Language Mind And Culture

How do we make sense of our experience? In order to understand how we construct meaning, the varied and complex relationships among language, mind, and culture need to be understood. While cognitive linguists typically study the cognitive aspects of language, and linguistic anthropologists typically study language and culture, Language, Mind, and Culture is the first book to combine all three and provide an account of meaning-making in language and culture by examining the many cognitive operations in this process. In addition to providing a comprehensive theory of how we can account for meaning making, Language, Mind, and Culture is a textbook for anyone interested in the fascinating issues surrounding the relationship between language, mind, and culture. Further, the book is also a "practical" introduction: most of the chapters include exercises that help the student understand the theoretical issues. No prior knowledge of linguistics is assumed, and the material is accessible and useful to students in a variety of other disciplines, such as anthropology, English, sociology, philosophy, psychology, communication, rhetoric, and others. Language, Mind, and Culture helps us make sense of not only linguistic meaning but also of some of the important personal and social issues we encounter in our lives as members of particular cultures and as human beings.

How do we make sense of our experience? In order to understand how we construct meaning, the varied and complex relationships among language, mind, and culture need to be understood. While cognitive linguists typically study the cognitive aspects of language, and linguistic anthropologists typically study language and culture, Language, Mind, and Culture is the first book to combine all three and provide an account of meaning-making in language and culture by examining the many cognitive operations in this process. In addition to providing a comprehensive theory of how we can account for meaning making, Language, Mind, and Culture is a textbook for anyone interested in the fascinating issues surrounding the relationship between language, mind, and culture. Further, the book is also a "practical" introduction: most of the chapters include exercises that help the student understand the theoretical issues. No prior knowledge of linguistics is assumed, and the material is accessible and useful to students in a variety of other disciplines, such as anthropology, English, sociology, philosophy, psychology, communication, rhetoric, and others. Language, Mind, and Culture helps us make sense of not only linguistic meaning but also of some of the important personal and social issues we encounter in our lives as members of particular cultures and as human beings.

Language, Culture, and Mind is a stimulating collection exploring the ways that cognitive, social, and cultural categories are revealed through language. Contributors use methods such as psycholinguistic experiments and observations of natural discourse to probe how such categories are organized, with grammatical and semantic analyses—in modern cognitive frameworks—augmenting these approaches. Some of the phenomena studied include the linguistic expression of space and causality; aspect, classifiers, negation, and complement constructions; and metaphor, metonymy, and conceptual blending across different domains of human experience. The result is a fresh perspective on the way language relates to thought and culture.

In a sweeping synthesis of new research in a number of different disciplines, this book argues that we humans are not who we think we are. As he explores the interconnections between cutting-edge work in bioanthropology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, human language and learning, and beyond, James Paul Gee advances, also, a personal philosophy of language, learning, and culture, informed by his decades of work across linguistics and the social sciences. Gee argues that our schools, institutions, legal systems, and societies are designed for creatures that do not exist, thus resulting in multiple, interacting crises, such as climate change, failing institutions, and the rise of nationalist nationalism. As Gee constructs an understanding of the human that takes into account our social, collective, and historical nature, as established by recent research, he inspires readers to reflect for themselves on the very question of who we are—a key consideration for anyone interested in society, government, schools, health, activism, culture and diversity, or even just survival.

The ability to communicate through language is such a fundamental part of human existence that we often take it for granted, rarely considering how sophisticated the process is by which we understand and make ourselves understood. In The Extended Mind, acclaimed author Robert K. Logan examines the origin, emergence, and co-evolution of language, the human mind, and culture. Building on his previous study, The Sixth Language (2000) and making use of emergence theory, Logan seeks to explain how language emerged to deal with the complexity of hominid existence brought about by tool-making, control of fire, social intelligence, coordinated hunting and gathering, and mimetic communication. The resulting emergence of language, he argues, signifies a fundamental change in the functioning of the human mind - a shift from percept-based thought to concept-based thought. From the perspective of the Extended Mind model, Logan provides an alternative to and critique of Noam Chomsky's approach to the origin of language. He argues that language can be treated as an organism that evolved to be easily acquired, obviating the need for the hard-wiring of Chomsky's Language Acquisition Device. In addition Logan shows how, according to this model, culture itself can be treated as an organism that has evolved to be easily attained, revealing the universality of human culture as well as providing an insight as to how altruism might have originated. Bringing timely insights to a fascinating field of inquiry, The Extended Mind will be sure to find a wide readership.

The dynamics of language, culture and identity are a major focus for many linguists and cognitive and cultural researchers. This book explores the inextricable connection that language has with cultural identity and cultural practices, with a particular emphasis on how they contribute to shaping personal identity. The volume brings together selected peer-reviewed papers from the 7th International Conference on Language, Culture and Mind with other specially commissioned chapters. Like the conference, this book aims to enhance mutual understanding among researchers from diverse disciplinary and theoretical perspectives, offering a wealth of insights to a wide range of readers on recent culturally oriented cognitive studies of language.

This open access volume reveals the hidden power of the script we read in and how it shapes and drives our minds, ways of thinking, and cultures. Expanding on the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis (i.e., the idea that language affects the way we think), this volume proposes the “Script Relativity Hypothesis” (i.e., the idea that the script in which we read affects the way we think) by offering a unique perspective on the effect of script (alphabets, morphosyllabaries, or multi-scripts) on our attention, perception, and problem-solving. Once we become literate, fundamental changes occur in our brain circuitry to accommodate the new demand for resources. The powerful effects of literacy have been demonstrated by research on literate versus illiterate individuals, as well as cross-scriptal transfer, indicating that literate brain networks function differently, depending on the script being read. This book identifies the locus of differences between the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, and between the East and the West, as the neural underpinnings of literacy. To support the “Script Relativity Hypothesis”, it reviews a vast corpus of empirical studies, including anthropological accounts of human civilization, social psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, applied linguistics, second language studies, and cross-cultural communication. It also discusses the impact of reading from screens in the digital age, as well as the impact of bi-script or multi-script use, which is a growing trend around the globe. As a result, our minds, ways of thinking, and cultures are now growing closer together, not farther apart.

Based on fieldwork carried out in a Mayan village in Guatemala, this book examines local understandings of mind through the lens of language and culture. It focuses on a variety of grammatical structures and discursive practices through which mental states are encoded and social relations are expressed: inalienable possessions, such as body parts and kinship terms; interjections, such as 'ouch' and 'yuck'; complement-taking predicates, such as 'believe' and 'desire'; and grammatical categories such as mood, status and evidentiality. And, more generally, it develops a theoretical framework through which both community-specific and human-general features of mind may be contrasted and compared. It will be of interest to researchers and students working within the disciplines of anthropology, linguistics, psychology, and philosophy.