A Future of Words: Language and the Challenge of Abstract Concepts.
A Future of Words: Language and the Challenge of Abstract Concepts.
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DOI：
10.5334/joc.134
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发表时间：
2020-10-23
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Borghi AM
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Borghi AM
本文概述了具体化和扎根理论需要面对的最重要的挑战之一，即解释抽象概念(抽象性)是如何获得、表现和使用的。我阐述了这样一种观点，即抽象概念不仅植根于感觉运动经验，就像具体概念一样，而且在更大程度上也植根于语言、社会和内心经验。具体地说，我讨论了元认知、内心言语、社会元认知和内感所起的作用。我还提出了证据，表明语言、社会和内心经验的权重取决于所考虑的抽象概念的子类别(例如，精神状态和精神概念、数字、情感、社会概念)。我认为，解释抽象概念表征的挑战意味着认识到：a.作为内在和社交工具的语言在塑造我们的思维方面的作用；b.不同语言之间差异的重要性；c.不同类型抽象概念的存在；d.采用新的范式的必要性，能够捕捉到在语境和互动情景中抽象概念的使用。应对这一挑战应采取综合方法，将发展研究、人类学研究和神经科学研究结合起来。这种方法扩展了具体化和扎根的观点，结合了分布统计的见解，语用学和符号学的意义观点。
The paper outlines one of the most important challenges that embodied and grounded theories need to face, i.e., that to explain how abstract concepts (abstractness) are acquired, represented, and used. I illustrate the view according to which abstract concepts are grounded not only in sensorimotor experiences, like concrete concepts, but also and to a greater extent in linguistic, social, and inner experiences. Specifically, I discuss the role played by metacognition, inner speech, social metacognition, and interoception. I also present evidence showing that the weight of linguistic, social, and inner experiences varies depending on the considered sub-kind of abstract concepts (e.g., mental states and spiritual concepts, numbers, emotions, social concepts). I argue that the challenge to explain abstract concepts representation implies the recognition of: a. the role of language, intended as inner and social tool, in shaping our mind; b. the importance of differences across languages; c. the existence of different kinds of abstract concepts; d. the necessity to adopt new paradigms, able to capture the use of abstract concepts in context and interactive situations. This challenge should be addressed with an integrated approach that bridges developmental, anthropological, and neuroscientific studies. This approach extends embodied and grounded views incorporating insights from distributional statistics views of meaning, from pragmatics and semiotics.