[PDF] Language Biology And Cognition eBook

Author : Prakash Mondal
Publisher : Palgrave Macmillan
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 15,43 MB
Release : 2020-08-14
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9783030237172

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This book examines the relationship between human language and biology in order to determine whether the biological foundations of language can offer deep insights into the nature and form of language and linguistic cognition. Challenging the assumption in biolinguistics and neurolinguistics that natural language and linguistic cognition can be reconciled with neurobiology, the author argues that reducing representation to cognitive systems and cognitive systems to neural populations is reductive, leading to inferences about the cognitive basis of linguistic performance based on assuming (false) dependencies. Instead, he finds that biological implementations of cognitive rather than the biological structures themselves, are the driver behind linguistic structures. In particular, this book argues that the biological roots of language are useful only for an understanding of the emergence of linguistic capacity as a whole, but ultimately irrelevant to understanding the character of language. Offering an antidote to the current thinking embracing ‘biologism’ in linguistic sciences, it will be of interest to readers in linguistics, the cognitive and brain sciences, and the points at which these disciplines converge with the computer sciences.

Author : Prakash Mondal
Publisher : Springer
Page : 241 pages
File Size : 29,64 MB
Release : 2019-07-17
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 303023715X

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This book examines the relationship between human language and biology in order to determine whether the biological foundations of language can offer deep insights into the nature and form of language and linguistic cognition. Challenging the assumption in biolinguistics and neurolinguistics that natural language and linguistic cognition can be reconciled with neurobiology, the author argues that reducing representation to cognitive systems and cognitive systems to neural populations is reductive, leading to inferences about the cognitive basis of linguistic performance based on assuming (false) dependencies. Instead, he finds that biological implementations of cognitive rather than the biological structures themselves, are the driver behind linguistic structures. In particular, this book argues that the biological roots of language are useful only for an understanding of the emergence of linguistic capacity as a whole, but ultimately irrelevant to understanding the character of language. Offering an antidote to the current thinking embracing ‘biologism’ in linguistic sciences, it will be of interest to readers in linguistics, the cognitive and brain sciences, and the points at which these disciplines converge with the computer sciences.

Author : Aleksandr Vladimirovich Kravchenko
Publisher : Peter Lang
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 29,94 MB
Release : 2008
Category : Autopoiesis
ISBN : 9783631566473

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This book is an attempt to re-evaluate some basic assumptions about language, communication, and cognition in the light of the new epistemology of autopoiesis as the theory of the living. Starting with a critique of common myths about language and communication, the author goes on to argue for a new understanding of language and cognition as functional adaptive activities in a consensual domain of interactions. He shows that such understanding is, in fact, what marks a variety of theoretical and empirical frameworks in contemporary non-Cartesian cognitive science; thus, cognitive science is in the process of working out new epistemological foundations for the study of language and cognition. In Part Two, the traditional concept of grammar is reassessed from the vantage point of autopoietic epistemology, and an analysis of specific grammatical phenomena in English and Russian is undertaken, revealing common cognitive mechanisms at work in linguistic categories.

Author : Cedric Boeckx
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 50,93 MB
Release : 2010-04-29
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9781444310054

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This textbook explores the ways in which language informs the structure and function of the human mind, offering a point of entry into the fascinating territory of cognitive science. Focusing mainly on syntactic issues, Language in Cognition is a unique contribution to this burgeoning field of study. Guides undergraduate students through the core questions of linguistics and cognitive science, and provides tools that will help them think about the field in a structured way Uses the study of language and how language informs the structure and function of the human mind to introduce the major ideas in modern cognitive science, including its history and controversies Explores questions such as: what does it mean to say that linguistics is part of the cognitive sciences; how do the core properties of language compare with the core properties of other human cognitive abilities such as vision, music, mathematics, and other mental building blocks; and what is the relationship between language and thought? Includes an indispensable study guide as well as extensive references to encourage further independent study

Author : Jules B. Davidoff
Publisher : MIT Press (MA)
Page : 244 pages
File Size : 26,63 MB
Release : 1991
Category : Psychology
ISBN :

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A century ago phrenologists described a "bump" for color located just over the eyebrow. Today's modular approach to the organization of the visual cortex is more sophisticated, yet it still holds that there are brain areas dedicated solely to particular aspects of perception. "Cognition through Color "reviews the current status of investigations of color cognition from the standpoint of modern neuropsychology. It provides clear evidence, based on a large body of empirical study that includes the author's own work on color perception and naming, that color appears to be one of the basic building blocks or modules from which perception is constructed and our memories organized. Davidoff systematically relates this evidence to an explicit model of color cognition from sensation through functional role to naming.The original impetus for "Cognition through Color "came from the investigation of individuals with brain damage. There are, for example, patients who have difficulty in naming colors. More important, despite normal color vision, memory for colors can be "split off" from all aspects of memory for shapes and objects, providing a strong case for the notion of modularity in vision.Davidoff shows that to understand how color is remembered, we must know how objects are recognized. He observes that the perception of what we call color is, in essence, the study of the surface properties of objects, and he develops a model in which the mental representations for color can be linked to the knowledge of objects. Throughout he emphasizes detailed critical analysis of experimental data in light of current theories of both perception and cognition.

Author : Cedric Boeckx
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 400 pages
File Size : 26,57 MB
Release : 2012-03-15
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 144383842X

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The present volume offers a collection of essays covering a broad range of areas where currently a rapprochement between linguistics and biology is actively being sought. Following a certain tradition, we call this attempt at a synthesis “biolinguistics.” The nine chapters (grouped into three parts: Language and Cognition, Language and the Brain, and Language and the Species) offer a comprehensive overview of issues at the forefront of biolinguistic research, such as language structure; language development; linguistic change and variation; language disorders and language processing; the cognitive, neural and genetic basis of linguistic knowledge; or the evolution of the Faculty of Language. Each contribution highlights exciting prospects for the field, but they also point to significant obstacles along the way. The main conclusion is that the age of theoretical exclusivity in Linguistics, much like the age of theoretical specificity, will have to end if interdisciplinarity is to reign and if biolinguistics is to flourish.

Author : Jacques Mehler
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 562 pages
File Size : 49,55 MB
Release : 2001
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9780262041973

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The contributions to this collection assess the progress of cognitive science. The questions addressed include: What have we learned or not learned about language, brain, and cognition? Where are we now? Where have we failed? Where have we succeeded?

Author : Lyle Jenkins
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 284 pages
File Size : 48,64 MB
Release : 2000
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 9780521003919

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Argues that biology plays a more central role in language acquisition than teaching or learning.

Author : Luca Tommasi
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 353 pages
File Size : 10,26 MB
Release : 2009
Category : Adaptation (Physiology)
ISBN : 0262012936

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In the past few decades, sources of inspiration in the multidisciplinary field of cognitive science have widened. In addition to ongoing vital work in cognitive and affective neuroscience, important new work is being conducted at the intersection of psychology and the biological sciences in general. This volume offers an overview of the cross-disciplinary integration of evolutionary and developmental approaches to cognition in light of these exciting new contributions from the life sciences. This research has explored many cognitive abilities in a wide range of organisms and developmental stages, and results have revealed the nature and origin of many instances of the cognitive life of organisms. Each section of this book deals with a key domain of cognition: spatial cognition; the relationships among attention, perception, and learning, representations of numbers and economic values; and social cognition. Contributors discuss each topic from the perspectives of psychology and neuroscience, brain theory and modeling, evolutionary theory, ecology, genetics, and developmental science.

Author : Anne Reboul
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 448 pages
File Size : 19,56 MB
Release : 2017-03-16
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN : 0192549189

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This book proposes a new two-step approach to the evolution of language, whereby syntax first evolved as an auto-organizational process for the human conceptual apparatus (as a Language of Thought), and this Language of Thought was then externalized for communication, owing to social selection pressures. Anne Reboul first argues that, despite the routine use of language in communication, current use is not a failsafe guide to adaptive history. She points out that human cognition is as unique in nature as is language as a communication system, suggesting deep links between human thought and language. If language is seen as a communication system, then the specificities of language, its hierarchical syntax, its creativity, and the ability to use it to talk about absent objects, are a mystery. This book shows that approaching language as a system for thought overcomes these problems, and provides a detailed account of both steps in the evolution of language: its evolution for thought and its externalization for communication.