back to the future

[Everett, Daniel]

There are several potential relations between language, culture, and cognition. Assuming (simplistically) merely dichotomies, here is one set of relationships and names associated with them (from Language: The Cultural Tool):

There are many more. The point to note is that all of these are right to one degree or another. And I have argued (as have many others) that the relationships between these is not supervenience but symbiosis, meaning that each contributes to the development of the other.

-- Dan



On Feb 26, 2013, at 7:29 PM, Randy John LaPolla (Prof) wrote:

There is also the chicken and egg aspect to the language-culture/cognition relationship: for a linguistic pattern to be repeated often enough for it to become fully conventionalized (at the societal level) and habitualized (at the individual level), it necessarily must initially be motivated by something in the cognition or culture of the speakers, otherwise they would not put the extra effort into constraining the addressee's inference of the speaker's communicative intention in that particular way. Once it is conventionalized/habitualized, then it often will persist for a time even if the situation changes and the motivation is no longer there. As much of a speaker's culture is learned through the language, then even if they are no longer motivated the particular patterns, and the associated cognitive categories, will be passed down through the generations.

Because of this, although it is good if we find direct correlations between language and culture/cognition, the emphasis on finding particular smoking guns sort of misguides the discussion.

Also, in relation to this article and studies using statistics and material implications generally, a material implication or a statistical correlation does not entail a causal relation.

Randy

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