Peter Harder

Meaning in mind and society : a functional contribution to the social turn in cognitive linguistics

Cognitive Linguistics is becoming increasingly oriented towards the social dimension. This book describes this development and discusses some central issues for the emerging socio-cognitive synthesis. Mapping out the territory from individual embodied meaning to discourse struggles, it suggests principles for an analysis of the relation between conceptual and social processes.

The Status of Linguistic Facts: Rethinking the Relation between Cognition, Social Institution and Utterance from a Functional Point of View

In spite of contemporary theoretical disagreement on the nature of language, there is a widespread informal agreement about what linguistic facts are. This article argues that a functional approach to language can provide the foundation for an explicit account of what the informal consensus implies. The account bridges the ‘internalist’ and the ‘externalist’ views of language by understanding mental constructs such as those involved in human languages as aspects of a dynamic social equilibrium. As in evolutionary biology, processes of selection can work to stabilize certain features while others vary; and this process (in which ‘function’ plays a key role) is a necessary supplement to a purely mentalist account. This position is seen as a development of the position of Searle on social facts and Keller on language change.

Pragmatics, cognitive science and connectionism

Abstract The article looks at two types of computer simulation of mental process: the so-called ‘classical’, serial architecture based on discrete input categories and a compositional syntax and semantics, and the ‘neural network’ approach based on connections that determine input-output relations. After giving an outline of the main features of the two types of architecture, we discuss the claims made on their behalf, and try to sum up their strong and weak points as candidates for duplicating human processes of understanding. A key point in the argument is the discussion of the ‘recognition of intention’ aspect of human understanding, where we argue that computer simulation can only handle intentions in terms of plans that can be taken as fixed in advance, while human intentions can only be understood as based on an assumption of freedom of action, implying notions like responsibility and free will. Having suggested how different aspects of language understanding fit into this picture, we conclude that no matter how far computer simulation proceeds, the inherent discrepancy between the status we attribute to a human subject (as part of our basic pragmatic competence as fellow subjects) and the status we attribute to a computational process (as part of an inherently controllable human plan) makes it contradictory to assume that a full understanding can take place by simulation. The contradiction,however, is not theoretical: it emerges from the ground rules of human practice.

Grammatical and lexical pronoun dissociation in French speakers with agrammatic aphasia: A usage-based account and REF-based hypothesis

Abstract Background Pronouns have been shown to be impaired in agrammatic production but not all types of pronouns are equally affected. For instance, clitic pronouns are more impaired than non-clitic ones. A usage-based theory of grammatical status suggests a reclassification of pronouns into grammatical and lexical and predicts that grammatical pronouns are more impaired in agrammatic production. Besides, the reorganization of elementary functions (REF) model, which describes the underlying neurocognitive processes of post-injury recovery, explores the variability across individuals with agrammatism. Aims The current study hypothesizes that those pronouns that by the usage-based theory of grammatical status are grammatical are more affected than the lexical ones in agrammatic speech. In addition to this, the REF-model predicts that individuals with agrammatism will either build up unique strategies to cope with the deficit or they will rely more on fixed expressions. Method & Procedures : Spontaneous speech data collected from six French speaking individuals with agrammatism and nine non-injured controls in three different contexts (autobiography, narrative speech and descriptive speech) was used to test the hypothesis. We categorized 137 French pronouns into lexical and grammatical and calculated a grammatical pronoun index (GPI) for the groups and the individual speakers with agrammatism. We also conducted a qualitative analysis to look for adaptive strategies. Results Four individuals with agrammatism out of six produced significantly fewer grammatical pronouns than the non-injured group in the autobiography task. The two individuals with agrammatism who did not significantly differ from the control group were more fluent than the other four. The exclusion of pronouns containing fixed expressions did not result in drastic changes. The pronoun-verb analysis showed that there is no consistent connection between subject pronoun production and verb finiteness. Conclusions Grammatical pronoun production is indeed more severely impaired in agrammatic production. Moreover, the impairment pattern varies across individuals with agrammatism. Variability is observed both across participants with agrammatism and across tasks, which may indicate the use of unique adaptive strategies, as predicted by the REF-model.

Linguistic Meaning: Cognition, Interaction and the Real World

This article deals with the basic issues of the nature of linguistic meaning and the place of semantics in linguistic theory. First, there is a discussion of the implications for semantics of the research paradigm based on formal simulation, concluding that it involves a risk of misrepresenting the place of semantics in linguistics. Second, there is a discussion of the truth-conditional approach, which, although in one important respect it involves a more adequate conception of the role of semantics in language theory, is seen as misrepresenting linguistic meaning in a way that has been pointed out within the cognitive approach to semantics. Third, however, it is argued that the cognitive approach does not sufficiently account for the external anchoring of meaning. Fourth, it is argued that meaning ‘outside the head’ must be understood as basically interactive. A crucial element in the view argued here is the distinction between linguistic, potential meaning, which functions as instructions to the addressee, and actual meaning or ‘message’, which the addressee works out as part of the actual process of interpretation. Within such a picture, the importance of both cognition and truth can be accounted for, and both aspects are seen as dependent on the fundamental embeddedness of language in a shared social universe.

Planning and production of grammatical and lexical verbs in multi-word messages

Grammatical words represent the part of grammar that can be most directly contrasted with the lexicon. Aphasiological studies, linguistic theories and psycholinguistic studies suggest that their processing is operated at different stages in speech production. Models of sentence production propose that at the formulation stage, lexical words are processed at the functional level while grammatical words are processed at a later positional level. In this study we consider proposals made by linguistic theories and psycholinguistic models to derive two predictions for the processing of grammatical words compared to lexical words. First, based on the assumption that grammatical words are less crucial for communication and therefore paid less attention to, it is predicted that they show shorter articulation times and/or higher error rates than lexical words. Second, based on the assumption that grammatical words differ from lexical words in being dependent on a lexical host, it is hypothesized that the retrieval of a grammatical word has to be put on hold until its lexical host is available, and it is predicted that this is reflected in longer reaction times (RTs) for grammatical compared to lexical words. We investigated these predictions by comparing fully homonymous sentences with only a difference in verb status (grammatical vs. lexical) elicited by a specific context. We measured RTs, duration and accuracy rate. No difference in duration was observed. Longer RTs and a lower accuracy rate for grammatical words were reported, successfully reflecting grammatical word properties as defined by linguistic theories and psycholinguistic models. Importantly, this study provides insight into the span of encoding and grammatical encoding processes in speech production.

Substance(s) and the rise and imposition of structure(s)

Abstract The distinction between substance and structure is one of the centrepieces of European structuralism – and also part of the heritage of Danish functional linguistics. Although it may appear that usage based linguistics has made the distinction superfluous, this article argues that there can be no linguistics that does not recognize a role for structure. In order to preserve the valid point of the distinction between substance and structure in a functional-cognitive framework, however, a major reconstruction is required. The presuppositional relationship must be reversed (structure presupposes substance rather than the other way round), and substance in a linguistic context must be understood as function-based: language does not structure ‘the world’, but a universe of functional options (for communication). As a crucial prerequisite, this includes a shared universe of meaning, arising out of the evolution of joint attention and activity, cf. Tomasello (2008. Origins of Human Communication. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). However, the bottom-up approach to structure that is rightly viewed as basic in usage based linguistics needs to be supplemented with a recognition of the essential role of certain top-down aspects of language. Further, it is argued that it is necessary to distinguish between three different sets of structure and substances: both substances and structures differ depending on whether the object of description is a language as an aspect of community life (the system, or ‘langue’), language in the individual mind (‘competency’, with a –y), or language as usage. The three structures-and-substances need to be linked by equivalence relations in order for the whole setup to be viable – and such relations are what classic structuralism mistakenly saw as the ‘underlying structure’. One result of this reconstruction is that the dichotomy between usage and structure disappears: usage can remain usage and still be structured, although not in exactly the same way as the system or individual competencies. A new role for structure that is part of this picture is that systematic forms of variation become part of the language system, rather than excluded from it.

Inter)subjectification in a functional theory of grammaticalization

One may sometimes get the impression that (inter)subjectification is regarded as an aspect of grammaticalization, so that (roughly speaking) the more (inter)subjective an expression has become, the more grammaticalized it is. We propose that the two phenomena are better understood as clearly distinct. Grammaticalization in our view consists in a process whereby an expression becomes ancillary in relation to another expression (type), thereby at the same time creating a structural relation and a difference in prominence status. (Inter)subjectification, on the other hand, is purely a change in conventional semantic content. However, there is a particular type of diachronic process in which the two may go hand in hand. We try to give a precise account of what that type is and how it differs from other, related changes.

Performance, postmodernity and errors

Mainstream attitudes to language have shifted from a basically normative and prescriptive orientation to one that celebrates actual performance and variation. This article discusses where this leaves the issue of linguistic deviations (including shortcomings). The basic theoretical framework is evolutionary theory, extended to include cultural evolution. This makes it possible to consider (in a theoretically well-founded manner) a key factor that tends to be underestimated in relation to language: the role of selection pressures as a feature of the sociocultural environment. Based on examples from a reality show (Amalies verden), the article considers in what different ways utterances may be classed as deviant from the perspective of function-based structure and discusses to what extent the recognition of a community langue as a source of adaptive pressure may throw light on different types of deviation, including language handicaps and learner errors.

Shaping the interactive flow : Language as input, process and product

Abstract This article presents an argument for viewing language, including linguistic structure and linguistic meaning, as an ontological trinity of input, process and product properties — with special emphasis on the key role of the input phase. The tradition has focused on describing immutable ‘product’-type constructs, from Platonic ideas to underlying structures. Present-day revolts against the tradition have emphasized the role of process-dependent, fluctuating properties, from the late Wittgensteins language games to emergent grammar. However, an argument based on a dichotomy between stable products and unstable processes risks getting bogged down in a battle between two competing half-truths. In two ways, a focus on input-level properties offers a ‘missing link’ in the discussion: it can associate stable properties of language with ‘flow management’ (rather than product-level properties), and it can integrate the social and the cognitive dimensions of language under a shared perspective, with the speakers linguistic ‘coping abilities’ at the centre of attention.