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How the Brain Got Language – Towards a New Road Map
Edited by Michael A. Arbib
[Benjamins Current Topics 112] 2020
► pp. 239–255

Praxis, symbol and language

Developmental, ecological and linguistic issues

 | Hunan University
This article focuses on the interweaving of constructive praxis with communication in ontogenesis, in phylogenesis and in biocultural niche evolution (ecogenesis), within an EvoDevoSocio framework. I begin by discussing the nature of symbolization, its evolution from communicative signaling and its elaboration into semantic systems. I distinguish between the symbol-ready and the language-ready brain, leading to a discussion of linguistic conceptualization and its dual grounding in organism and language system. There follows an outline account of the interpenetration in the human biocultural niche-complex of semiosphere and technosphere, mediated by the evolution of the niche of infancy. Symbolization (the foundation of the semiosphere) is by definition normative; the normative character of the technosphere is demonstrated by the interrelations in human development between affordance, action schema and canonical functional object schema. A model of the neuro-computational implementation of dual grounding is proposed.
Keywords: EcoEvoDevo, praxis, protolanguage, symbol grounding, niche construction, language evolution, epigenesis, infancy
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.From communicative signal to representational symbol
  • 3.From symbol to system: The emergence of language
  • 4.Niche construction: Meaning, materiality and human development
  • 5.The ontogenesis of praxic action, imitation and language: Beyond affordance
  • 6.Toward a new road map
    • Neuro-computational subsystems and their integration
    • EcoEvoDevo-Socio: A synoptic view
    • Genetics and epigenetics of the language-ready brain
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 11 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.112.16sin
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