Verbal Minds

Verbal Minds

Author: Toni Gomila

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2011-12-05

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 0123852013

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Ten years ago, the hegemonic idea was that language was a kind of independent module within the mind, a sort of "print-out" of whatever cognitive activity was taking place, but without any influence whatsoever in that activity. While this view is still held, evidence amassed in the last 10 years suggests another view of their inter-relationships, even though exactly which one is not clear yet, in part because of the lack of a unified view, and in part because of the inertia of the previous position, in part because all this evidence must be considered together. An increasing number of researchers are paying attention to the issues involved as the human language specificity may provide a clue to understand what makes humans "smart," to account for the singularities of human cognition. This book provides a comprehensive review of the multiple developments that have taken place in the last 10 years on the question of the relationships between language and thought and integrates them into a coherent framework. It will be relevant for anyone working in the sciences of languages. Synthesizes recent research Provides an integrated view of cognitive architecture Explains the relationships between language and thought


Verbal Minds

Verbal Minds

Author: Antoni Gomila

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2011-12-05

Total Pages: 150

ISBN-13: 0123852005

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Language has most consistently been chosen as the key to understanding the human mind and to providing the building blocks necessary for achieving other specificities in human cognition: abstract/propositional thought, recursivity, decoupling of current situation, creativity, and conscious control. It is not so clear how language influences human cognition. This book discusses research regarding verbal ability and cognition.


Inner Speech

Inner Speech

Author: Peter Langland-Hassan

Publisher:

Published: 2018

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 0198796641

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Inner Speech focuses on a familiar and yet mysterious element of our daily lives. In light of renewed interest in the general connections between thought, language, and consciousness, this anthology develops a number of important new theories about internal voices and raises questions about their nature and cognitive functions.


Talking About Thinking

Talking About Thinking

Author: Leda Berio

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-08-02

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 3110748479

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Our ability to attribute mental states to others ("to mentalize") has been the subject of philosophical and psychological studies for a very long time, yet the role of language acquisition in the development of our mentalizing abilities has been largely understudied. This book addresses this gap in the philosophical literature. The book presents an account of how false belief reasoning is impacted by language acquisition, and it does so by placing it in the larger context of the issue, how language impacts cognition in general. The work provides the reader with detailed and critical literature reviews, and draws on them to argue that language acquisition helps false belief reasoning by boosting the ability to create schemata that facilitate processing of information in some social contexts. According to this framework, it is a combination of syntactic clues and cultural narratives that helps the child to solve the classic false belief task. The book provides a novel, original account of how language helps false belief reasoning, while also giving the reader a broad, precise and well-documented picture of the debate around some of the most fundamental issues in social cognition.


Argumentation and Language — Linguistic, Cognitive and Discursive Explorations

Argumentation and Language — Linguistic, Cognitive and Discursive Explorations

Author: Steve Oswald

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-03-08

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 3319739727

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume focuses on the role language plays at all levels of the argumentation process. It explores the effects that specific linguistic choices may have in the production and the reception of arguments and in doing so, it moves beyond the first, necessary, descriptive stance provided by current literature on the topic. Each chapter provides an original take illuminating one or more of the following three issues: the range of linguistic resources language users draw on as they argue; how cognitive processes of meaning construction may influence argumentative practices; and which discursive devices can be used to fulfil a number of argumentative goals. The volume includes theoretical and empirical or applied stances, providing the reader both with state-of-the-art reflections on the relationship between argumentation and language, and with concrete examples of how this relationship plays out in naturally occurring argumentative practices, such as classroom interaction, and political, parliamentary or journalistic discourse. This is a very original, timely and welcome contribution to the study of argumentation conducted with the tools of the language sciences. The collection of papers relevantly tackles key linguistic, discursive and cognitive aspects of argumentative practices whose treatment is underrepresented in mainstream argumentation studies by offering new and exciting linguistically-grounded theoretical accounts. As such, the volume testifies both to the vigour of the linguistic current within the discipline and to the high standards of scholarly commitment and quality that the younger generation is pushing forward. Without question, this book marks an important milestone in the relationships between linguistics and argumentation theory. Christian Plantin, Professor Emeritus


Cognition and Communication in the Evolution of Language

Cognition and Communication in the Evolution of Language

Author: Anne Reboul

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-03-01

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 0191064475

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book proposes a new two-step approach to the evolution of language, whereby syntax first evolved as an auto-organizational process for the human conceptual apparatus (as a Language of Thought), and this Language of Thought was then externalized for communication, owing to social selection pressures. Anne Reboul first argues that, despite the routine use of language in communication, current use is not a failsafe guide to adaptive history. She points out that human cognition is as unique in nature as is language as a communication system, suggesting deep links between human thought and language. If language is seen as a communication system, then the specificities of language, its hierarchical syntax, its creativity, and the ability to use it to talk about absent objects, are a mystery. This book shows that approaching language as a system for thought overcomes these problems, and provides a detailed account of both steps in the evolution of language: its evolution for thought and its externalization for communication.


Language Diversity and Cognitive Representations

Language Diversity and Cognitive Representations

Author: Catherine Fuchs

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1999-11-15

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 9027284504

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Significant new developments in brain activity research have revived the debate on the universality of language and its neural basis. Within this debate, the question of language diversity and its implications for cognition remains central and controversial. It is here investigated in an original multimodal approach, covering various aspects of cross-linguistic variation, differences between spoken, signed and drum languages, between normal speech and pathological speech, and also between language and music, as revealed in electric brain activity associated with language processing. The various contributions (linguistic, anthropological, psychological and neurophysical) on the nature and status of variation and invariants in language provides evidence for complex interactions between language-specific processes and general cognitive faculties. This overview of some recent trends in cognitive linguistics opens up a promising new research area in the humanities as well as in the cognitive sciences.


Cognitive Phenomenology

Cognitive Phenomenology

Author: Tim Bayne

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2011-11-24

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 0199579938

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The central concern of the cognitive phenomenology debate is whether there is a distinctive 'cognitive phenomenology, ' that is, a kind of phenomenology that has cognitive or conceptual character in some sense that needs to be precisely determined. This volume addresses the question of whether conscious thought has cognitive phenomenology.


From Mental Imagery to Spatial Cognition and Language

From Mental Imagery to Spatial Cognition and Language

Author: Valérie Gyselinck

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2012-10-02

Total Pages: 283

ISBN-13: 113615471X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The nature of mental images and their relation to language has caused controversy amongst psychologists for years, and the so-called "imagery debate" is still unresolved. Fresh light is now being shed on this topic using recent findings in neuroscience and the development of behavioural studies. Reviewing state-of-the-art research in the field of imagery, visuo-spatial memory, spatial representation and language, with special emphasis on their interactions, the volume shows how, and to what extent, findings from the studies on imagery can positively influence and enrich other psychological areas such as: Working memory Space and time representation Language and embodiment Chapter 9, written by Michel Denis, to whom this book is dedicated, analyses more than three decades of research, and outlines the shared scientific journey of friendship and discovery that has developed across various cognitive topics, all of which are linked to, and inspired by, imagery conceptualization. This is the only book to present a critical outline of research on these topics in a single volume, and as such will be invaluable to advanced undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers in such fields as cognitive psychology, neuroscience, computer science and neuropsychology.