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, symbol grounding, protolanguage, praxis, epigenesis, language evolution, niche construction, infancy
Published online: 17 September 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/is.17025.sin
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