Making sense together: A dynamical account of linguistic meaning-making
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Kristian Tylén
Kristian Tylén (b. 1974) is a postdoctoral researcher at Aarhus University 〈Kristian@cfin.dk〉. His research interests include dynamical approaches to language and cognition, cognitive aesthetics, and experimental semiotics. His publications include “Language as a tool for interacting minds” (with E. Weed et al., 2010); and “Coming to terms: Quantifying the benefits of linguistic coordination” (with R. Fusaroli et al., 2012).
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Riccardo Fusaroli
Riccardo Fusaroli (b. 1981) is a postdoctoral researcher at Aarhus University 〈fusaroli@gmail.com〉. His research interests include linguistic coordination, experimental semiotics/pragmatics, and complex systems approaches to social interactions. His publications include “Coming to terms” (with B. Bahrami et al. 2012); “The self-organization of human interaction” (with R. Dale et al., in press); and “Dialogue as interpersonal synergy” (with J. Raczaszek-Leonardi & K. Tylén, in press).Peer F. Bundgaard (b. 1967) is an associate professor at Aarhus University 〈sempb@hum.au.dk〉. His research interests include aesthetic semiotics and the crossovers between cognitive linguistics and phenomenology of language. His publications include “Towards a cognitive semiotics of the visual artwork” (2009); “Husserl and language” (2010); and “The grammar of aesthetic intuition – on Ernst Cassirer's concept of symbolic forms in the visual arts” (2011).Svend Ostergaard (b. 1949) is an associate professor at the University of Aarhus 〈semsvend@hum.au.dk〉. His research interests include cognitive linguistics and cognitive neuroscience. His publications includeThe mathematics of meaning (1997).
Abstract
How is linguistic communication possible? How do we come to share the same meanings of words and utterances? One classical position holds that human beings share a transcendental “platonic” ideality independent of individual cognition and language use (Frege 1948). Another stresses immanent linguistic relations (Saussure 1959), and yet another basic embodied structures as the ground for invariant aspects of meaning (Lakoff and Johnson 1999). Here we propose an alternative account in which the possibility for sharing meaning is motivated by four sources of structural stability: 1) the physical constraints and affordances of our surrounding material environment, 2) biological constraints of our human bodies, 3) social normative constraints of culture and society, and 4) the local history of social interactions. These structures and constraints interact in dynamical ways in actual language usage situations: local dialogical and social dynamics motivate and stabilize the profiling of a conceptual space already highly structured by our shared biology, culture, and environment. We will substantiate this perspective with reference to recent studies in experimental pragmatics and semiotics in which participants interact linguistically to solve cooperative tasks. Three main cases will be considered: The dynamic grounding of linguistic categories, the construction of conceptual models to relate entities in a scene, and the construction of shared conceptual scales for assessing and appraising subjective experiences.
About the authors
Kristian Tylén (b. 1974) is a postdoctoral researcher at Aarhus University 〈Kristian@cfin.dk〉. His research interests include dynamical approaches to language and cognition, cognitive aesthetics, and experimental semiotics. His publications include “Language as a tool for interacting minds” (with E. Weed et al., 2010); and “Coming to terms: Quantifying the benefits of linguistic coordination” (with R. Fusaroli et al., 2012).
Riccardo Fusaroli (b. 1981) is a postdoctoral researcher at Aarhus University 〈fusaroli@gmail.com〉. His research interests include linguistic coordination, experimental semiotics/pragmatics, and complex systems approaches to social interactions. His publications include “Coming to terms” (with B. Bahrami et al. 2012); “The self-organization of human interaction” (with R. Dale et al., in press); and “Dialogue as interpersonal synergy” (with J. Raczaszek-Leonardi & K. Tylén, in press).
Peer F. Bundgaard (b. 1967) is an associate professor at Aarhus University 〈sempb@hum.au.dk〉. His research interests include aesthetic semiotics and the crossovers between cognitive linguistics and phenomenology of language. His publications include “Towards a cognitive semiotics of the visual artwork” (2009); “Husserl and language” (2010); and “The grammar of aesthetic intuition – on Ernst Cassirer's concept of symbolic forms in the visual arts” (2011).
Svend Ostergaard (b. 1949) is an associate professor at the University of Aarhus 〈semsvend@hum.au.dk〉. His research interests include cognitive linguistics and cognitive neuroscience. His publications include The mathematics of meaning (1997).
©[2013] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Introduction
- Approaching the abstract: Building blocks for an epistemology of abstract objects
- The ideal as real and as purely intentional: Ingarden-based reflections
- Making sense together: A dynamical account of linguistic meaning-making
- An example of the “synthetic a priori”: On how it helps us to widen our philosophical horizons
- The generality of signs: The actual relevance of anti-psychologism
- Sensory imagination and narrative perspective: Explaining perceptual focalization
- The basic distinctions in Der Streit
- The Wolf: Ingarden to the narratological rescue. A few remarks on a messy situation within the theory of fiction
- Roman Ingarden's theory of reader experience: A critical assessment
- Varieties of intentional objects
- More than an attitude: Roman Ingarden's aesthetics
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Introduction
- Approaching the abstract: Building blocks for an epistemology of abstract objects
- The ideal as real and as purely intentional: Ingarden-based reflections
- Making sense together: A dynamical account of linguistic meaning-making
- An example of the “synthetic a priori”: On how it helps us to widen our philosophical horizons
- The generality of signs: The actual relevance of anti-psychologism
- Sensory imagination and narrative perspective: Explaining perceptual focalization
- The basic distinctions in Der Streit
- The Wolf: Ingarden to the narratological rescue. A few remarks on a messy situation within the theory of fiction
- Roman Ingarden's theory of reader experience: A critical assessment
- Varieties of intentional objects
- More than an attitude: Roman Ingarden's aesthetics
