The relationship between gesture and language has typically been theorized in terms of gesture preceding language along a continuum of evolving symbolization. Recent research in cognitive science and allied fields suggests that, from the beginning, gesture has figured constitutively, along with… read more
Lev Vygotsky’s (1896–1934) views of the genesis of language and its relation to thought, illustrated here by his account of the origin of the pointing gesture, can be seen as anticipating current research in socially constituted cognition, pragmatics, developmental psychology and… read more
The image of floating, fluctuation, waves, and displacement recurs with surprising consistency in key descriptions of the linguistic sign. Its prominence in the theoretical pronouncements of linguists (Michel Bréal, Ferdinand de Saussure, Antoine Meillet, Kenneth Pike) and sociologists… read more
Central to Chomskyan language theory, often seen as a Kuhnian revolution, is the claim that universal grammar (UG) is innate and that it comprises the principles and parameters which constitute and constrain possible human language grammars. In this model, grammar is essentially a programmed fait… read more
Chinese character writing, based only partially on phonetic considerations, presents a challenge to the seemingly straightforward relationship between the written record and etymology, where graphemic recordings of phonetic forms (words) in a number of languages are compared to determine whether… read more