Cover not available
Part of
Emotion in Language: Theory – research – application
Edited by Ulrike M. Lüdtke
[Consciousness & Emotion Book Series 10] 2015
► pp. 113–134

Enkinaesthetic polyphony:

The underpinning for first-order languaging

| University of Glasgow, Scotland
| University of Agder, Norway

We contest two claims: (1) that language, understood as the processing of abstract symbolic forms, is an instrument of cognition and rational thought, and (2) that conventional notions of turn-taking, exchange structure, and move analysis, are satisfactory as a basis for theorizing communication between living, feeling agents. We offer an enkinaesthetic theory describing the reciprocal affective neuro-muscular dynamical flows and tensions of co-agential dialogical sense-making relations. This “enkinaesthetic dialogue” is characterized by a preconceptual experientially recursive temporal dynamics forming the deep extended melodies of relationships in time. An understanding of how those relationships work, when we understand and are ourselves understood, when communication falters and conflict arises, will depend on a grasp of our enkinaesthetic intersubjectivity.

Keywords: affect, agents, dynamics, enkinaesthesia, first-order languaging
Published online: 16 December 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ceb.10.06stu
References
Abercrombie, David
1967 Elements of General Phonetics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Besnier, Niko
1990 “Language and affect.” Annual Review of Anthropology 19: 419–451. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bouissac, Paul
2006 “The optic, haptic, and acoustic dimensions of gestures: Evolutionary significance and methodological implications.” Interdisziplinäres BGC-Kolloquium, Berlin Gesture Center, November 10, 2006. [URL]
Bråten, Stein
1992 “The virtual other in infants’ minds and social feelings.” In The Dialogical Alternative (Festschrift for Ragnar Rommetveit), A.H. Wold (ed.), 77–97. Oslo: Scandanavian University Press.Google Scholar
2007 “Altercentric infants and adults: On the origins and manifestations of participant perception of others’ acts and utterances.” In On Being Moved: From Mirror Neurons to Empathy, Stein Bråten (ed.), 111–135. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Condon, William S. and Sander, Louis W
1974 “Neonate movement is synchronized with adult speech. Integrated participation and language acquisition.” Science 183: 99–101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Colombetti, Giovanna
2009 “What languages does to feelings.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 16 (9): 4–26.Google Scholar
Cowley, Stephen J
1998 “Of timing, turn-taking, and conversations.” Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 27 (5): 541–571. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 “The codes of language: Turtles all the way up?” In The Codes of Life: The Rules of Macroevolution, Marcello Barbieri (ed.), 319–345. Heidelberg: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 “Distributed language and dynamics.” Pragmatics and Cognition 17 (3): 495–508. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cowley, Stephen J., Moodley, Sheshni and Fiori-Cowley, Agnese
2004 “Grounding signs of culture: Primary intersubjectivity in social semiosis.” Mind , Culture, and Activity 11 (2): 109–132. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Damasio, Antonio R
1994 Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.Google Scholar
1999 The Feeling of What Happens: Body, Emotion and the Making of Consciousness. San Diego: Harcourt.Google Scholar
2003 Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow, and the Feeling Brain. San Diego: Harcourt.Google Scholar
2005 “The neurobiological grounding of human values.” In Neurobiology of Human Values, Jean-Pierre Changeux, Antonio R. Damasio, Wolf Singer and Yves Christen (eds), 47–56. Heidelberg: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Jaegher, Hanne and Di Paolo, Ezequiel
2007 “Participatory sense-making: An enactive approach to social cognition.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6: 485–507. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Deleuze, Gilles
1994 Difference and Repetition. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Edelman, Gerald
1987 Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
1992 Bright Air, Brilliant Fire: On the Matter of the Mind. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
2006 Second Nature: Brain Science and Human Knowledge. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Freeman, Walter J
1995 Societies of Brains: A Study in the Neuroscience of Love and Hate. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gallagher, Shaun
2005 How the Body Shapes the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gendlin, Eugene T
1992 “The primacy of the body, not the primacy of perception.” Man and World 25 (3–4): 341–353. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004 “The new phenomenology of carrying forward.” Continental Philosophy Review 37 (1): 127–151. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012 “Implicit precision.” In The Background: Knowing Without Thinking, Zdravko Radman (ed.), 141–166. New York: Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibson, James J
1979 The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.Google Scholar
Gick, Bryan and Derrick, Donald
2009 “Aero-tactile integration in speech perception.” Nature 462: 502–504. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldman, Alvin and De Vignemont, Frédérique
2009 “Is social cognition embodied?” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 13 (4): 154–159. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gratier, Maya and Apter-Danon, Gisèle
2009 “The improvised musicality of belonging: Repetition and variation in mother-infant vocal interaction.” In Communicative Musicality: Exploring the Basis of Human Companionship, Stephen Malloch and Colwyn Trevarthen (eds), 301–327. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gratier, Maya and Trevarthen, Colwyn
2007 “Voice, vitality and meaning: On the shaping of the infant’s utterances in willing engagement with culture. Comment on Bertau’s “On the notion of voice”.” International Journal for Dialogical Science 2 (1): 169–181.Google Scholar
2008 “Musical narrative and motives for culture in mother-infant vocal interaction.” The Journal of Consciousness Studies 15 (10–11): 122–158.Google Scholar
Hart, Susan
2008 Brain, Attachment, Personality: An Introduction to Neuro-Affective Development. London: Karnac Books.Google Scholar
Hodges, Bert H
2007 “Good prospects: Ecological and social perspectives on conforming, creating, and caring in conversation.” Language Sciences 29 (5): 584–604. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hodges, Bert H. and Baron, Rueben M
2007 “Values as constraints on affordances: Perceiving and acting properly.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 22 (3): 263–294. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Husserl, Edmund
1960/1982 Cartesian Meditations. Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1964 The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Kampis, George
1991 Self-Organizing Systems in Biology and Cognitive Science: A New Framework for Dynamics, Information and Complexity. New York: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Kinsbourne, Marcel
2005 “Imitation as entrainment: Brain mechanisms and social consequences.” In Perspectives on Imitation: From Neuroscience to Social Science. Volume 2: Imitation, Human Development, and Culture, Susan Hurley and Nick Chater (eds), 163–172. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Lefèbvre, Henri
2004 Rhythmanalysis: Space, Time and Everyday Life. London/New York: Continuum International.Google Scholar
Love, Nigel
1990 “The locus of languages in a redefined linguistics.” In Redefining Linguistics, Hayley G. Davis and Talbot J. Taylor (eds), 53–117. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
2004 “Cognition and the language myth.” Language Sciences 26: 525–544. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Luria, Alexander R
1964 “Factors and forms of Aphasia.” In Ciba Foundation Symposium – Disorders of Language, A.V.S. de Reuck and Maeve O’Connor (eds), 143–161. London: J. and A. Churchill.Google Scholar
1973 The Working Brain: An Introduction to Neuropsychology. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Malloch, Stephen
1999 “Mother and infants and communicative musicality.” Musicae Scientiae Special Issue 1999–2000: 29–57. Liège, Belgium: European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music.Google Scholar
Malloch, Stephen and Trevarthen, Colwyn
(eds) 2009 Communicative Musicality: Exploring the Basis of Human Companionship. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Martin, James R. and White, Peter R.R
2005 The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Maturana, Humberto R
1988 Ontology of Observing: The Biological Foundations of Self-Consciousness and the Physical Domain of Existence. Texts in Cybernetic Theory, American Society for Cybernetics. [URL]Google Scholar
2002 “Autopoiesis, structural coupling and cognition.” Cybernetics & Human Knowing 9 (3–4): 5–34.Google Scholar
Maturana, Humberto R. and Varela, Francisco
1992 The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Basis of Human Understanding. Boston: Shambhala.Google Scholar
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice
1962 Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge and Kegan.Google Scholar
Noë, Alva
2004 Action in Perception. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
2009 Out of Our Heads, Why You are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons From the Biology of Consciousness. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Reed, Edward S
1996 Encountering the World: Toward an Ecological Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sarles, Harvey
1977 After Metaphysics: Towards a Grammar of Interaction and Discourse. Lisse: Peter de Ridder.Google Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand de
1993 Cours de Linguistique Générale: Premier et Troisième Cours d’Après les Notes de Reidlinger et Constantin. [Collection Recherches Université Gaskushuin no. 24]. Eisuke Komatsu (ed.). Tokyo: Gakushuin University.Google Scholar
Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine
1990 The Roots of Thinking. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
1999 The Primacy of Movement. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2000 “Kinetic tactile-kinesthetic bodies: Ontogenetical foundations of apprenticeship learning.” Human Studies 23: 343–370. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2003 “Kinesthetic memory.” Theoria et Historia Scientiarum 7: 69–92.Google Scholar
2009 The Corporeal Turn: An Interdisciplinary Reader. Exeter: Imprint Academic.Google Scholar
Sherrington, Charles Scott
1906 The Integrative Action of the Nervous System. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Steffensen, Sune V., Thibault, Paul J. and Cowley, Stephen J
2010 “Living in the social meshwork: The case of health interaction.” In Signifying Bodies: Biosemiosis, Interaction and Health, Stephen J. Cowley, João C. Major, Sune V. Steffensen and Alfredo Dinis (eds), 207–244. Braga: The Faculty of Philosophy of Braga Portuguese Catholic University.Google Scholar
Steinbock, Anthony J
1999 “Saturated intentionality.” In The Body: Classic and Contemporary Readings, Donn Welton (ed.), 178–199. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Stuart, Susan A.J
2006 “Extended body, extended mind: The self as prosthesis.” In Screen Consciousness: Mind, Cinema and World, Robert Pepperell and Michael Punt (eds), 163–180. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
2007 “Machine consciousness: Cognitive and kinaesthetic imagination.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 14 (7): 141–53.Google Scholar
2008 “From agency to apperception: Through kinaesthesia to cognition and creation.” Journal of Ethics and Information Technology 10: 255–264. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010a “Conscious machines: Memory, melody and imagination.” Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 14 (9): 37–51. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010b “Enkinaesthesia, biosemiotics, and the ethiosphere.” In Signifying Bodies: Biosemiosis, Interaction and Health, Stephen J. Cowley, João C. Major, Sune V. Steffensen and Alfredo Dinis (eds), 305–330. Braga: The Faculty of Philosophy of Braga Portuguese Catholic University.Google Scholar
2012 “Enkinaesthesia: The essential sensuous background for co-agency.” In The Background: Knowing Without Thinking, Zdravko Radman (ed.), 167–186. New York: Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thibault, Paul J
2000 “The dialogical integration of the brain in social semiosis: Edelman and the case for downward causation.” Mind, Culture, and Activity 7 (4): 291–311. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004a “Agency, individuation, and meaning-making: Reflections on an episode of bonobo-human interaction.” In Language Development: Functional Perspectives on Evolution and Ontogenesis, Geoff Williams and Annabelle Lukin (eds), 112–136. London/New York: Continuum International.Google Scholar
2004b Brain, Mind and the Signifying Body: An Ecosocial Semiotic Theory. London/New York: Continuum International.Google Scholar
2005 “What kind of minded being has language: Anticipatory dynamics, arguability, and agency in a normatively and recursively self-transforming learning system, Part 1.” Linguistics and the Human Sciences 1 (2): 261–335.Google Scholar
2008 “Face-to-face communication and body language.” In Handbooks of Applied Linguistics (HAL), Linguistics for Problem-Solving: Perspectives on Communication Competence, Language and Communication Problems, and Practical Solutions. Volume 2: Interpersonal Communication, Gerd Antos and Eija Ventola (eds), 285–330. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Thibault Paul J
2011a “Languaging behaviour as catalytic process: Steps towards a theory of living language (Part I).” The Public Journal of Semiotics 3 (2): 2–79.Google Scholar
2011b “Languaging behaviour as catalytic process: Steps towards a theory of living language (Part II).” The Public Journal of Semiotics 3 (2): 80–151.Google Scholar
Thibault, Paul J
2011c “First-order languaging dynamics and second-order language: The distributed language view.” Ecological Psychology 23 (3): 210–245. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trevarthen, Colwyn
1979 “Communication and cooperation in early infancy. A description of primary intersubjectivity.” In Before Speech: The Beginning of Human Communication, Margaret Bullowa (ed.), 321–347. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
1998 “The concept and foundations of infant intersubjectivity.” In Intersubjective Communication and Emotion in Early Ontogeny, Stein Bråten (ed.), 15–46. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
2012 “Embodied human intersubjectivity: Imaginative agency, to share meaning.” Journal of Cognitive Semiotics 4 (1): 6–56.Google Scholar
Verbrugge, Robert R
1985 “Language and event perception: Steps toward a synthesis.” In Persistence and Change, William H. Warren Jr. and Robert E. Shaw (eds), 157–194. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Vygotsky, Lev S
1998 The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky, vol. 5, Robert W. Rieber (ed.). New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig
1958 Philosophical Investigations, (2nd ed.). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Zahavi, Dan
1997 “Horizontal intentionality and transcendental intersubjectivity.” Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 59 (2): 304–321.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 4 other publications

Stuart, Susan
2016. The Articulation of Enkinaesthetic Entanglement. In Dem Körper eingeschrieben, ► pp. 19 ff. DOI logo
Thibault, Paul J.
2018. Integrating self, voice, experience. Language and Dialogue 8:1 ► pp. 159 ff. DOI logo
Thibault, Paul J.
2021. Selves, interactive representations and context. Language, Context and Text. The Social Semiotics Forum 3:1 ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo
Våpenstad, Eystein Victor & Brynulf Bakkenget
2021. Pre-verbal Children’s Participation in a New Key. How Intersubjectivity Can Contribute to Understanding and Implementation of Child Rights in Early Childhood. Frontiers in Psychology 12 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.