language and cognition
Jones, Peter-Cultural Studies (P.E.Jones who-is-at shu.ac.uk)
Thu, 26 Mar 1998 10:42:00 -0000
26 march 1998
from peter jones, sheffield hallam university
dear colleagues
I have a paper 'Language and cognition in goal-directed practical activity'
which I presented at the International Cognitive Linguistics Conference in
Amsterdam in July last year and which I have submitted for consideration
for the proceedings of that conference. I am not too happy with the paper
and some of this stuff will be part of my presentation on artifact design
at ISCRAT in June. Therefore I would be very grateful for any comments or
reactions on this paper. I present below a few extracts so that you can
tell whether it's something you'd be interested in or not. Will happily
send you a hard copy of the paper if you want to have a closer look or if
you're interested in any way. Let me know your address and I'll post one
off.
Thanks for your attention. Best wishes!!
I'm looking at language as part of a group practical activity (actually an
artificial, game like activity):
Extract (1):
"TRACING THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN ACTION
Having seen the end point, let us consider how this solution evolved. There
are two areas for exploration:
(a) the role of the developing discourse with respect to Leont+ev+s
conception of the +community of structure+ of external, practical action
and +internal+, +ideal+ or theoretical activity (the image) (see above);
(b) the role of word meaning, and specifically, the process of sense
creation discussed above, in this developing inter-relation and coincidence
of internal and external sides of activity."
Extract (2)
"CONCLUSION AND PROSPECTS
It has been argued that language plays a crucial role within practical
activity in the service of the cognitive process which works itself out
through the interaction, cooperation and communication between group
members. In the course of this development a dynamically evolving network
of new senses and sense relations is formed which mediates the process of
cognition and helps to forge a necessary unity between the processes of
thinking and doing. Specifically, the role of word meaning seems to be to
allow for the increasing differentiation and integration of a developing
image of the activity structure as a whole, allowing the necessary
interconnections within the operational structure of actions and between
earlier and later actions to be expressed and fixed as elements of common
understanding within the group. This process of semantic innovation is also
a function of the growth of general knowledge and understanding of the
objects, properties and forces involved in activity.
Furthermore, questions have been raised as to the extent to which this
activity-related conception of the nature of language and thinking is
compatible with the Cognitive Linguistics approach. The study certainly
suggests that the dichotomy of +experiential+ versus +objective+ realism
which Lakoff (op.cit) presents, is rather misleading: knowledge gained
through experience is objective because we are objective beings ourselves
whose interactions with the world are governed by the same laws which
operate independently of our consciousness and will. In generalising,
abstracting, calculating and theorising our experienced relations with the
world and between ourselves as social beings we are also therefore
developing true knowledge of the world itself. Furthermore, the +activity
approach+ would no doubt argue that the category of +experience+ itself
needs careful examination. The +embodied experience+ relevant to the study
of cognitive and linguistic processes within activity is not mere +bodily
experience+ as such, naturalistically understood, but the social activity
of people engaged in the pursuit of common practical goals. Human mental
powers are awakened and shaped only in social practices built around
historically developed artefacts (both material and symbolic). Social
practice alone, and not the body or brain as such, is the foundation for
meaning.
While materialism would accept that thought is imaginative and +abstract+
in that it +takes the mind beyond what we can see and feel+ (Lakoff,
op.cit: xiv), the idea that the imaginative processes involved +go beyond
the literal mirroring, or representation, of external reality+ (loc.cit)
begs the question as to the relationship between the processes and results
of such conceptualizing activity and the real world in which people live.
Within the Activity Theory approach, abstraction does not take us away from
reality, but allows us to penetrate deeper into the general, necessary
connections and relations within reality which is the source of our partial
experience."