[Xmca-l] Memory, aging and culture

[geraldine.mcdonald <geraldine.mcdonald@clear.net.nz>]

When, many years ago, I wrote a thesis on children's
understandong of a set of words I became interested in the
idea of networks of meaning in which individual words were
supported by underlying components of meaning. Manfred
Bierwisch was popular at the time. It seems to me that the
loss of memory in old age has much to do with the extent to
which words are connected in meaning, shares components
with, other words. Names on the other hand are intended as
unique identifiers and knowing other personal names or even
a surname does not automatically support recall. Because
components of word meaning are cultural and independent of
the psychological process of recall the network idea does
seem to fit within a CHAT framework. 
Geraldine McDonald
Status: O