Language and Meaning: The Perspective of Embodied Simulation Theory
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Mar 21, 2023
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Abstract
This article is aimed at introducing the investigatory Tools of Simulation Semantics, a theoretical framework falling within embodied cognition’ paradigm. This framework, which is premised on embodied simulation, accounts for how meaning is conceptually and perceptually constructed in the user’s mind. It has emerged as a superseding reaction to the amodal abstract theories of language and meaning, which fall short of accounting for the crucial role played by perceptual modalities, bodily sates, and situational actions in language processing. It takes as a starting point the assumption that the conceptual content of simulation is constrained by physical and linguistic contexts and situational variables, and simulation, in turn, constrains language understanding and production. Stipulating the importance of embodiment, this novel framework provides new insights procedural to understanding the cognitive dimensions of meaning, which is taken to be a result of instantaneous distributed neural processing that retrieves and controls perceptual and bodily states, using the mentally available conceptual frames, knowledge backgrounds and cognitive primitives such as schematization and combinatorial recursion. It places heavy importance on the role of situational simulation in the conceptual system in terms of specifying the semantic and conceptual structures and the schematic contribution of linguistic unites in such a specification given that words, phrases, and contextual cues together orient situational simulation.
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Keywords
SimulationLanguageMeaningEmbodimentPerceptual statesConceptualizationActivationSituation
References
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–––. Abstraction as Dynamic Interpretation in Perceptual Symbol Systems (2002).
–––. Situated simulation in the human conceptual system. Language and Cognitive Processes, 18 (2003): 513–562.
–––. Grounded cognition. Annual Review of Psychology. 59 (2008): 617–645
–––. “The Human Conceptual System.” The Cambridge Handbook of Psycholinguistics, edited by Michael Spivey et al., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (2012): 239–258.
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Barsalou, Lawrence & Yeh, Wenchi & Luka, Barbara & Olseth, Karen & Mix, Kelly & Wu, Ling-ling. Concepts and Meaning (1999): 1-41.
Bergen, Benjamin. Embodiment, simulation, and meaning. The Routledge Handbook of Semantics, 142 (2015).
–––. Experimental methods for simulation semantics. Methods in Cognitive Linguistics 18: 277 (2007).
–––. Louder than Words: The New Science of how the Mind Makes Meaning. New York: Basic Books (2012).
Bergen, Benjamin. & Wheeler, Kathryn. Sentence understanding engages motor processes. Proc. Cog. 27 (2005).
Chomsky, Noam. Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton. (1957).
Dijk, Teun Adrianus van and Maxim Stamenov. “Cognitive Context Models and Dis course.” (1998).
Evans, Vyvyan. How Words Mean: Lexical Concepts, Cognitive Models, and Meaning Construction. Oxford Linguistics (2009).
Feldman, Jerome, and Srinivas Narayanan. “Embodied meaning in a neural theory of language.” Brain and language vol. 89, 2 (2004): 385-92.
Fillmore, Charles. Frames and the semantics of understanding. Quaderni Di Semantica, 6 (1985): 222– 254.
Fauconnier, Gilles. Mental Spaces. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (1985).
Fauconnier, Gilles & Turner, Mark. The Way We Think. New York: Basic Books (2002).
Fodor, Jerry. The language of thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1975).
Fodor, Jerry A., and Zenon W. Pylyshyn. “Connectionism and cognitive architecture: A critical analysis.” Cognition 28 (1988): 3-71.
Ghālīm, Muḥammad. al-lughah bayna malikāt aldhhn: baḥth fī al-Handasah al-maʻrifīyah (in Arabic). Dār al-Kitāb al-Jadīdah, Bayrūt, Lubnān 2021.
–––. al-Unmūdhaj al-maʻrifī iṭāran lātṣāl al-ʻUlūm, baḥth fī Waḥdat al-manhaj wtrābṭ al-mawḍūʻāt (in Arabic). al-Dār al-Tūnisīyah lil-Kitāb. 2021.
Gibbs, Raymond. “Metaphor Interpretation as Embodied Simulation.” Mind & Language 21 (2006): 434-458.
Glenberg, Arthur. What memory is for. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20, (1997): 1-19.
–––. Why mental models must be embodied. In Mental Models in Discourse Processing and Reasoning 18 (1999): 77-90.
–––. Language and action: Creating sensible combinations of ideas. In G. Gaskell (Ed.), Oxford handbook of psycholinguistics Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. M. (2007): 361–370
Harnad, Stevan. The symbol grounding problem. Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, 42(1) (1990): 335-346.
Havas, David A; Glenberg, Arthur M; Rinck, Mike. Emotion simulation during language comprehension. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. 2007; Vol. 14, No. 3. pp. 436-441.
Johnson, Mark. Embodied Understanding. Frontiers in psychology 6 (2015).
–––. 'The Embodiment of Language', in Albert Newen, Leon De Bruin, and Shaun Gallagher (eds), The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition, Oxford Library of Psychology (2018).
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–––. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books (1999).
–––. Lakoff, George. Explaining Embodied Cognition Results. Topics in cognitive science. 4 (2012): 773-785.
Madden, Carol. and Zwaan, Rolf. “How does verb aspect constrain event representations?” Memory & Cognition 31 (2003): 663-672.
Narayanan, Srini. Mind changes: A simulation semantics account of counterfactuals (2010).
Pulvermüller, Friedemann et al. “Walking or Talking? Behavioral and Neurophysiological Correlates of Action Verb Processing.” Brain and Language 78 (2001): 143-168.
Ronald W. Langacker. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume I. Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (1987) : Pp. 516.
Rowlands, Mark. "The mind embedded". The new science of the mind: From extended mind to embodied phenomenology. MIT Press. (2010).
Shapiro, Lawrence, The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition. Routledge.
Termina, Baaziz. Nadariat al-Ansaq Arramzia al-Idrakia : Fahm al-Lougha wa Bina’ a-Ttasaworat. Dirasat Arabia fi Dalala wa Tarkib wa Liktisab Wa a-Tarjam (in Arabic). Iaadad Ghalim Mohamed wa El-Fahisi Halima. Dar Abi Raqraq li Tibaa. (2021) 23-63.
Yeh, Wenchi & Barsalou, Lawrence. The Situated Nature of Concepts. The American journal of psychology. 119 (2006): 349-84.
Wassenburg, Stephanie I.; Zwaan, Rolf A. Readers routinely represent implied object rotation: The role of visual experience. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63(9), (2010): 1665–1670.
Weiskopf, Daniel A. “Embodied cognition and linguistic comprehension.” Studies in history and philosophy of science vol. 41,3 (2010): 294-304.
Zwaan, Rolf. Embodiment and language comprehension: Reframing the discussion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18 (2014): 229– 234.
–––. Experiential traces and mental simulations in language comprehension. In M. DeVega, A. M. Glenberg, & A. C. Graesser (Eds.), Symbols, embodiment, and meaning (2008): 165– 180. Zwaan, Rolf et al. Constructing multidimensional situation models during reading. Scientific Studies of Reading, 2, (1998): 199–220.
–––. Situation models, mental simulations, and abstract concepts in discourse comprehension. Psychon Bull Rev (2015).
–––. The immersed experiencer: toward an embodied theory of language comprehension. In: B.H. Ross (Ed.), The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Vol. 44 (2004): 35–62.
Zwaan, Rolf. A., & Madden, Carol. Embodied sentence comprehension. In D. Pecher & R. A. Zwaan (Eds.), Grounding cognition: The role of perception and action in memory, language, and thinking (2005): 224–245
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ترمينا، باعزيز، نظرية الأنساق الرمزية الإدراكية: فهم اللغة وبناء التصورات. دراسات لسانية عربية في الدلالة والتركيب والاكتساب والترجمة، إعداد غاليم محمد والفاحصي حليمة، دار أبي رقراق للطباعة، 2021، 23-63.
غاليم، محمد. اللغة بين ملكات الذهن: بحث في الهندسة المعرفية. دار الكتاب الجديدة، بيروت، لبنان 2021.
–––. الأنموذج المعرفي إطارًا لاتصال العلوم، بحث في وحدة المنهج وترابط الموضوعات. الدار التونسية للكتاب. 2021.
–––. Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22 (1999): 577–660.
–––. Situated Conceptualization: Theory and Application. Foundations of embodied cognition: Perceptual and emotional embodiment. Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group (2016): 11–37.
–––. Abstraction as Dynamic Interpretation in Perceptual Symbol Systems (2002).
–––. Situated simulation in the human conceptual system. Language and Cognitive Processes, 18 (2003): 513–562.
–––. Grounded cognition. Annual Review of Psychology. 59 (2008): 617–645
–––. “The Human Conceptual System.” The Cambridge Handbook of Psycholinguistics, edited by Michael Spivey et al., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, (2012): 239–258.
Barsalou, Lawrence & Santos, Ava & Simmons, William & Wilson, Christine. Language and Simulation in Conceptual Processing (2008).
Barsalou, Lawrence & Yeh, Wenchi & Luka, Barbara & Olseth, Karen & Mix, Kelly & Wu, Ling-ling. Concepts and Meaning (1999): 1-41.
Bergen, Benjamin. Embodiment, simulation, and meaning. The Routledge Handbook of Semantics, 142 (2015).
–––. Experimental methods for simulation semantics. Methods in Cognitive Linguistics 18: 277 (2007).
–––. Louder than Words: The New Science of how the Mind Makes Meaning. New York: Basic Books (2012).
Bergen, Benjamin. & Wheeler, Kathryn. Sentence understanding engages motor processes. Proc. Cog. 27 (2005).
Chomsky, Noam. Syntactic structures. The Hague: Mouton. (1957).
Dijk, Teun Adrianus van and Maxim Stamenov. “Cognitive Context Models and Dis course.” (1998).
Evans, Vyvyan. How Words Mean: Lexical Concepts, Cognitive Models, and Meaning Construction. Oxford Linguistics (2009).
Feldman, Jerome, and Srinivas Narayanan. “Embodied meaning in a neural theory of language.” Brain and language vol. 89, 2 (2004): 385-92.
Fillmore, Charles. Frames and the semantics of understanding. Quaderni Di Semantica, 6 (1985): 222– 254.
Fauconnier, Gilles. Mental Spaces. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. (1985).
Fauconnier, Gilles & Turner, Mark. The Way We Think. New York: Basic Books (2002).
Fodor, Jerry. The language of thought. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1975).
Fodor, Jerry A., and Zenon W. Pylyshyn. “Connectionism and cognitive architecture: A critical analysis.” Cognition 28 (1988): 3-71.
Ghālīm, Muḥammad. al-lughah bayna malikāt aldhhn: baḥth fī al-Handasah al-maʻrifīyah (in Arabic). Dār al-Kitāb al-Jadīdah, Bayrūt, Lubnān 2021.
–––. al-Unmūdhaj al-maʻrifī iṭāran lātṣāl al-ʻUlūm, baḥth fī Waḥdat al-manhaj wtrābṭ al-mawḍūʻāt (in Arabic). al-Dār al-Tūnisīyah lil-Kitāb. 2021.
Gibbs, Raymond. “Metaphor Interpretation as Embodied Simulation.” Mind & Language 21 (2006): 434-458.
Glenberg, Arthur. What memory is for. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 20, (1997): 1-19.
–––. Why mental models must be embodied. In Mental Models in Discourse Processing and Reasoning 18 (1999): 77-90.
–––. Language and action: Creating sensible combinations of ideas. In G. Gaskell (Ed.), Oxford handbook of psycholinguistics Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. M. (2007): 361–370
Harnad, Stevan. The symbol grounding problem. Physica D: Nonlinear Phenomena, 42(1) (1990): 335-346.
Havas, David A; Glenberg, Arthur M; Rinck, Mike. Emotion simulation during language comprehension. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review. 2007; Vol. 14, No. 3. pp. 436-441.
Johnson, Mark. Embodied Understanding. Frontiers in psychology 6 (2015).
–––. 'The Embodiment of Language', in Albert Newen, Leon De Bruin, and Shaun Gallagher (eds), The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition, Oxford Library of Psychology (2018).
Lakoff, George. “Cognitive models and prototype theory.” Concepts and conceptual development: Ecological and intellectual factors in categorization. Cambridge University Press. (1987) : pp. 63-100.
Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1980. Pp. 242.
–––. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books (1999).
–––. Lakoff, George. Explaining Embodied Cognition Results. Topics in cognitive science. 4 (2012): 773-785.
Madden, Carol. and Zwaan, Rolf. “How does verb aspect constrain event representations?” Memory & Cognition 31 (2003): 663-672.
Narayanan, Srini. Mind changes: A simulation semantics account of counterfactuals (2010).
Pulvermüller, Friedemann et al. “Walking or Talking? Behavioral and Neurophysiological Correlates of Action Verb Processing.” Brain and Language 78 (2001): 143-168.
Ronald W. Langacker. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume I. Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford: Stanford University Press. (1987) : Pp. 516.
Rowlands, Mark. "The mind embedded". The new science of the mind: From extended mind to embodied phenomenology. MIT Press. (2010).
Shapiro, Lawrence, The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition. Routledge.
Termina, Baaziz. Nadariat al-Ansaq Arramzia al-Idrakia : Fahm al-Lougha wa Bina’ a-Ttasaworat. Dirasat Arabia fi Dalala wa Tarkib wa Liktisab Wa a-Tarjam (in Arabic). Iaadad Ghalim Mohamed wa El-Fahisi Halima. Dar Abi Raqraq li Tibaa. (2021) 23-63.
Yeh, Wenchi & Barsalou, Lawrence. The Situated Nature of Concepts. The American journal of psychology. 119 (2006): 349-84.
Wassenburg, Stephanie I.; Zwaan, Rolf A. Readers routinely represent implied object rotation: The role of visual experience. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63(9), (2010): 1665–1670.
Weiskopf, Daniel A. “Embodied cognition and linguistic comprehension.” Studies in history and philosophy of science vol. 41,3 (2010): 294-304.
Zwaan, Rolf. Embodiment and language comprehension: Reframing the discussion. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18 (2014): 229– 234.
–––. Experiential traces and mental simulations in language comprehension. In M. DeVega, A. M. Glenberg, & A. C. Graesser (Eds.), Symbols, embodiment, and meaning (2008): 165– 180. Zwaan, Rolf et al. Constructing multidimensional situation models during reading. Scientific Studies of Reading, 2, (1998): 199–220.
–––. Situation models, mental simulations, and abstract concepts in discourse comprehension. Psychon Bull Rev (2015).
–––. The immersed experiencer: toward an embodied theory of language comprehension. In: B.H. Ross (Ed.), The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Vol. 44 (2004): 35–62.
Zwaan, Rolf. A., & Madden, Carol. Embodied sentence comprehension. In D. Pecher & R. A. Zwaan (Eds.), Grounding cognition: The role of perception and action in memory, language, and thinking (2005): 224–245
*****************************************************************************************
ترمينا، باعزيز، نظرية الأنساق الرمزية الإدراكية: فهم اللغة وبناء التصورات. دراسات لسانية عربية في الدلالة والتركيب والاكتساب والترجمة، إعداد غاليم محمد والفاحصي حليمة، دار أبي رقراق للطباعة، 2021، 23-63.
غاليم، محمد. اللغة بين ملكات الذهن: بحث في الهندسة المعرفية. دار الكتاب الجديدة، بيروت، لبنان 2021.
–––. الأنموذج المعرفي إطارًا لاتصال العلوم، بحث في وحدة المنهج وترابط الموضوعات. الدار التونسية للكتاب. 2021.
How to Cite
Termina, Baaziz. 2023. “Language and Meaning: The Perspective of Embodied Simulation Theory”. ANSAQ Journal 6 (2). https://doi.org/10.29117/Ansaq.2022.0163.
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