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Article published In:
How the Brain Got Language: Towards a New Road Map
Edited by Michael A. Arbib
[Interaction Studies 19:1/2] 2018
► 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: 17 September 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/is.17025.sin
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Arbib, Michael A., Francisco Aboitiz, Judith M. Burkart, Michael Corballis, Gino Coudé, Erin Hecht, Katja Liebal, Masako Myowa-Yamakoshi, James Pustejovsky, Shelby Putt, Federico Rossano, Anne E. Russon, P. Thomas Schoenemann, Uwe Seifert, Katerina Semendeferi, Chris Sinha, Dietrich Stout, Virginia Volterra, Sławomir Wacewicz & Benjamin Wilson
2018. The comparative neuroprimatology 2018 (CNP-2018) road map for research on How the Brain Got Language . Interaction Studies. Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems 19:1-2 ► pp. 370 ff. DOI logo
Arbib, Michael A., Francisco Aboitiz, Judith M. Burkart, Michael C. Corballis, Gino Coudé, Erin Hecht, Katja Liebal, Masako Myowa-Yamakoshi, James Pustejovsky, Shelby S. Putt, Federico Rossano, Anne E. Russon, P. Thomas Schoenemann, Uwe Seifert, Katerina Semendeferi, Chris Sinha, Dietrich Stout, Virginia Volterra, Sławomir Wacewicz & Benjamin Wilson
2020. The comparative neuroprimatology 2018 (CNP-2018) road map for research on How the Brain Got Language. In How the Brain Got Language – Towards a New Road Map [Benjamins Current Topics, 112], ► pp. 370 ff. DOI logo

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