On evolution of thinking about semiosis: semiotics meets cognitive science

Konderak, Piotr

doi:10.26913/70202016.0112.0005

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…Many accounts of language origin point to the emergence of symbolic conventions as the most defining event in the evolutionary emergence of language. Although we do not question the fundamental importance of this step, in a recent theoretical proposal [4] we extensively discuss and defend an even earlier breakthrough, one that we term sign-based communication (see §2a below), where signs are understood in accordance with proposals from cognitive semiotics [5–7]. In short, sign-based communication is important because—even before the advent of semiotic conventions—it enabled what many theorists view as some of the key features of language that distinguish it from animal communication: open-ended semantics with displaced reference (in particular [8,9]; also [10,11]).…”

Section: First Signs: Mimetic and Primary-iconicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pantomimic fossils in modern human communication

Żywiczyński

Wacewicz

Lister

2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Bodily mimesis, the capacity to use the body representationally, was one of the key innovations that allowed early humans to go beyond the ‘baseline’ of generalized ape communication and cognition. We argue that the original human-specific communication afforded by bodily mimesis was based on signs that involve three entities: an expression that represents an object (i.e. communicated content) for an interpreter . We further propose that the core component of this communication, pantomime, was able to transmit referential information that was not limited to select semantic domains or the ‘here-and-now’, by means of motivated—most importantly iconic—signs. Pressures for expressivity and economy then led to conventionalization of signs and a growth of linguistic characteristics: semiotic systematicity and combinatorial expression. Despite these developments, both naturalistic and experimental data suggest that the system of pantomime did not disappear and is actively used by modern humans. Its contemporary manifestations, or pantomimic fossils , emerge when language cannot be used, for instance when people do not share a common language, or in situations where the use of (spoken) language is difficult, impossible or forbidden. Under such circumstances, people bootstrap communication by means of pantomime and, when these circumstances persist, newly emergent pantomimic communication becomes increasingly language-like. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Reconstructing prehistoric languages’.

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Section: First Signs: Mimetic and Primary-iconicmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pantomimic fossils in modern human communication

Żywiczyński

Wacewicz

Lister

2021

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…The idea of an internal, causal organization mediating between input and output is a tacit and common assumption of cognitivist approaches. 16 As I argued elsewhere (Konderak 2016;, standard cognitive science can contribute to cognitive semiotic research by means of so-called cognitive modelling -a basic method of standard cognitive science allowing for explanations and predictions. Although this cognitivist method cannot be -supposedly -applied at all the levels of the Semiotic Hierarchy, it can be useful -as I claim -in explanations of meaning-making at the levels of signs and language.…”

Section: A Cognitivist Approach To Peircean Semiosismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Simultaneously, it can be used to add precision to the meaning of such terms as 'representation' , 'interpretation' (and 'reinterpretation'), 'synechism' or 'fallibilism' . Cognitive architectures (Anderson 1983(Anderson , 2007Taatgen, Anderson 2008;Konderak 2016) are the most popular tool facilitating the creation of cognitive models of various cognitive activities. My own attempt to model the processes of semiosis explores the capabilities delivered by the GLAIR cognitive architecture.…”

Section: A Cognitivist Approach To Peircean Semiosismentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards an integration of two aspects of semiosis – A cognitive semiotic perspective

Konderak

2021

SSS

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Meaning-making processes, understood hierarchically, in line with the Semiotic Hierarchy framework, change on various timescales. To account for and predict these changes, one can take a cognitive view on semiosis. I adopt an interdisciplinary approach combining semiotic studies and cognitive studies in an attempt to account for meaning-making activity and to predict the course of semiosis. In this context, I consider meaning-making activity as shaped by both “external” (to a semiotic system) as well as “internal” factors. I also show how both the “external” and “internal” sources of the dynamicity of meaning-making should be framed in terms of studies on cognition. I start with a non-standard, 4e approach to meaning-making. According to this framework, meaning-making processes are constituted by (and not just dependent on) environmental and bodily factors. The dynamicity of semiosis can be accounted for in terms of an experiencing, embodied subject (agent) enacting her/his/its own domain of meaningful phenomena. As I argue, this perspective on meaning-making is the cognitive foundation of the first two levels of the Semiotic Hierarchy. In the following sections I present the Peircean view on signs and semiosis, according to which semiosis is a result of the very nature of a sign and a sign system. In this view, the dynamicity of semiosis has primarily “internal” sources: it stems from the unavoidable fallibility of interpretation and synechism of signs. As I show, this aspect of semiosis can be addressed by means of standard (cognitivist) cognitive science and by means of cognitive modelling. Ultimately, I sketch a proposal of an attempt to develop a uniform cognitive framework allowing for integration of the above-mentioned aspects of semiosis – a framework based on Rowlands’ idea of the Amalgamated Mind.

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On evolution of thinking about semiosis: semiotics meets cognitive science

Cited by 2 publications

References 25 publications

Pantomimic fossils in modern human communication

Pantomimic fossils in modern human communication

Towards an integration of two aspects of semiosis – A cognitive semiotic perspective

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