Language as mechanisms for interaction: Towards an evolutionary tale

This paper argues that the view of language as affordances promises to solve two problems: (a) the paradox for bottom-up processing that the disjoint stimuli of speech production and perception seem to preclude common explanation; and (b) the problematic status of mediating mental representations facing the alternative anticipatory top-down Predictive Processing perspective. The Dynamic Syntax perspective aims to directly model the group-forming properties of natural language (NL) interactions. Natural language communication is not viewed as convergence/common ground but as the employment of procedures enabling creative joint activities without overarching common goals. NL learning, change and even NL emergence can all be seen in gradualistic terms, hence the higher-order organisation that incorporates the NL system itself can be argued to constitute an adaptive interactive system in continuity with the definition of living organisms as modelled in enactive approaches.
Research areas:
Year:
2019
Type of Publication:
In Collection
JRESEARCH_BOOK_TITLE:
Language, Logic, and Computation
Publisher:
Springer
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