Is displacement possible without language? Evidence from preverbal infants and chimpanzees

Is displacement possible without language? This question was addressed in a recent work by Liszkowski and colleagues (Liszkowski, Schafer, Carpenter, & Tomasello, 2009). The authors carried out an experiment to demonstrate that 12-month-old prelinguistic infants can communicate about absent entities by using pointing gestures, while chimpanzees cannot. The main hypothesis of their study is that displacement does not depend on language but is, however, exclusively human and instead depends on species-specific social-cognitive human skills. Against this hypothesis, we will argue that a symbolic representation is needed to intentionally communicate absence and that this symbolic representa…

Introduzione

Il presente numero speciale di Esercizi Filosofici raccoglie i saggi selezionati, tramite processo di doppio referaggio anonimo, tra quelli presentati e discussi al XVII Congresso Nazionale della Società di Filosofia del Linguaggio (SFL), "La dimensione pragmatica in filosofia, linguistica e semiotica", tenutosi presso l’Università degli Studi di Trieste dal 16 al 18 settembre 2010.

Sulla natura dell'uomo: linguaggio e coevoluzione

Language and Cognition. Insights from Williams syndrome

How the Context Matters. Literal and Figurative Meaning in the Embodied Language Paradigm

The involvement of the sensorimotor system in language understanding has been widely demonstrated. However, the role of context in these studies has only recently started to be addressed. Though words are bearers of a semantic potential, meaning is the product of a pragmatic process. It needs to be situated in a context to be disambiguated. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that embodied simulation occurring during linguistic processing is contextually modulated to the extent that the same sentence, depending on the context of utterance, leads to the activation of different effector-specific brain motor areas. In order to test this hypothesis, we asked subjects to give a moto…

Il problema dell'origine del linguaggio e le scienze cognitive: un'ipotesi sull'evoluzione del meccanismo ricorsivo

Metafora e metonimia tra linguistica cognitiva e teoria della pertinenza. Uno studio delle lingue dei segni primarie/ Metaphor and metonymy between Cognitive Linguistics and Relevance Theory. A study on Primary Sign Languages

Linguisti conigli e patologie

Parole che risuonano. Usi linguistici e simulazione motoria

One of the great merits of the embodied language paradigm is that of highlighting the fact that language understanding has to be led back to action and perception. The comprehension of an action-related sentence activates the same neural structures that enable the execution of that action. However, embodied language studies have been mostly focused on descriptive usages of language. Notions such as those of usage, context or pragmatic intrusion have not been sufficiently considered. A usage-based model of language will be here presented. Embodied language studies will be discussed in the light of this model.

Perché le patologie genetiche non sono una prova della teoria modulare del linguaggio

Alessandro Capone (ed.). Perspectives on Language Use and Pragmatics. A Volume in Memory of Sorin Stati.

Is Embodiment All That We Need? Insights from the Acquisition of Negation

Simulation of propositional content does not sufficiently explain real-life linguistic activity, even for action-related language. In addition, how we get from propositional content to implicit and inferential meaning needs to be explained. Indeed, simulative understanding is immediate, automatic and reflex-like while an explicit interpretative act, even if not always needed, is still a part of many linguistic activities. The aim of this paper is to present the hypothesis that speaking is a complex ability realized by means of at least two different mechanisms that are likely developed at different and consecutive steps of cognitive and linguistic development. The first mechanism has a neur…

Ritratto dell'artista da cerbiatto

Che rapporto c’è tra il deficit cognitivo e la straordinaria capacità di cesellare i dettagli posseduta da disegnatoricome Stephen Wiltshire e Gilles Trehin? – Lo studio della sindrome autistica e delle sue ‘isole di abilità’ può aiutarea comprendere i meccanismi della creatività umana?

On Negation. What do we need to “say no”?

By looking at first-language learning, we can see three broad categories in the acquisition of negation (see DIMROTH 2010 for a review):1) rejection/refusal; 2) disappearance/ non-existence/unfulfilled expectation; 3) denial. Denial is the most complex form of negation and the last to be acquired. I present the hypothesis that denial relies on false belief understanding. Evidence from normally developed and from Autistic subjects confirms this hypothesis. Competence in linguistic denial is usually acquired by the age of 2 years and a half and 3 years. According to this hypothesis, the attribution of false belief understanding could be lowered to the age of about 2 and a half years. Hence, p…

From a bodily-based format of knowledge to symbols. The evolution of human language

Although ontogeny cannot recapitulate phylogeny, a two-level model of the acquisition of language will be here proposed and its implication for the evolution of the faculty of language will be discussed. It is here proposed that the identification of the cognitive requirements of language during ontogeny could help us in the task of identifying the phylogenetic achievements that concurred, at some point, to the acquisition of language during phylogeny. In this model speaking will be considered as a complex ability that arises in two different steps. The first step of competence widely relies on a bodily-based format of knowledge. The second step relies on more abstract meta-representations …

Metafore che risuonano.Linguaggio e corpo tra filosofia e neuroscienze

Obiettivo di questo lavoro è quello di individuare un meccanismo di comprensione delle metafore che possa rendere conto di quella sintonizzazione affettivo/ emotiva tra scrittore e lettore che spesso accompagna la lettura. Per definire questa esperienza, che chiameremo esperienza di “risonanza”, la dimensione sensoriale e quella del piacere possono essere essenziali. Il lavoro sarà condotto facendo ampio uso delle evidenze delle neuroscienze cognitive.

Review of Capone (2010): Perspectives on Language Use and Pragmatics. A Volume in Memory of Sorin Stati

Metaphors and metonymies understanding in sign systems

The aim of this paper is to integrate the cognitive linguistic theory and the relevance theory to provide a comprehensive explanation of what metaphors and metonymies are and to explore their interaction. We approach this question through the analysis of metaphors and metonymies in homesign systems developed by deaf individuals who have no contact with the Deaf Community. We conclude that there is a complex interplay between metonymies and metaphors as a result of a process of representing the human experience by exploiting iconicity and contiguity relations between sign and referent. Speaking metaphorically and use metonymies is a complex ability that arises in two different steps. In our …

La rappresentazione dello spazio e la sua espressione linguistica: l'invarianza nella variabilità

METAPHOR USE IN SIGN SYSTEM: A TWO-STEP MODEL FOR THE UNDERSTANDING OF METAPHOR AND METONYMY

The aim of this paper is to integrate the cognitive linguistic theory and the relevance theory to provide a comprehensive explanation of what metaphors and metonymies are and to explore their interaction. We approach this question through the analysis of metaphors and metonymies in homesign systems developed by deaf individuals who have no contact with the Deaf Community. We conclude that there is a complex interplay between metonymies and metaphors as a result of a process of representing the human experience by exploiting iconicity and contiguity relations between sign and referent. Speaking metaphorically and use metonymies is a complex ability that arises in two different steps. In our …

ABDUCTIVE INFERENCES IN PRAGMATIC PROCESSES

Abstract In pragmatic theories, the notion of inference plays a central role, together with the communicative act in which it is activated. Although some scholars, such as Levinson, Sperber and Wilson, propose detailed and accurate analyses of this notion, we will maintain that these analyses can be better systematized if seen through Peirce’s notion of abduction. We will try to maintain that the variety of inferential processes in play in a linguistic act is mostly of an abductive nature. Moreover, we will maintain that the typological tripartition of abductions discussed by Eco (1981) allows to account for a signi cant part of the mechanisms involved in the comprehension of an utterance, …

Introduzione

Dire lo spazio. Linguaggio spazialità e sindrome di Williams

LANGUAGE AND SPACE IN WILLIAMS SYNDROME

Genio e sregolatezza. Note sul pensiero autistico.

RIFLESSIONI SU LINGUAGGIO E COGNIZIONE SPAZIALE Un confronto tra lingue vocali e lingue dei segni

Depending on which theoretical paradigm is used, the relationship between spatial language and spatial thought could be presented in different ways. What is the nature of this relationship? Are spatial cognitive abilities a prerequisite for spatial language or, vice-versa, is it spatial language that shapes and affects our spatial reasoning? This paper is aimed at highlighting the dynamic interaction between spatial language and spatial cognition. That is, we need some spatial abilities in order to acquire spatial language. We share most of these core spatial abilities with other animals. These structures are the basis for spatial language, and this explains the presence of universal featur…

Della Natura Umana