scholarly journals Expression Unleashed

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christophe Heintz ◽  
Thom Scott-Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Social Ecology ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Partner Choice ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Species Comparisons ◽  
Aid Coordination ◽  
Novel Behaviour

Human expression is diverse and multi-faceted, ranging from ordinary language use to painting, from exaggerated displays of affection to micro-movements that aid coordination. Here we present and defend the claim that this expressive diversity is united by an interrelated suite of cognitive capacities, the evolved function of which is the expression and recognition of informative intentions. We describe how evolutionary dynamics normally leash communication to narrow domains of statistical mutual benefit, and how they are unleashed in humans. The relevant cognitive capacities are cognitive adaptations to living in a partner choice social ecology; and they are, correspondingly, part of the ordinarily developing human cognitive phenotype, emerging early and reliably in ontogeny. In other words, we identify distinctive features of our species’ social ecology that can explain how and why humans evolved the cognitive capacities that, in turn, lead to massive diversity in means and modes of expression. We make relevant cross-species comparisons, describe how the relevant cognitive capacities can evolve in a gradual manner, and survey how unleashed expression facilitates not only the evolution of languages, but novel behaviour in other domains too, focusing on the examples of joint action, punishment, and the arts. We aim to help reorient cognitive pragmatics, as a phenomenon that is not a supplement to linguistic communication and on the periphery of language science, but rather the foundation of many of the most of the most distinctive features of human behaviour and societies.

scholarly journals Expression unleashed: The evolutionary & cognitive foundations of human communication

2022 ◽  
pp. 1-46
Author(s):  
Christophe Heintz ◽  
Thom Scott-Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Social Ecology ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Partner Choice ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Cognitive Foundations ◽  
The Many

Abstract Human expression is open-ended, versatile and diverse, ranging from ordinary language use to painting, from exaggerated displays of affection to micro-movements that aid coordination. Here we present and defend the claim that this expressive diversity is united by an interrelated suite of cognitive capacities, the evolved functions of which are the expression and recognition of informative intentions. We describe how evolutionary dynamics normally leash communication to narrow domains of statistical mutual benefit, and how they are unleashed in humans. The relevant cognitive capacities are cognitive adaptations to living in a partner choice social ecology; and they are, correspondingly, part of the ordinarily developing human cognitive phenotype, emerging early and reliably in ontogeny. In other words, we identify distinctive features of our species’ social ecology to explain how and why humans, and only humans, evolved the cognitive capacities that, in turn, lead to massive diversity and open-endedness in means and modes of expression. Language use is but one of these modes of expression, albeit one of manifestly high importance. We make cross-species comparisons, describe how the relevant cognitive capacities can evolve in a gradual manner, and survey how unleashed expression facilitates not only language use but novel behaviour in many other domains too, focusing on the examples of joint action, teaching, punishment and art, all of which are ubiquitous in human societies but relatively rare in other species. Much of this diversity derives from graded aspects of human expression, which can be used to satisfy informative intentions in creative and new ways. We aim to help reorient cognitive pragmatics, as a phenomenon that is not a supplement to linguistic communication and on the periphery of language science, but rather the foundation of the many of the most distinctive features of human behaviour, society and culture.

scholarly journals Cultural Diplomacy and Europe's Twenty Years’ Crisis, 1919–1939: Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Benjamin G. Martin ◽  
Elisabeth Piller
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The Arts ◽  
International Exposition ◽  
German Nation ◽  
Iconic Image ◽  
Industrial Designers

Photographs of the German and Soviet pavilions facing off at the Paris International Exposition in 1937 offer an iconic image of the interwar period, and with good reason. This image captures the interwar period's great conflict of ideologies, the international interconnectedness of the age and the aestheticisation of political and ideological conflict in the age of mass media and mass spectacle. [Figure 1] Last but not least, it captures the importance in the 1930s of what we now call cultural diplomacy. Both pavilions – Germany's, in Albert Speer's neo-classical tower bloc crowned with a giant swastika, and the Soviet Union's, housed in Boris Iofan's forward-thrusting structure topped by Vera Mukhina's monumental sculptural group – represented the outcome of a large-scale collaboration between political leaders and architects, artists, intellectuals and graphic and industrial designers seeking to present their country to foreign visitors in a manner designed to advance the country's interests in the international arena. Each pavilion, that is, made an outreach that was diplomatic – in the sense that it sought to mediate between distinct polities – using means that were cultural – in the sense that they deployed refined aesthetic practices (like the arts and architecture) and in the sense that they highlighted the distinctive features, or ‘culture’, of a particular group (like the German nation or the Soviet state).

scholarly journals Affect, Belief, and the Arts

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rami Gabriel
Keyword(s):  
Social Practices ◽  
Direct Perception ◽  
Tertiary Level ◽  
Cooperative Groups ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Self Knowledge

The cultural project is a therapeutic melding of emotion, symbols, and knowledge. In this paper, I describe how spiritual emotions engendered through encounters in imaginative culture enable fixation of metaphysical beliefs. Evolved affective systems are domesticated through the social practices of imaginative culture so as to adapt people to live in culturally defined cooperative groups. Conditioning, as well as tertiary-level cognitive capacities such as symbols and language are enlisted to bond groups through the imaginative formats of myth and participatory ritual. These cultural materializations can be shared by communities both synchronically and diachronically in works of art. Art is thus a form of self-knowledge that equips us with a motivated understanding of ourselves in the world. In the sacred state produced through the arts and in religious acts, the sense of meaning becomes noetically distinct because affect infuses the experience of immanence, and one's memory of it, with salience. The quality imbued thereby makes humans attentive to subtle signs and broad “truths.” Saturated by emotions and the experience of alterity in the immanent encounter of imaginative culture, information made salient in the sacred experience can become the basis for belief fixation. Using examples drawn from mimetic arts and arts of immanence, I put forward a theory about how sensible affective knowledge is mediated through affective systems, direct perception, and the imagination.

scholarly journals Modernist Thai Short Stories, 1964–1973: The Relationship with Art

MANUSYA ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-141
Author(s):  
Soranat Tailanga
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Relationship

A number of distinguished Thai short stories from 1964 to 1973 reveal new and distinctive features in terms of subject, form, concepts and style. These features are similar to those of modernism, which was an international movement in literature and the arts that began in the late 19th century and continued into the early 20th century. The similarity suggests the direct and indirect influences of the modernist style upon Thai writers. Furthermore, the change in style of some of the short stories indicates a relationship with the art movements: impressionism, expressionism, cubism and surrealism, which were subsidiary art movements within modernism. These specific features of the Thai short story signify a radical break with the traditional writing of the time.

scholarly journals “SUICIDE” ON THE KHARKIV STAGE: MUSIC AND STAGE READING BY S. PASICHNYK – H. FROLOV

2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (24) ◽  
pp. 199-214
Author(s):  
Liubchenko Valeriia
Keyword(s):  
Commedia Dell'arte ◽  
Musical Language ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
The Arts ◽  
New Meanings ◽  
Dramatic Performance ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Stage Play ◽  
Musical Accompaniment

Statement of the problem. The article examines the theatrical heritage of Les Kurbas, the founder of Shevchenko Kharkiv Academic Ukrainian Drama Theatre (originally called «Berezil»). Les Kurbas is the reformer of the Ukrainian theater; his theatrical ideas demonstrate a new understanding of the synthesis of the arts. He concentrated his creative aspirations not only on acting, but also on all components of the performance, in particular on music. The paper examines methodically the application of the basic principles of Les Kurbas Theatre – the co-authorship of the director and composer – in Kharkiv theatre. The article also studies the works by H. Frolov – talented Kharkiv composer. The critical legacy dedicated to the works of Les Kurbas does not fully illuminate the uniqueness of his views regarding directing and the originality of the musical language in the genre of dramatic performance (CherkashynaHubarenko, 2002; Hordieiev, 2003; Yermakova, 2012; Labinska, 2012). There are a number of works devoted to the issues of music in theater (Kurysheva, 1984; Kozyurenko, 1986; Tarshis, 2010; Matsepura, 2013; Lesakova, 2017; Oseeva, 2019; Kovalchuk, 2017; Nurtazin, 2013; Spagnolo, 2017). The novelty of our research. The paper investigates musical component in the current practice of Shevchenko Kharkiv Academic Ukrainian Drama Theatre and creative method of its leading composer H. Frolov. The aim of the article is to reveal the interconnection of music with the stage elements of the performance. The study of the stage play “Suicide” in Kharkiv Drama Theater required the implementation a number of scientific approaches: historical and genetic, studying the modern function of music in the analyzed dramatic performance in Kharkiv Drama Theater, the origins of which go back to Kurbas “Berezil”; a comparative analysis, revealing the ways of preserving old traditions in modern performance; genre analysis, investigating the embodiment of the comedy dell arte in the musical scenes; stylistic analysis, revealing the composer’s thinking in making the director’s decision regarding stagecraft. The presentation of the main material. The article analyzes a musical component in the stage performance “Suicide” based on the play by Nikolay Erdman (1928), reinterpreted by our contemporaries – the stage director Stepan Pasichnyk and the composer Henadii Frolov. The work reviews the production itself and the acting troupe. The article outlines the inheritance and development of the traditions in Les Kurbas Theatre regarding the mutual work of the composer and director, aimed at the organic fusion of the stage action and musical accompaniment of the performance. Conclusions. Dramaturgical and genre-compositional analyzes of the performance detected such distinctive features of the individual style of H. Frolov as: musical organization of the stage with one intonation, which, depending on the drama, can be flexible and transformative, acquiring new meanings and qualities and thus making the musical development monothematic; unity of the figurative and semantic layers of music with the director’s concept of the performance; transformation of genre features of tragic farce and commedia dell’arte.

scholarly journals Connecting signals and benefits through partner choice in plant–microbe interactions

2019 ◽  
Vol 366 (18) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brett S Younginger ◽  
Maren L Friesen
Keyword(s):  
Nitrogen Fixation ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Partner Choice ◽  
Host Fitness ◽  
Fitness Advantage ◽  
Signaling Mechanisms ◽  
Microbe Interactions ◽  
Mutualism Stability

ABSTRACT Stabilizing mechanisms in plant–microbe symbioses are critical to maintaining beneficial functions, with two main classes: host sanctions and partner choice. Sanctions are currently presumed to be more effective and widespread, based on the idea that microbes rapidly evolve cheating while retaining signals matching cooperative strains. However, hosts that effectively discriminate among a pool of compatible symbionts would gain a significant fitness advantage. Using the well-characterized legume–rhizobium symbiosis as a model, we evaluate the evidence for partner choice in the context of the growing field of genomics. Empirical studies that rely upon bacteria varying only in nitrogen-fixation ability ignore host–symbiont signaling and frequently conclude that partner choice is not a robust stabilizing mechanism. Here, we argue that partner choice is an overlooked mechanism of mutualism stability and emphasize that plants need not use the microbial services provided a priori to discriminate among suitable partners. Additionally, we present a model that shows that partner choice signaling increases symbiont and host fitness in the absence of sanctions. Finally, we call for a renewed focus on elucidating the signaling mechanisms that are critical to partner choice while further aiming to understand their evolutionary dynamics in nature.

scholarly journals Exploring the Cognitive Capacities of Japanese Macaques in a Cooperation Game

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1497
Author(s):  
Ryan Sigmundson ◽  
Mathieu S. Stribos ◽  
Roy Hammer ◽  
Julia Herzele ◽  
Lena S. Pflüger ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Environment ◽  
Macaca Fuscata ◽  
Social Influences ◽  
Experiment Design ◽  
Japanese Macaques ◽  
Partner Choice ◽  
Captive Population ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Cooperative Interactions

Cooperation occurs amongst individuals embedded in a social environment. Consequently, cooperative interactions involve a variety of persistent social influences such as the dynamics of partner choice and reward division. To test for the effects of such dynamics, we conducted cooperation experiments in a captive population of Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata, N = 164) using a modified version of the loose-string paradigm in an open-experiment design. We show that in addition to becoming more proficient cooperators over the course of the experiments, some of the macaques showed sensitivity to the presence of potential partners and adjusted their behavior accordingly. Furthermore, following an unequal reward division, individuals receiving a lesser reward were more likely to display aggressive and stress-related behaviors. Our experiments demonstrate that Japanese macaques have some understanding of the contingencies involved in cooperation as well as a sensitivity to the subsequent reward division suggestive of an aversion to inequity.

scholarly journals Investigating and Translating Formality in English Legal Texts into Arabic

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (136) ◽  
pp. 69-80
Author(s):  
Sameer Salih Mahdi Al-Dahwi
Keyword(s):  
Formal Language ◽  
Ordinary Language ◽  
Legal Language ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Different Levels ◽  
Unusual Type

Legal language is an unusual type of language which raises the interest of many people. It is considered to be one of the discourses that prefer traditional styles and values. Moreover, using this language is confined to specific places and circumstances, namely, in a court or legal texts. Additionally, legal language is radically different from ordinary language in vocabulary, morphology, syntax, and semantics, in addition to other distinctive features. In fact, one of the predominant distinctive features of legal language is that it is a formal language. It is hypothesized that formality in English legal language is realized with different ways and at different levels. It is also hypothesized that what is formal in English is not necessarily formal in Arabic. In other words, formal expressions in English and Arabic are realized differently. The data in this study has been quoted from different authentic legal texts supplemented by the researcher's renderings. 

Archaeology and the Origins of Modern Humans: European and African Perspectives

2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Mellars
Keyword(s):  
Archaeological Record ◽  
Before Present ◽  
Upper Palaeolithic ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Cognitive Capacities ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Behavioural Patterns ◽  
Anatomically Modern Humans ◽  
Rapid Appearance

This chapter outlines the archaeological evidence for the relative recency and abruptness of appearance of artefacts associated with the creativity of modern humans. It compares the archaeological evidence associated with the appearance of anatomically modern humans in Europe and Africa. In Europe, there is a rapid appearance of new behavioural elements that are often seen to represent a ‘revolution’ in behavioural and perhaps cognitive terms, centred on c.43–35,000 years before present (BP). In Africa, new behavioural elements seem to appear in a more gradual, mosaic fashion but show many of the distinctive features of European Upper Palaeolithic culture by at least 70–80,000 (BP), including seemingly explicit evidence for fully symbolic expression. The central problem remains that of assessing how far these well-documented changes in the archaeological record reflect not only major shifts in behavioural patterns, but also underlying shifts in the cognitive capacities for behaviour, including increasing complexity in the structure of language.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document