A language for qualia: on verbal influence of the phenomenal

Despite several decades of intense scrutiny, the problem of the “explanatory gap” remains one of the most topical issues in today’s cognitive sciences. This paper argues that, if re-articulated as the (relative) ineffability of phenomenal properties of sensory experiences, it can become an object of linguistic treatment to a sensible effect. The paper proceeds from discussing the problem of ineffability at large to a brief analysis of the current accounts of phenomenal mental states. It then proposes a tentative descriptive framework for phenomenal judgments, i.e. statements involving reference to the speaker’s qualia. The main argument of the paper consists in relativization of the ineffability thesis and in establishing that phenomenal contents can be communicated verbally via a special type of discursive units––phenomemes––by way of referencing relational properties of the sensory experiences in question. In the concluding section, the paper suggests that phenomemes constitute a narrative dimension and highlights the potential of further research on the subject for the pragmatics of communication, cognitive stylistics, and other areas of the language-related scholarship.

A language for qualia: on verbal influence of the phenomenal

Despite several decades of intense scrutiny, the problem of the “explanatory gap” remains one of the most topical issues in today’s cognitive sciences. This paper argues that, if re-articulated as the (relative) ineffability of phenomenal properties of sensory experiences, it can become an object of linguistic treatment to a sensible effect. The paper proceeds from discussing the problem of ineffability at large to a brief analysis of the current accounts of phenomenal mental states. It then proposes a tentative descriptive framework for phenomenal judgments, i.e. statements involving reference to the speaker’s qualia. The main argument of the paper consists in relativization of the ineffability thesis and in establishing that phenomenal contents can be communicated verbally via a special type of discursive units––phenomemes––by way of referencing relational properties of the sensory experiences in question. In the concluding section, the paper suggests that phenomemes constitute a narrative dimension and highlights the potential of further research on the subject for the pragmatics of communication, cognitive stylistics, and other areas of the language-related scholarship.

Modes of Discourse and the Pragmatics of Communication

This chapter investigates what an analysis of different modes of discourse and the pragmatics of communication can contribute to a resolution of the problems of mutual intelligibility across languages and cultures. Drawing on the work of J.L. Austin, Grice, Tambiah, and Hugh-Jones, and using examples from ancient history (Greece, China, and India) and anthropology (Barasana), it emphasizes the need to take into account the pragmatics of communicative exchanges, their social contexts, the roles of audiences and the availability of indigenous categories of discourse. It points especially to the dangers of the uncritical use of common Western distinctions, such as that between ‘rational account’ (logos) and ‘myth’.

Contemporary Speech and Oral Language Care for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children Using Hearing Devices

Contemporary speech and language interventions are not limited to disabilities but embrace the pragmatics of communication behaviors from the perspective of functional social participation. Accordingly, current speech and language therapies for deaf and hard-of-hearing children include a broad spectrum of approaches and techniques. This paper explores contemporary approaches and techniques for speech and oral language interventions for deaf and hard-of-hearing children using hearing devices, evidence of efficacy and how they are implemented in diverse clinical practices.

The Conversable Intellect

Hume’s rhetorical concerns underscore the ways in which the pragmatic turn in British counter-Enlightenment thought is also, in a broad sense, a linguistic turn. His understanding of the necessity of trust in sustaining the fictions of belief necessary for communication undermines the conception of meaning as representation in ways that enable thinkers like Reid and Bentham to model human thought around the pragmatics of communication. Nonetheless, Hume’s linking of truth and the social conventions of language divides common-sense thinkers like Reid and Stewart (who interpret such indispensable conventions as first principles) from materialists such as Bentham and John Horne Tooke (who see Hume’s fictions of belief as, at best, pragmatically necessary). What unites Hume, Tooke, and Bentham is their vision of language as the source of what Bentham calls ‘logical fictions’, fictions that are at once philosophically unjustifiable and necessary for coherent thought.

The Language-Culture Link in Exolinguistic Tourism Service Encounters

This article discusses four aspects related to cultural and linguistic interaction within exolinguistic communication prevalent in tourism. The first aspect refers to the role of culture as an essential part of linguistic exchanges, and the second explains the unconscious nature of socialization and language processes. The third aspect is the pragmatics of communication in exolinguistic service interactions, and the fourth approaches the role of habitus in intercultural communication in tourism.Este artículo trata cuatro aspectos relacionados con la interacción entre la cultura y el idioma, en el contexto exolingüístico del sector turístico. Un primer aspecto se refiere al papel de la cultura en los intercambios lingüísticos; el segundo explica la naturaleza inconsciente de los procesos de la socialización y el idioma; el tercer aspecto se refiere a la pragmática de la comunicación en las interacciones exolingüísticas de servicio; y el cuarto aspecto expone el papel del habitus en la comunicación intercultural en el turismo.