Words as cultivators of others minds

Abstract

The embodied-grounded view of cognition and language holds that sensorimotor experiences in the form of 're-enactments' or 'simulations' are significant to the individual's development of concepts and competent language use. However, a typical objection to the explanatory force of this view is that, in everyday life, we engage in linguistic exchanges about much more than might be directly accessible to our senses. For instance, when knowledge-sharing occurs as part of deep conversations between a teacher and student, language is the salient tool by which to obtain understanding, through the unfolding of explanations. Here, the acquisition of knowledge is realized through language, and the constitution of knowledge seems entirely linguistic. In this paper, based on a review of selected studies within contemporary embodied cognitive science, I propose that such linguistic exchanges, though occurring independently of direct experience, are in fact disguised forms of embodied cognition, leading to the reconciliation of the opposing views. I suggest that, in conversation, interlocutors use Words as Cultivators (WAC) of other minds as a direct result of their embodied-grounded origin, rendering WAC a radical interpretation of the Words as social Tools (WAT) proposal. The WAC hypothesis endorses the view of language as dynamic, continuously integrating with, and negotiating, cognitive processes in the individual. One such dynamic feature results from the 'linguification process', a term by which I refer to the socially produced mapping of a word to its referent which, mediated by the interlocutor, turns words into cultivators of others minds. In support of the linguification process hypothesis and WAC, I review relevant embodied-grounded research, and selected studies of instructed fear conditioning and guided imagery.

Keywords: derived embodiment; embodied cognition; first-order language; linguification; other minds; ‘back door’ entry; ‘linguistic handle’.

FIGURE 1

Linguistic handle. The flat base of the cone signifies the transiently assembled neural subsystems active during linguification. The neural patterns in sensory-motor brain areas elicited by the manipulation and sensing of a particular banana are associated with the linguistic multimodal activity that entails, for instance, listening to sound patterns, observing the facial activity while pronouncing ‘banana’ as well as the affective reactions related to taste and smell. The co-wiring results in the neural correlate, the ‘linguistic handle’ for ‘banana’ in a world to word direction. When established, ‘banana’ may re-activate the transiently assembled neural subsystems in a word to world direction.

FIGURE 2

Linguistic handles and back doors. When language has been well-established transiently assembled neural subsystems may become re-enacted by use of linguistic handles (Upper). However, the mechanism is not exclusive to language. Back door entries in the sense of non-verbal experiences of bananas such as scent may similarly re-enact transiently assembled neural subsystems active during direct experience (Lower).