Language: Between cognition, communication and culture
Anne Reboul | Laboratory on Language, the Brain and Cognition, CNRS, Lyon
Everett’s main claim is that language is a “cultural tool”, created by hominids for communication and social cohesion. I examine the meaning of the expression “cultural tool” in terms of the influence of language on culture (i.e. the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis) or of the influence of culture on language (Everett’s hypothesis). I show that these hypotheses are not well-supported by evidence and that language and languages, rather than being “cultural tools” as wholes are rather collections of tools used in different language games, some cultural or social, some cognitive. I conclude that the coincidence between language and culture is due to the fact that both originate from human nature.
2016. An Evaluation of Universal Grammar and the Phonological Mind1. Frontiers in Psychology 7
Horák, Miroslav, Michal Uhrin & Ana Paula Amaral
2023. Status of the Current Scientific Knowledge on Pirahã. Anthropologia integra 14:2 ► pp. 25 ff.
Martins, Mauricio Dias, Bruno Gingras, Estela Puig-Waldmueller & W. Tecumseh Fitch
2017. Cognitive representation of “musical fractals”: Processing hierarchy and recursion in the auditory domain. Cognition 161 ► pp. 31 ff.
Martins, Maurício de Jesus Dias, Zarja Muršič, Jinook Oh & W. Tecumseh Fitch
2015. Representing visual recursion does not require verbal or motor resources. Cognitive Psychology 77 ► pp. 20 ff.
Martins, Maurício Dias, Sabine Laaha, Eva Maria Freiberger, Soonja Choi & W. Tecumseh Fitch
2014. How children perceive fractals: Hierarchical self-similarity and cognitive development. Cognition 133:1 ► pp. 10 ff.
Reboul, Anne
2017. A Pragmatic and Philosophical Examination of Everett’s Claims About Pirahã. In Formal Models in the Study of Language, ► pp. 83 ff.
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