On linguistic communication based on resemblance in form

2021 ◽  
Vol 186 ◽  
pp. 20-32
Author(s):  
Eun-Ju Noh
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Communication

Varieties of Intentionalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Keiser
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Grammatical Analysis

In Imagination and Convention: Distinguishing Grammar and Inference in Language, Ernie Lepore and Matthew Stone offer a multifaceted critique of the Gricean picture of language use, proposing in its place a novel framework for understanding the role of convention in linguistic communication. They criticize Lewis’s and Grice’s commitment to what they call ‘prospective intentionalism,’ according to which utterance meaning is determined by the conversational effects intended by the speaker. Instead, they make a case for what they call ‘direct intentionalism’, according to which utterance meaning is determined by the speaker’s intentions to use it under a certain grammatical analysis. I argue that there is an equivocation behind their critique, both regarding the type of meaning that is at issue and the question each theory is attempting to answer; once we prise these issues apart, we find that Lepore and Stone’s main contentions are compatible with the broadly Lewisian/Gricean picture.

Shifting Concepts

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Philosophy ◽  
Central Area ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Important Work ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Semantic Properties ◽  
Conceptual Variation

Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology. Since the 1970s, psychologists have carried out intriguing experiments testing the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, and have found a great deal of variation in categorization behaviour across individuals and cultures. During the same period, philosophers of language and mind did important work on the semantic properties of concepts, and on how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. An important motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared, across individuals and cultures. However, there was little interaction between these two research programs until recently. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend. Moreover, in the last decade, philosophers have approached questions about the tension between conceptual variation and shared concepts in communication from a new perspective: that of ameliorating concepts for theoretical or for social and political purposes. The volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers working on concepts who come from these different research traditions.

Could we please lose the mapping metaphor, please?

2001 ◽  
Vol 24 (6) ◽  
pp. 1119-1120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Tomasello
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Mind Reading ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Learning Skills ◽  
One Year

Although Bloom gives more credit to social cognition (mind reading) than do most other theorists of word learning, he does not go far enough. He still relies fundamentally on a learning process of association (or mapping), neglecting the joint attentional and cultural learning skills from which linguistic communication emerges at one year of age.

scholarly journals Novel vocalizations are understood across cultures

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Ćwiek ◽  
Susanne Fuchs ◽  
Christoph Draxler ◽  
Eva Liina Asu ◽  
Dan Dediu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Study ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Similar Role ◽  
Iconic Representation ◽  
Cross Cultural Study ◽  
Linguistic Backgrounds

AbstractLinguistic communication requires speakers to mutually agree on the meanings of words, but how does such a system first get off the ground? One solution is to rely on iconic gestures: visual signs whose form directly resembles or otherwise cues their meaning without any previously established correspondence. However, it is debated whether vocalizations could have played a similar role. We report the first extensive cross-cultural study investigating whether people from diverse linguistic backgrounds can understand novel vocalizations for a range of meanings. In two comprehension experiments, we tested whether vocalizations produced by English speakers could be understood by listeners from 28 languages from 12 language families. Listeners from each language were more accurate than chance at guessing the intended referent of the vocalizations for each of the meanings tested. Our findings challenge the often-cited idea that vocalizations have limited potential for iconic representation, demonstrating that in the absence of words people can use vocalizations to communicate a variety of meanings.

Texts: A Case Study of Joint Action

SATS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nivedita Gangopadhyay ◽  
Alois Pichler
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Joint Action ◽  
Digital Humanities ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Unique Type ◽  
Joint Actions ◽  
Spatio Temporal

Abstract Our linguistic communication often takes the form of creating texts. In this paper, we propose that creating texts or ‘texting’ is a form of joint action. We examine the nature and evolution of this joint action. We argue that creating texts ushers in a special type of joint action, which, while lacking some central features of normal, everyday joint actions such as spatio-temporal collocation of agency and embodiment, nonetheless results in an authentic, strong, and unique type of joint action agency. This special type of agency is already present in creating texts in general and is further augmented in creating texts through digital media. We propose that such a unique type of joint action agency has a transformative effect on the experience of our sense of agency and subjectivity. We conclude with the implications of the proposal for social cognition and social agency. The paper combines research in philosophy of mind with the emerging fields of digital humanities and text technology.

scholarly journals TESTIMONY, RECOVERY AND PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY: A RESPONSE TO PEET

Episteme ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-38
Author(s):  
Alex Davies
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Context Sensitivity ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Context Sensitive ◽  
Epistemology Of Testimony ◽  
Public Responsibility

ABSTRACTAccording to telling based views of testimony (TBVs), B has reason to believe that p when A tells B that p because A thereby takes public responsibility for B's subsequent belief that p. Andrew Peet presents a new argument against TBVs. He argues that insofar as A uses context-sensitive expressions to express p, A doesn't take public responsibility for B's belief that p. Since context-sensitivity is widespread, the kind of reason TBVs say we have to believe what we're told, is not widespread. Peet doesn't identify any problem with his own argument though he does attempt to limit its sceptical potential by identifying special contexts in which TBVs stand a chance of success. A more general defence of TBVs can be provided by showing Peet's argument to be unsound. I argue that Peet's argument is unsound because it requires us to wrongly suppose that speakers do far less labour than their audiences in context-sensitive linguistic communication. I aim to show why – in the context of the epistemology of testimony and the philosophy of language – it's important to recognize the labour that speakers can do, and so can be held responsible for not doing, in episodes of context-sensitive linguistic communication.

Exploring Learning Through Visual, Actional and Linguistic Communication: The multimodal environment of a science classroom

2001 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carey Jewitt ◽  
Gunther Kress ◽  
Jon Ogborn ◽  
Charalampos Tsatsarelis
Keyword(s):  
Science Classroom ◽  
Linguistic Communication

scholarly journals COMPREHENSIVE ANALYSIS OF LINGUISTIC COMMUNICATION PATTERNS OF TOP RUSSIAN JOURNALISTS IN THE OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS OF SOCIAL PLATFORMS VKONTAKTE, FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, TWITTER

2021 ◽  
pp. 49-62
Author(s):  
Вероника Викторовна Катермина ◽  
Анна Александровна Гнедаш ◽  
Мария Витальевна Николаева
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Comprehensive Analysis ◽  
Communication Patterns ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
The Social ◽  
Linguistic Patterns ◽  
The Way

В статье приводятся результаты комплексного анализа лингвистических паттернов коммуникации топовых российских журналистов в официальных аккаунтах социальных платформ ВКонтакте, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Целью данной статьи является изучение лингвистических паттернов, продуцируемых топовыми журналистами в своих онлайн-аккаунтах, способных задавать векторы восприятия политического контента, создаваемого главными лидерами государств, и приводящих к трансформации дискурсивных полей как в онлайн-, так и в офлайн-пространстве. Среднестатистический россиянин тратит почти половину дня на онлайн-взаимодействие, почти 50 % этого времени приходится на популярные социальные медиа, в том числе интернет-серфинг в среде официальных аккаунтов топовых журналистов. Потребление данных паттернов рядовыми пользователями / читателями, находящимися под «силовым» влиянием дискурсивного поля, становится определяющим фактором в процессе выработки и принятия индивидуальных / коллективных решений, реализация которых формирует то или иное социальное действие как в онлайн-, так и в офлайн-пространстве. Согласно данным мониторинга социальных медиа и СМИ компанией «Медиалогия», нами были выбраны аккаунты Алексея Венедиктова, Владимира Соловьева, Владимира Познера, Маргариты Симоньян и Ксении Собчак в ВКонтакте, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Эмпирической базой (дата-сеты) стали все посты, комментарии и ветки дискуссий, отражающие реакцию данных журналистов и общественности на Послание Президента РФ В. В. Путина Федеральному Собранию РФ от 15 января 2020 г. Дата-сеты были получены машинным методом сплошной выборки и подвергнуты комплексному анализу, включившему сетевой, лингводискурсивный, фолксономический анализ. В результате проведенного исследования были сделаны выводы о том, какими лингводискурсивными особенностями характеризуются посты топовых журналистов в популярных социальных сетях; как характеризуются лингвистические паттерны, продуцируемые топовыми журналистами в онлайн-пространстве; как различается контент, создаваемый журналистами в разных социальных сетях; каковы особенности этих различий в зависимости от специфики самих социальных платформ; как влияет политический контекст на лингвистические паттерны, продуцируемые топовыми журналистами в онлайн-пространстве. The article presents the results of a comprehensive analysis of the linguistic communication patterns of top Russian journalists in the official accounts of the social platforms VKontakte, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. The purpose of this article is to study the linguistic patterns which are produced by the top journalists in their online accounts and which can set vectors of interpretation of political content created by state leaders and cause the transformation of discourse fields both in online and offline spaces. The average Russian spends almost half a day on online interaction, almost 50% of this time is spent on popular social media, including surfing the top journalists’ official accounts. The linguistic patterns produced by journalists in their online accounts are capable of transforming discursive fields both online and offline. The consumption of these patterns by ordinary users / readers who are under the influence of the discourse field becomes a determining factor in the process of making individual / collective decisions, the implementation of which forms a particular social action both in online and offline spaces. According to “Mediologia” monitoring data of social and mass media, the authors selected the accounts of Aleksey Venediktov, Vladimir Solovyev, Vladimir Pozner, Margarita Simonyan, and Ksenia Sobchak in VKontakte, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. The data sets of the study are all the posts, comments, and threads of discussions that reflect the reaction of the above-mentioned journalists and the public to the Presidential Address to the Federal Assembly on 15 January 2020. The data sets were gained through a continuous sampling method and underwent a comprehensive analysis including network, linguo-discursive, folksonomic analyses. As a result of the study, the authors have drawn the conclusions on what linguistic and discursive features characterize the posts of the top journalists in popular social networks; the way the linguistic patterns produced by the top journalists in online space are characterized; the way the content created by the journalists in various social networks differs; what is the specificity of these differences depending on the specificity of the social platforms themselves; the way a political context affects the linguistic patterns produced by the top journalists in online space.

scholarly journals Show or Tell? Teaching with language outperforms demonstration but only when context is shared

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore Sumers ◽  
Mark K Ho ◽  
Robert Hawkins ◽  
Tom Griffiths
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
High Fidelity ◽  
Linguistic Communication ◽  
Communicative Acts ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
High Bandwidth ◽  
Abstract Language ◽  
Shared Context

People use a wide range of communicative acts, from concrete demonstrations to abstract language. What are the strengths and weaknesses of such different modalities? We present a series of real-time, multi-player experiments asking participants to teach (Boolean) concepts using either demonstrations or language. Our first experiment (N = 454) manipulated the complexity of the concept, finding that linguistic (but not demonstrative) teaching enables high-fidelity transmission of more complex concepts. Why, then, do humans use both demonstrations and language? As a form of conventionalized communication, language relies on shared context between speaker and listener, whereas demonstrations are inherently grounded in the world. We hypothesized linguistic communication would be more sensitive to perturbations of shared context than demonstrations. Our second experiment (N = 568) manipulated teachers’ ability to see the features that defined the concept. This restriction severely impaired linguistic (but not demonstrative) teaching. Our comparative approach confirms language relies on shared context to permit high bandwidth communication; in contrast, demonstrations are lower-bandwidth but more robust.

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