Language, culture and cognition: The view from space / Sprache, Kultur und Kognition: Die Betrachtung vom Raum

2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Penelope Brown
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Spatial Language ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Linguistic Group ◽  
Spatial Frames Of Reference ◽  
The Social ◽  
Language And Cognition ◽  
Cultural Explanation ◽  
Core Role

AbstractThis paper addresses the vexed questions of how language relates to culture, and what kind of notion of culture is important for linguistic explanation. I first sketch five perspectives - five different construals - of culture apparent in linguistics and in cognitive science more generally. These are: (i) culture as ethno-linguistic group, (ii) culture as a mental module, (iii) culture as knowledge, (iv) culture as context, and (v) culture as a process emergent in interaction. I then present my own work on spatial language and cognition in a Mayan languge and culture, to explain why I believe a concept of culture is important for linguistics. I argue for a core role for cultural explanation in two domains: in analysing the semantics of words embedded in cultural practices which color their meanings (in this case, spatial frames of reference), and in characterizing thematic and functional links across different domains in the social and semiotic life of a particular group of people.

scholarly journals Variation in spatial concepts: Different frames of reference on different axes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Pitt ◽  
Alexandra Carstensen ◽  
Edward Gibson ◽  
Steven T. Piantadosi
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Relations ◽  
Spatial Language ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Spatial Thinking ◽  
Initial Test ◽  
Spatial Concepts ◽  
Spatial Frames Of Reference ◽  
Language And Cognition ◽  
Lateral Axis ◽  
The Way

Spatial language and cognition vary across contexts. In some groups, people tend to use egocentric space (e.g. left, right) to encode the locations of objects, while in other groups, people use allocentric space (e.g. upriver, downriver) to describe the same spatial scene. These different spatial Frames of Reference (FoRs) characterize both the way people talk about spatial relations and the way they think about them, even when they are not using language. These patterns of spatial language and spatial thinking tend to covary, but the root causes of this variation are unclear. Here we propose that this variation in FoR use reflects variation in the spatial discriminability of the relevant spatial continua. In an initial test of this proposal, we compared FoR use across spatial axes that are known to differ in discriminability. In two non-verbal tests, a group of indigenous Bolivians used different FoRs on different spatial axes; on the lateral axis, where egocentric (left-right) discrimination is difficult, their behavior was predominantly allocentric; on the sagittal axis, where egocentric (front-back) discrimination is relatively easy, their behavior was predominantly egocentric. These findings support the spatial discriminability hypothesis, which may explain variation in spatial concepts not only across axes, but also across groups, between individuals, and over development.

The intrinsic frame of reference and the Dhivehi ‘FIBO’ system

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathon Lum
Keyword(s):  
Borderline Case ◽  
Frame Of Reference ◽  
Spatial Language ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Language And Cognition ◽  
Theoretical Issues ◽  
Intrinsic Frame

Abstract While geocentric and relative frames of reference have figured prominently in the literature on spatial language and cognition, the intrinsic frame of reference has received less attention, though various subtypes of the intrinsic frame have been proposed. This paper presents a revised classification of the intrinsic frame, distinguishing between three subtypes: a ‘direct’ subtype, an ‘object-centered’ subtype and a ‘figure-anchored’ subtype, with a cross-cutting distinction between ‘function-based’ and ‘shape-based’ systems. In addition, the ‘FIBO’ (front = inner, back = outer) system in Dhivehi is analyzed as an example of a borderline case, with some important features of the intrinsic frame but also some differences, presenting a challenge for existing frame of reference classifications. The rotational properties of these various systems are also considered. The analysis underscores the considerable diversity within intrinsic systems but also points to a closer relationship between intrinsic and extrinsic frames than has previously been appreciated. This may have implications for broader theoretical issues including how frames of reference are acquired, how speech communities come to use different frames and whether patterns of frame use in discourse shape patterns of non-verbal frame use.

scholarly journals Let’s talk about affordances: some implications of the social-material affordances approach

2021 ◽  
pp. 105971232110001
Author(s):  
Paul Voestermans
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Science Program ◽  
Inaugural Lecture ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Affordances ◽  
The Rich

In Erik Rietveld’s inaugural lecture “The Affordances of Art for Making Technologies,” art is presented as a valuable avenue to enrich the environment with material and social affordances that may enhance human meaning giving practices. In this contribution, I make a distinction between conventional and unconventional practices and argue for an account of sociomateriality that covers the whole spectrum and not just the evidently artistic and artful ones. In this context, I plea for a cognitive science program that adds to the rich resources art has to offer for understanding the whole spectrum of practices and deals with the complexity of social, material, and cultural practices.

scholarly journals “Redha tu Ikhlas”: The Social–Textual Significance of Islamic Virtue in Malay Forced Marriage Narratives

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 310
Author(s):  
Alicia Izharuddin
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Individual Choice ◽  
Forced Marriage ◽  
Marital Relations ◽  
Love Stories ◽  
God's Will ◽  
The Social ◽  
Mediated Discourse ◽  
Marital Success ◽  
Do So

What accounts for the endurance of forced marriage (kahwin paksa) narratives in Malaysian public culture? How does one explain the ways popular fascination with forced marriage relate to assumptions about heteronormative institutions and practices? In a society where most who enter into marriages do so based on individual choice, the enduring popularity of forced marriage as a melodramatic trope in fictional love stories suggests an ambivalence about modernity and egalitarianism. This ambivalence is further excavated by illuminating the intertextual engagement by readers, publishers and booksellers of Malay romantic fiction with a mediated discourse on intimacy and cultural practices. This article finds that forced marriage in the intimate publics of Malay romance is delivered as a kind of melodramatic mode, a storytelling strategy to solve practical problems of experience. Intertextual narratives of pain and struggle cast light on ‘redha’ (submission to God’s will) and ‘sabar’ (patience), emotional virtues that are mobilised during personal hardship and the challenge of maintaining successful marital relations. I argue that ‘redha’ and ‘sabar’ serve as important linchpins for the reproduction of heteronormative institutions and wifely obedience (taat). This article also demonstrates the ways texts are interwoven in the narratives about gender roles, intimacy, and marital success (or lack thereof) and how they relate to the modes of romantic melodrama.

scholarly journals Cultural factors that affected the spatial and temporal epidemiology of kuru

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 160789 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. T. Whitfield ◽  
W. H. Pako ◽  
J. Collinge ◽  
M. P. Alpers
Keyword(s):  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Mortuary Practices ◽  
Cultural Group ◽  
Genetic Studies ◽  
Linguistic Group ◽  
Epidemiological Changes ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Linguistic Groups ◽  
Initial Pattern

Kuru is a prion disease which became epidemic among the Fore and surrounding linguistic groups in Papua New Guinea, peaking in the late 1950s. It was transmitted during the transumption (endocannibalism) of dead family members at mortuary feasts. In this study, we aimed to explain the historical spread and the changing epidemiological patterns of kuru by analysing factors that affected its transmission. We also examined what cultural group principally determined a family's behaviour during mortuary rituals. Our investigations showed that differences in mortuary practices were responsible for the initial pattern of the spread of kuru and the ultimate shape of the epidemic, and for subsequent spatio-temporal differences in the epidemiology of kuru. Before transumption stopped altogether, the South Fore continued to eat the bodies of those who had died of kuru, whereas other linguistic groups, sooner or later, stopped doing so. The linguistic group was the primary cultural group that determined behaviour but at linguistic boundaries the neighbouring group's cultural practices were often adopted. The epidemiological changes were not explained by genetic differences, but genetic studies led to an understanding of genetic susceptibility to kuru and the selection pressure imposed by kuru, and provided new insights into human history and evolution.

Dream-Sharing and Human Self-Domestication

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Blagrove ◽  
Julia Lockheart
Keyword(s):  
Emotional Reactivity ◽  
Social Evolution ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Neural Mechanisms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Primary Driver ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Human Social Evolution ◽  
Dream Sharing ◽  
Experimental Findings

There are many theories of the function of dreams, such as memory consolidation, emotion processing, threat simulation and social simulation. In general, such theories hold that the function of dreams occurs within sleep; occurs for unrecalled dreams as well as for dream that are recalled on awakening; and that conscious recall of dreams is not necessary for their function to occur. In contrast, we propose that dreams have an effect of enhancing empathy and group bonding when dreams are shared and discussed with others. We propose also that this effect would have occurred in history and pre-history and, as it would have enhanced the cohesiveness and mutual understanding of group members, the fictional and engaging characteristics of dream content would have been selected for during human social evolution, interacting with cultural practices of dream-sharing. Such dream-sharing may have taken advantage of the long REM periods that occur for biological reasons near the end of the night. Dream-production and dream-sharing may have developed alongside story-telling, utilising common neural mechanisms. Dream-sharing hence would have contributed to Human Self-Domestication, held by many researchers to be the primary driver of the evolution of human prosociality, tolerance and reduced intragroup emotional reactivity. We note that within-sleep theories of dream function rely on correlational rather than experimental findings, and have as yet untested and speculative mechanisms, whereas post-sleep effects of dream-sharing are easily testable and have mechanisms congruent with the social processes proposed by the theory of Human Self-Domestication.

scholarly journals The Spaces of Nostalgia(s) and the Politics of Belonging in Contemporary Chernivtsi, Western Ukraine

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 218-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karolina Koziura
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Second World War ◽  
City Center ◽  
Symbolic Resources ◽  
The Social ◽  
Western Ukraine ◽  
The City ◽  
Second World

This article is part of the special cluster titled Bukovina and Bukovinians after the Second World War: (Re)shaping and (re)thinking a region after genocide and ‘ethnic unmixing’, guest edited by Gaëlle Fisher and Maren Röger. This article explores ways in which Habsburg nostalgia has become an important factor in contemporary place-making strategies in the city of Chernivtsi, Western Ukraine. Through the analysis of diasporic homecomings, city center revitalization, and nationalist rhetoric surrounding the politics of monuments, I explore hybrid and diverse ways in which Habsburg nostalgia operates in a given setting. Rather than a static and homogenous form of place attachment, in Chernivtsi different cultural practices associated with Habsburg nostalgia coexist with each other and depending on the political context as well as the social position of the “nostalgic agents” manifest themselves differently. Drawing from my long-term ethnographic fieldwork, I argue that in order to fully understand individuals’ attachment to space, it is necessary to grasp both the subtle emotional ways in which the city is experienced by individuals as well as problematize the role of the built environment in the visualization of collective memory and emotions of particular groups. The focus on changing manifestations of the Habsburg nostalgia can bring then a better understanding of the range and scope of the city’s symbolic resources that might be mobilized for various purposes.

The dress: Theme and self-presentation in online Australian wedding planning fora

2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-81
Author(s):  
Brenda Laskey ◽  
Lesley Stirling
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
New Media ◽  
Special Interest ◽  
Group Membership ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Self Presentation ◽  
Cultural Object ◽  
Construction Of Identity ◽  
The Social

This investigation of the discourse of Australian women in the ‘new media’ context of online special interest advice fora contributes to theory about the ways in which language encodes cultural practices and mediates the social construction of identity. The linguistic self-presentation of participants in 588 asynchronous written posts to wedding planning fora was analysed. Prevalent themes were identified inductively and the degree to which each identified theme was evident in the data was measured. The study uncovered ways in which group membership criteria were expressed and found that traditional ideals of feminine perfection were reinforced. A focus of the investigation was the ways in which the participants spoke about the wedding dress. At times, it was referred to using personification as though it were a proxy for a lover. On other occasions, it appeared to function as a representation of the writer’s idealized bridal self. It emerged as a highly significant cultural object which conferred a special but temporary identity.

scholarly journals A Field Guide for Teaching Evolution in the Social Sciences

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristine Legare ◽  
John Opfer ◽  
Justin Busch ◽  
Andrew Shtulman
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Teaching Evolution ◽  
Field Guide ◽  
Theory Of Evolution ◽  
The Social ◽  
Evolution Understanding

The theory of evolution by natural selection has begun to revolutionize our understanding of perception, cognition, language, social behavior, and cultural practices. Despite the centrality of evolutionary theory to the social sciences, many students, teachers, and even scientists struggle to understand how natural selection works. Our goal is to provide a field guide for social scientists on teaching evolution, based on research in cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and education. We synthesize what is known about the psychological obstacles to understanding evolution, methods for assessing evolution understanding, and pedagogical strategies for improving evolution understanding. We review what is known about teaching evolution about nonhuman species and then explore implications of these findings for the teaching of evolution about humans. By leveraging our knowledge of how to teach evolution in general, we hope to motivate and equip social scientists to begin teaching evolution in the context of their own field.

scholarly journals Intercultural practicum: Perceptual learning through video in the pandemic context

Teachers Work ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1and2) ◽  
pp. 56-72
Author(s):  
Dawn Joseph ◽  
Richard Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Perceptual Learning ◽  
International Student ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
The Other ◽  
Initial Teacher Education ◽  
Cultural Environment ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
The Social ◽  
Travel Restrictions

In our work with Australian initial teacher education (ITE) students our emphasis is on encouraging students to understand different cultural practices. Drawing on narrative reflection, we discuss intercultural and pedagogical concerns in which ITE students undertake international practicums. We recognise these students have a predominantly Western lens when undertaking practicums in Asian countries. To address this issue a video A Day in the Life… of Tamil School Children (https://youtu.be/vPdiogRR-Ig) in India was produced to change, improve and help students learn about the social and cultural environment of the ‘international student’. Students who took part in previous international practicums agreed that the video was an effective tool for cultural familiarisation. During this time of COVID-19 with travel restrictions abroad, the video resource serves as an effective visual pedagogy to build cultural understanding, embrace diversity, enable perceptual learning and empowering students to cultivate intercultural understandings of ‘the other’.

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