Language, Consciousness, Culture: Essays on Mental StructureMIT Press, 2009 M01 23 - 432 pages An integrative approach to human cognition that encompasses the domains of language, consciousness, action, social cognition, and theory of mind that will foster cross-disciplinary conversation among linguists, philosophers, psycholinguists, neuroscientists, cognitive anthropologists, and evolutionary psychologists. Ray Jackendoff's Language, Consciousness, Culture represents a breakthrough in developing an integrated theory of human cognition. It will be of interest to a broad spectrum of cognitive scientists, including linguists, philosophers, psycholinguists, neuroscientists, cognitive anthropologists, and evolutionary psychologists. Jackendoff argues that linguistics has become isolated from the other cognitive sciences at least partly because of the syntax-based architecture assumed by mainstream generative grammar. He proposes an alternative parallel architecture for the language faculty that permits a greater internal integration of the components of language and connects far more naturally to such larger issues in cognitive neuroscience as language processing, the connection of language to vision, and the evolution of language. Extending this approach beyond the language capacity, Jackendoff proposes sharper criteria for a satisfactory theory of consciousness, examines the structure of complex everyday actions, and investigates the concepts involved in an individual's grasp of society and culture. Each of these domains is used to reflect back on the question of what is unique about human language and what follows from more general properties of the mind. Language, Consciousness, Culture extends Jackendoff's pioneering theory of conceptual semantics to two of the most important domains of human thought: social cognition and theory of mind. Jackendoff's formal framework allows him to draw new connections among a large variety of literatures and to uncover new distinctions and generalizations not previously recognized. The breadth of the approach will foster cross-disciplinary conversation; the vision is to develop a richer understanding of human nature. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 88
... sense ''objective,'' but see is ''subjective'' and takes into account theory of mind. In addition, it shows how this semantic analysis reflects on the general problem of linking the semantic arguments of verbs to syntactic positions ...
... sense. This goes against the grain of much influential philosophy of cognitive science (e.g. Searle 1980; Fodor 1987).1 The reader is free to understand such rejection in either of two ways. The weaker stance is methodological: even if ...
... sense, or alternatively as a visual percept or visual image). Here the subscripts connect the parts of the visual figure to their corresponding elements in semantic/conceptual structure. The dashed oval in spatial structure corresponds ...
... sense), in conceptual structure, in certain aspects of musical structures (Lerdahl and Jackendo¤ 1983; Jackendo¤ 1987, 249–251), and, as I will argue in chapter 4, in the structure of complex action. 1.5.2 Processing A theory of ...
... sense of Baddeley 1986, for instance. I gather my sense is not universally accepted. Readers should feel free to substitute their own favorite term for the functional capacity that builds sentence structures (other than ''central ...