Publications
Publication details [#31790]
Bejarano, Teresa. 2003. Metarepresentation and human capacities. Pragmatics & Cognition 11 (1) : 93–140. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Keywords
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
ISBN
0929-0907
Journal DOI
10.1075/pc
Annotation
Both metarepresentation and cultural learning have an identical origin. The imitation of new and complex motor patterns (also articulatory-phonetic patterns) is a crucial skill not only because it enables cultural transmission but also because its high requisites give rise to the exclusively human mind. The premotor plan at the base of such imitation requires the ability to fictionalize bodily postures, which implies a second line of awareness. Only by means of this second line can the human being deal with situations different from his own real and current situation. This permanent double cognitive architecture explains finger-pointing, laughing, and also all capacities considered metarepresentational. Evocation and metabeliefs (these latter being the starting point of syntax) result in language formation. There are two operating modes of the double line, which, starting respectively with motor learning and finger-pointing, give rise to pretence and metabelief, and whose distinct nature can also account for the difference between fictionally triggered emotions and morality.