, that is, language-of-thoughts (LoTs). Commentators raised concerns about the evidence and offered fascinating extensions to areas we overlooked. Here we respond and highlight the many specific empirical questions to be answered in the next decade and beyond.

Has language developed to serve as a system of communication or one of thought? While language is clearly an excellent tool for communication, the possible contribution of higher order cognitive processes other than language to communication may provide insights on how we think about language evolution. Studies show that bilingualism improves communication skills, possibly due to boosting domain general processes, thus suggesting a divide between communication and formal language. However, to date little attention has been (...) paid to bilingual atypical child populations presenting asymmetric developmental delays in language and communication skills. In this study, we explore the language-communication divide in bilingual and monolingual children diagnosed with High Functioning Autism (HFA), displaying primary communication difficulties, and those with Specific Language Impairment (SLI), displaying primary language difficulties. Children were tested on language, cognitive control, Theory of Mind (ToM), social comprehension and verbal communication. Results demonstrate that bilingual children with HFA exhibit enhanced cognitive control, ToM and social comprehension, which in turn improve their verbal communication as compared to their monolingual peers with HFA. On the other hand, no boost emerges in bilingual children with SLI, be it in cognitive control or ToM, though a weaker advantage (relative to the children with ASD) can be observed in their verbal communication skills, with significant mediation from social comprehension. The overall evidence suggests that language, though useful for communication, is not sufficient for communication, and may arguably not have evolved primarily for communicative purposes. (shrink)

We study how people attend to and memorize endings of events that differ in the degree to which objects in them are affected by an action: Resultative events show objects that undergo a visually salient change in state during the course of the event (peeling a potato), and non‐resultative events involve objects that undergo no, or only partial state change (stirring in a pan). We investigate general cognitive principles, and potential language‐specific influences, in verbal and nonverbal event encoding and (...) memory, across two experiments with Dutch and Estonian participants. Estonian marks a viewer's perspective on an event's result obligatorily via grammatical case on direct object nouns: Objects undergoing a partial/full change in state in an event are marked with partitive/accusative case, respectively. Therefore, we hypothesized increased saliency of object states and event results in Estonian speakers, as compared to speakers of Dutch. Findings show (a) a general cognitive principle of attending carefully to endings of resultative events, implying cognitive saliency of object states in event processing; (b) a language‐specific boost on attention and memory of event results under verbal task demands in Estonian speakers. Results are discussed in relation to theories of event cognition, linguistic relativity, and thinking for speaking. (shrink)

The typescript of the following lecture is preserved in the archive of Adolf Portmann, University Library Basel, NL 345. The typescript has the heading “Lecture Three” and the subtitle “The Language of Nature Reread.” As the heading “Lecture Three” suggests, the lecture was part of a series; details about the location and dates of the series are not listed. From the text itself we are informed that the series was devoted to the topic of “man in nature” and the (...) preceding lectures were specifically related to the philosophical biology of Adolf Portmann and the opposition of his approach to the Galilean scientific ontology. “The Language of Nature Reread” continues the topic and focuses on the epistemology of Michael Polanyi, whose theory of tacit knowing is argued to provide a “philosophical accounting” for Portmann’s biological program. (shrink)

We designed a new protocol requiring French adult participants to group a large number of Munsell colour chips into three or four groups. On one, relativist, view, participants would be expected to rely on their colour lexicon in such a task. In this framework, the resulting groups should be more similar to French colour categories than to other languages categories. On another, universalist, view, participants would be expected to rely on universal features of perception. In this second framework, the resulting (...) groups should match colour categories of three and four basic terms languages. In this work, we first collected data to build an accurate map of French colour terms categories. We went on testing how native French speakers spontaneously sorted a set of randomly presented coloured chips and, in line with the relativist prediction, we found that the resulting colour groups were more similar to French colour categories than to three and four basic terms languages. However, the same results were obtained in a verbal interference condition, suggesting that participants rely on language specific and nevertheless perceptual, colour categories. Collectively, these results suggest that the universalist/relativist dichotomy is a too narrow one. (shrink)

The Language of Atoms argues that Epicurean writing, specifically Lucretius', offers a theory of performative language, of how language acts rather than describes.

The present research study focuses on how the language of instruction has an impact on the mathematical thinking development as a consequence of using a language of instruction different from the students’ mother tongue. In CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) academic content and a foreign language are leant at the same time, a methodology that is widely used in the schools in the present times. It is, therefore, our main aim to study if the (...) class='Hi'>language of instruction in second language immersion programs influences the development of the first formal mathematical concepts. More specifically, if the learning of mathematical concepts in the early ages develops in a similar way if it is taught in the students’ mother tongue and is not influenced by the language used for teaching. Or else, if it can influence the development of the first skills only in the students’ general performance or in certain areas. The results of both the analysis of variance and multiple regression confirm how influencing the language of instruction is when mathematical thinking is developed teaching formal contents in a non-coincidence language. The second language is affecting the resolution of daily life problems, being more competent those students in 1st grades whose language of instruction matched with their mother tongue. (shrink)

The original text of the Constitution of the United States of America, written over 200 years ago, constitutes the supreme source of law in the American legal system. The seven articles and twenty seven amendments dictate understanding of fundamental principles of the federation’s functioning and its citizens’ rights. The paper aims to present the evolution of the U.S. Constitution’s language interpretation as provided by its final interpreter - the Supreme Court of the United States. Example of the Second Amendment (...) will be analyzed to present the change in understanding of the language grammar and, as a consequence, the sense of the right to keep and bear arms in the light of the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of District of Columbia v Heller ). It will argue for the accuracy of statement of Charles Evans Hughes, former Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court: “We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is...”. (shrink)

In a continuation of the conversation with Fitch, Chomsky, and Hauser on the evolution of language, we examine their defense of the claim that the uniquely human, language-specific part of the language faculty (the “narrow language faculty”) consists only of recursion, and that this part cannot be considered an adaptation to communication. We argue that their characterization of the narrow language faculty is problematic for many reasons, including its dichotomization of cognitive capacities into those that (...) are utterly unique and those that are identical to nonlinguistic or nonhuman capacities, omitting capacities that may have been substantially modified during human evolution. We also question their dichotomy of the current utility versus original function of a trait, which omits traits that are adaptations for current use, and their dichotomy of humans and animals, which conflates similarity due to common function and similarity due to inheritance from a recent common ancestor. We show that recursion, though absent from other animals’ communications systems, is found in visual cognition, hence cannot be the sole evolutionary development that granted language to humans. Finally, we note that despite Fitch et al.’s denial, their view of language evolution is tied to Chomsky’s conception of language itself, which identifies combinatorial productivity with a core of “narrow syntax.” An alternative conception, in which combinatoriality is spread across words and constructions, has both empirical advantages and greater evolutionary plausibility. q 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. (shrink)

Despite strong evidence that worry is a verbal process, studies examining linguistic features in individuals with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) are lacking. The aim of the present study is to investigate language use in individuals with GAD and controls based on GAD and worry theoretical models. More specifically, the degree to which linguistic elements of the avoidance and intolerance of uncertainty worry models can predict diagnostic status was analysed. Participants were 19 women diagnosed with GAD and 22 control women (...) and their children. After participating in a diagnostic semi-structured interview, dyads engaged in a free-play interaction where mothers' language sample was collected. Overall, the findings provided evidence for distinctive linguistic features of individuals with GAD. That is, after controlling for the effect of demographic variables, present tense, future tense, prepositions and number of questions correctly classified those with GAD and controls such that a considerable amount of the variance in diagnostic status was explained uniquely by language use. Linguistic confirmation of worry models is discussed. (shrink)

This article assesses the relevance of Wittgenstein’s late philosophy for the study of online forms of communication. In particular, the article deals with the appropriateness of using the concept of language game for the purpose of describing what happens in a virtual community. Testing Wittgenstein’s concept of language game in online context, we also analyse the language practices of one specific virtual community (patterns of communication, style, roles of members, internal organization of this ‘form of life’).

Bringing together scholars from a broad range of theoretical perspectives, The Language of Argumentation offers a unique overview of research at the crossroads of linguistics and theories of argumentation. In addition to theoretical and methodological reflections by leading scholars in their fields, the book contains studies of the relationship between language and argumentation from two different viewpoints. While some chapters take a specific argumentative move as their point of departure and investigate the ways in which it is linguistically (...) manifested in discourse, other chapters start off from a linguistic construction, trying to determine its argumentative function and rhetorical potential. The Language of Argumentation documents the currently prominent research on stylistic aspects of argumentation and illustrates how the study of argumentation benefits from insights from linguistic models, ranging from theoretical pragmatics, politeness theory and metaphor studies to models of discourse coherence and construction grammar. (shrink)

The domain of numbers provides a paradigmatic case for investigating interactions of culture, language, and cognition: Numerical competencies are considered a core domain of knowledge, and yet the development of specifically human abilities presupposes cultural and linguistic input by way of counting sequences. These sequences constitute systems with distinct structural properties, the cross-linguistic variability of which has implications for number representation and processing. Such representational effects are scrutinized for two types of verbal numeration systems—general and object-specific ones—that were in (...) parallel use in several Oceanic languages. The analysis indicates that the object-specific systems outperform the general systems with respect to counting and mental arithmetic, largely due to their regular and more compact representation. What these findings reveal on cognitive diversity, how the conjectures involved speak to more general issues in cognitive science, and how the approach taken here might help to bridge the gap between anthropology and other cognitive sciences is discussed in the conclusion. (shrink)

Critical factors that appear to encourage vocal development in humans are altriciality and long immaturity. Hominid infants appear to have evolved a specific tendency to use elaborate vocalization as a means of soliciting long-term investment from caregivers. The development of such vocal capacity provides necessary infrastructure for language development across human life history.

Speakers of different languages (e.g., English vs. Turkish) show a binary split in how they package and order components of a motion event in speech and co‐speech gesture but not in silent gesture. In this study, we focused on Mandarin Chinese, a language that does not follow the binary split in its expression of motion in speech, and asked whether adult Chinese speakers would follow the language‐specific speech patterns in co‐speech but not silent gesture, thus showing a pattern (...) akin to Turkish and English adult speakers in their description of animated motion events. Our results provided evidence for this pattern, with Chinese—as well as English and Turkish—speakers following language‐specific patterns in speech and co‐speech gesture but not in silent gesture. Our results provide support for the “thinking‐for‐speaking” account, namely that language influences thought only during online, but not offline, production of speech. (shrink)

In the following I offer several comments on a recent discussion by Sander Griffioen and Richard Mouw on modern pluralism. Pluralisms and Horizons is a deceptively small book of wide compass, which for three reasons makes interesting reading. First, the authors have much to say on one of the current hot-items in Western civilization: pluralism. Second, they take their point of departure in Christian philosophy, and more specifically in the Reformed tradition. And third, they unite a principled stance based on (...) Christian faith with an openminded readiness to seriously take issue with many different points of view. Their book is in my opinion worth reading merely as an exemplary exercise in intellectual tolerance. The following offers, then, for what it is worth, a short and limited critique of some aspects of Pluralisms and Horizons. Since I am especially interested in the history of Christian thought, and since Philosophia Reformata is historically and philosophically rooted in the Reformed tradition, my criticism will particularly centre on Calvinist thought. I have two specific objections to the views put forward by Mouw and Griffioen. Both are connected with the idea of “directional pluralism” upon which the authors elaborate; both centre on my contention that the authors fail to appreciate the nature of modern culture. (shrink)

‘If it bleeds, it leads’, events characterised by fatalities, are likely to attract high levels of media coverage. This study adopts a multidisciplinary approach to investigate public discourses on the MH17 tragedy in Malaysia and the United Kingdom. First, corpus-based discourse analysis was employed to explore the construction of the Malaysian Airlines tragedy MH17 in four selected Malaysian and British newspapers. In addition, an attitudinal study examining 50 Malaysian and 50 UK nationals’ perceptions of the tragedy was conducted. Keywords analysis (...) revealed an overall tendency for the news media to construct the air tragedy through classifications between ‘us’ and ‘others’. Specifically, important ‘Us’ and non-important ‘Other’ in the Malaysian newspapers, versus good ‘Us’ and evil ‘Others’ in the British newspapers. The attitudinal analysis shows, for both the Malaysian and the UK respondents, the most salient associations with the MH17 tragedy related to ‘conflicts’. (shrink)

Several studies have illuminated how processing manual action verbs (MaVs) affects the programming or execution of concurrent hand movements. Here, to circumvent key confounds in extant designs, we conducted the first assessment of motor–language integration during handwriting—a task in which linguistic and motoric processes are co‐substantiated. Participants copied MaVs, non‐manual action verbs, and non‐action verbs as we collected measures of motor programming and motor execution. Programming latencies were similar across conditions, but execution was faster for MaVs than for the (...) other categories, regardless of whether word meanings were accessed implicitly or explicitly. In line with the Hand‐Action‐Network Dynamic Language Embodiment (HANDLE) model, such findings suggest that effector‐congruent verbs can prime manual movements even during highly automatized tasks in which motoric and verbal processes are naturally intertwined. Our paradigm opens new avenues for fine‐grained explorations of embodied language processes. (shrink)

The reflection that accompanies Christian ethics is concerned with its meaning and originality as seen against the background of various interpretations of morality. It usually includes questions about the characteristic subject matter of its inquiries, assumptions, methods, or inspirations. From the point of view of the considerations undertaken in this article, such reflection should also include the language employed by Christian ethics. In particular, this paper considers the following issues: whether Christian ethics has its specific language; whether it (...) introduces new notions, or assigns specific meanings to notions already present in ethics; and how ethical notions are defined in Christian ethics. These questions are addressed with reference to the philosophical system of Tadeusz Ślipko, one of the most outstanding Polish representatives of Christian ethics. -------------- Received: 11/02/2021. Reviewed: 23/03/2021. Accepted: 10/05/2021. (shrink)

Learning the unique linguistic forms and structures that construct and communicate scientific principles, knowledge, and beliefs is important for developing students’ disciplinary literacy. The use of scientific language is apparent in the texts that scientists produce to communicate their findings to other scientists—the research articles. Texts are underused in the science classroom and the texts that students do read often do not reflect the core attributes of authentic scientific reasoning. Adapted primary literature refers to an educational genre that enables (...) the use of scientific articles in high school. In the adaptation process, the language of the article is changed to make it more accessible for high school students. Here, we present a systemic functional linguistics analysis of an APL article compared to the original research article and to a popular article. The three texts were systematically scanned and compared for specific lexicogrammatical items that characterize five linguistic features of scientific writing: informational density, abstraction, technicality, authoritativeness, and hedging. We found that the adaptation process lowered the lexical complexity, while retaining the authenticity of the scientific writing. APL articles, as suggested by the linguistic analysis presented here, may serve as models of scientific reasoning and communication and may promote students’ language awareness and disciplinary literacy. We suggest using APL articles as an apprenticeship genre, for learning about the unique features of authentic scientific texts, and the reasoning that is reflected in the way the articles are written. (shrink)

From the perspective of semiotics, or a science of signs, communication exceeds the usual verbal mode of expression and covers extra linguistic modes. This paper addresses a specific communicative system represented by Tarot pictures. The semiotic approach not only presents Tarot as exceeding its function as a game but also de-mystifies, in part, its occult side by virtue of the analysis of semiosis, or the action of signs in nature. Using references from the Hermetic philosophy, to Dummett, to Peirce, to (...) Smolin, the paper asserts that, should we understand the language of signs, the memories of past and future events would be accessible to human reason. (shrink)

This article discusses the Homeric background of the Republic with the aim of elucidating Plato’s critique of Homeric nostos. It argues that the Republic unfolds as a nostos voyage, with Socrates striving to steer the soul home. Even though Segal has already argued for seeing the Republic as an Odyssean voyage, this article suggests that Plato does more than simply borrow the idea of a voyage as a metaphor for the wanderings of the soul. Rather, there is an implicit critique (...) of Homer as the “poet of Becoming” in the dialogue. Thus, reading the Republic in the context of other Platonic dialogues such as the Cratylus and Theaetetus where Socrates identifies Homer as the source of the view that Ocean is the origin of all things and that everything is in flux allows us to better appreciate Socrates’ critique of poets in the Republic. At stake in this critique is ultimately the question of the soul’s true nostos, which Plato identifies with a vertical ascent to Being rather than with a temporary homecoming within Becoming. This article contributes to the elucidation of the Homeric and pre-Socratic background of Platonic philosophy. It undertakes a literary reading of the Republic against the background of the hero’s journey motif. Specifically, it argues that Plato critiques and emends the Odyssean nostos in order to make space for Parmenidean ontology, thus forging a new understanding of salvation. (shrink)

Computer software is written in languages like C, Java or Haskell. In many cases social software is expressed in natural language. The paper explores connections between the areas of natural language analysis and analysis of social protocols, and proposes an extended program for natural language semantics, where the goals of natural language communication are derived from the demands of specific social protocols.

Computer software is written in languages like C, Java or Haskell. In many cases social software is expressed in natural language. The paper explores connections between the areas of natural language analysis and analysis of social protocols, and proposes an extended program for natural language semantics, where the goals of natural language communication are derived from the demands of specific social protocols.

Although language has long been regarded as a primarily arbitrary system, sound symbolism, or non-arbitrary correspondences between the sound of a word and its meaning, also exists in natural language. Previous research suggests that listeners are sensitive to sound symbolism. However, little is known about the specificity of these mappings. This study investigated whether sound symbolic properties correspond to specific meanings, or whether these properties generalize across semantic dimensions. In three experiments, native English-speaking adults heard sound symbolic (...) foreign words for dimensional adjective pairs and for each foreign word, selected a translation among English antonyms that either matched or mismatched with the correct meaning dimension. Listeners agreed more reliably on the English translation for matched relative to mismatched dimensions, though reliable cross-dimensional mappings did occur. These findings suggest that although sound symbolic properties generalize to meanings that may share overlapping semantic features, sound symbolic mappings offer semantic specificity. (shrink)

When researchers think about the interaction between language and emotion, they typically focus on descriptive emotion words. This review demonstrates that emotion can interact with language at many levels of structure, from the sound patterns of a language to its lexicon and grammar, and beyond to how it appears in conversation and discourse. Findings are considered from diverse subfields across the language sciences, including cognitive linguistics, psycholinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and conversation analysis. Taken together, it is clear (...) that emotional expression is finely tuned to language-specific structures. Future emotion research can better exploit cross-linguistic variation to unravel possible universal principles operating between language and emotion. (shrink)

This essay proposes to analyse the mechanisms of quarrels from a theoretical perspective largely informed by linguistics, and more specifically, by pragmatics. It connects with some of Jean-Jacques Lecercle's argument in the current issue, but takes the analysis in different directions. Looking at a number of examples of quarrels, this paper purports to identify the different participants and parameters in the development of a quarrel. These include speakers, texts, institutions that adjudicate, an audience and rules, as well as material conditions (...) under which disputes develop. These parameters provide a framework, rather than a rigid construction, within which speakers may change positions. Special attention is given to the beginnings of a quarrel and to the ends of a quarrel. The essay concludes on the dynamic of quarrels, which precludes modellization. (shrink)

Literacy, specifically the use of writing for rational purposes, adds a new dimension to the traditional problem of the relation between language, thought and rationality. Central to rational thought are the logical relations expressed by such terms as “is”, “or”, “and” and “not”. Whereas some see these concepts as fundamental and innate, it is here argued that such terms exhibit a diverse range of uses in speech and thought but through literacy and education they become explicit objects of thought (...) and formalized or ‘normed’ into logical operators as part of a literate rationality. This more formal orientation to language is seen as metarepresentational and may be shown to have both an historical and a developmental trajectory. (shrink)