Embodied Cognition, affects and language comprehension

Abstract

Our main considerations take as a starting point the educational policy demand for a model of competence of text comprehension, which should make it possible to measure and systematically increase comprehension accomplishments and competences. The approach of classical cognitive psychology appears particularly suitable for this purpose, which determines comprehension as a rule-guided transfer of a sign complex into a mental representation. However, such representationalism tends to be aporetic in character. A way out of this problem is offered by recent concepts of understanding from the area of Embodied Cognition, according to which all mental operations are embedded in physical interaction processes. Comprehension means, in this sense, letting physical primary experiences be reproduced in a trial-action fashion. This approach is, in this paper, reconsidered in relation to the role of subjectivity and affect: Physical experiences are meaning-generating because they exhibit a subjectively perceived affective valence between pleasure and suffering. The beginning of all understanding therefore is to be located within the emotional sphere. Such a conception of understanding is supposed to have a considerable impact upon language-and literature teaching in schools. For example, training of reading skills should always be embedded in body-bound experiences. Moreover, learning and understanding both mean cultivating an alert ear for affective undertones, needs and irritations, which might even lead to drawing the curricular benchmarks and competency targets into question. Finally, as art and literature establish areas of freedom and play, literature teaching, especially, needs to be founded on affective awareness, discursive openness and proceeding voluntariness.

EFL teachers’ identity in self-directed learning: A work-from-home phenomenology

“…The subjective feelings that how English language teachers as individuals perceive themselves and how they view other teachers considerably affect their choices on instructional practices, and at the same time, the supporting environment in the institutional settings also impinges on the formation, negotiation, and growth of teacher identity. Proposing the area of Embodied Cognition, Odendahl (2020) notes that all mental processes are rooted in physical interaction progressions. Comprehension, therefore, lies in allowing physical key experiences to be replicated in a series of attempts and activities.…”