fMR-adaptation and the bilingual brain

fMR-Adaptation, where a pair of identical stimuli elicits a smaller neural response than a pair of dissimilar stimuli has been extensively used to study object identification and classification as well as memory. Thus far this technique has found limited application in evaluating brain areas sensitive to meaning, language and control of language production. These studies are reviewed together with suggestions as to how varying inter-stimulus repetition lag, dimension of interest and evaluating inter-individual differences may shed new light on how different languages are acquired and represented in the brain.     

Sound to meaning correspondences facilitate word learning

A fundamental assumption regarding spoken language is that the relationship between sound and meaning is essentially arbitrary. The present investigation questioned this arbitrariness assumption by examining the influence of potential non-arbitrary mappings between sound and meaning on word learning in adults. Native English-speaking monolinguals learned meanings for Japanese words in a vocabulary-learning task. Spoken Japanese words were paired with English meanings that: (1) matched the actual meaning of the Japanese word (e.g., “hayai” paired with fast); (2) were antonyms for the actual meaning (e.g., “hayai” paired with slow); or (3) were randomly selected from the set of antonyms (e.g., “hayai” paired with blunt). The results showed that participants learned the actual English equivalents and antonyms for Japanese words more accurately and responded faster than when learning randomly paired meanings. These findings suggest that natural languages contain non-arbitrary links between sound structure and meaning and further, that learners are sensitive to these non-arbitrary relationships within spoken language.     

Meaning for Radical Contextualists: Travis and Gadamer on Why Words Matter

Charles Travis and Hans‐Georg Gadamer both affirm radical contextualism, the view that natural language is ineliminably context‐sensitive. However, they offer different accounts of the role linguistic meaning plays in determining the contents of utterances. I discuss the differences between Travis's and Gadamer's views of meaning and offer an argument in favour of the latter. I argue that Travis's view assumes a principled distinction between literal and figurative speech that is at odds with his wider contextualist commitments. By contrast, Gadamer's view, on which meaning is ‘fundamentally metaphorical,’ makes no such assumption and thus avoids the difficulty.     

The development of idiom comprehension: an investigation of semantic and contextual processing skills

Two experiments compared 7- and 8-year-olds' and 9- and 10-year-olds' ability to use semantic analysis and inference from context to understand idioms. We used a multiple-choice task and manipulated whether the idioms were transparent or opaque, familiar or novel, and presented with or without a supportive story context. Performance was compared with that of adults (Experiment 1) and 11- and 12-year-olds (Experiment 2). The results broadly support Cacciari and Levorato's global elaboration model of figurative competence with a notable exception: Even the youngest children were able to use semantic analysis to derive the meanings of transparent idioms as well as being sensitive to meaning in context. The findings show that young children process language at both the small-grain phrase level and the discourse level to establish figurative meaning, and they demonstrate that the language processing skills that aid idiom comprehension, as well as idiom knowledge itself, are still not fully developed in 11- and 12-year-olds.     

论意义理论中的两条路线

意义理论在上世纪后期曾经是哲学讨论的一个核心领域,并成为语言学、逻辑学、认知科学和心理学的交叉研究领域;但它是一个非常复杂而又混乱的研究领域。D.刘易斯在谈到意义理论时指出:我区分两个主题。首先,可以把可能的语言和语法描述成一种抽象的语义系统,藉此我们把语言中的符号与我们周遭的世界关联起来。其次,通过心理学和语言学事实的描述,任何抽象的语义系统都     

Right or Wrong? The Brain's Fast Response to Morally Objectionable Statements

ABSTRACT— How does the brain respond to statements that clash with a person's value system? We recorded event-related brain potentials while respondents from contrasting political-ethical backgrounds completed an attitude survey on drugs, medical ethics, social conduct, and other issues. Our results show that value-based disagreement is unlocked by language extremely rapidly, within 200 to 250 ms after the first word that indicates a clash with the reader's value system (e.g., "I think euthanasia is an acceptable/unacceptable…"). Furthermore, strong disagreement rapidly influences the ongoing analysis of meaning, which indicates that even very early processes in language comprehension are sensitive to a person's value system. Our results testify to rapid reciprocal links between neural systems for language and for valuation.     

The Specificity of Sound Symbolic Correspondences in Spoken Language

Although language has long been regarded as a primarily arbitrary system, sound symbolism, or non‐arbitrary correspondences between the sound of a word and its meaning, also exists in natural language. Previous research suggests that listeners are sensitive to sound symbolism. However, little is known about the specificity of these mappings. This study investigated whether sound symbolic properties correspond to specific meanings, or whether these properties generalize across semantic dimensions. In three experiments, native English‐speaking adults heard sound symbolic foreign words for dimensional adjective pairs (big/small, round/pointy, fast/slow, moving/still) and for each foreign word, selected a translation among English antonyms that either matched or mismatched with the correct meaning dimension. Listeners agreed more reliably on the English translation for matched relative to mismatched dimensions, though reliable cross‐dimensional mappings did occur. These findings suggest that although sound symbolic properties generalize to meanings that may share overlapping semantic features, sound symbolic mappings offer semantic specificity.     

Exploring the cognitive basis of right-hemisphere pragmatic language disorders

Despite considerable interest in the linguistic dimensions of right-hemisphere (RH) pragmatic language disorders, the cognitive bases for these are rarely examined. This study investigated two alternative explanations. First, RH pragmatic language disorders may reflect failure of the RH to synthesise incoming and preexisting information, verbal and visuospatial. In this case language and visuospatial performance should covary. Alternatively such disorders may reflect damage to executive control of all cognitive processing secondary to frontal system failure. In this case language and executive function would be associated. Further, in the former case, subjects should be insensitive to the plausibility of information, whereas in the latter they would be fixated by the literal meaning of information and therefore highly sensitive to plausibility. Eighteen patients with RH damage were compared to 20 matched controls on a range of language and neuropsychological tasks. Pragmatic performance was generally correlated to RH (visuospatial) function, not to executive function. Nonetheless RH patients were found to have problems ignoring plausibility. Thus the specific RH hypothesis described needs to be reconsidered.     

Seeing a phrase "time and again" matters: the role of phrasal frequency in the processing of multiword sequences

Are speakers sensitive to the frequency with which phrases occur in language? The authors report an eye-tracking study that investigates this by examining the processing of multiword sequences that differ in phrasal frequency by native and proficient nonnative English speakers. Participants read sentences containing 3-word binomial phrases (bride and groom) and their reversed forms (groom and bride), which are identical in syntax and meaning but that differ in phrasal frequency. Mixed-effects modeling revealed that native speakers and nonnative speakers, across a range of proficiencies, are sensitive to the frequency with which phrases occur in English. Results also indicate that native speakers and higher proficiency nonnatives are sensitive to whether a phrase occurs in a particular configuration (binomial vs. reversed) in English, highlighting the contribution of entrenchment of a particular phrase in memory.     

Language and meaning in RET

The same verbal labels can have different semantic meaning. RET often assigns idiosyncratic meaning to commonplace words and misunderstandings between therapists and clients may result. In this article the issue of language and meaning in RET is discussed with special reference to feeling words, rational and irrational concepts, and the language of change. Some therapeutic strategies are suggested to help therapists develop shared meaning frameworks with their clients.     

A reason to rhyme: phonological and semantic influences on lexical access

During on-line language production, speakers rapidly select a sequence of words to express their desired meaning. The current study examines whether this lexical selection is also dependent on the existing activation of surface properties of the words. Such surface properties clearly matter in various forms of wordplay, including poetry and musical lyrics. The experiments in this article explore whether language processing more generally is sensitive to these properties. Two experiments examined the interaction between phonological and semantic features for written and verbal productions. In Experiment 1, participants were given printed sentences with a missing word, and were asked to generate reasonable completions. The completions reflected both the semantic and the surface features of the preceding context. In Experiment 2, listeners heard sentence contexts, and were asked to rapidly produce a word to complete the utterance. These spontaneous completions again incorporated surface features activated by the context. The results suggest that lexical access in naturalistic language processing is influenced by an interaction between the surface and semantic features of language.     

The identification of metaphor

A number of philosophers, linguists and psychologists have made the dual claim that metaphor is cognitively significant and that metaphorical utterances have a meaning not reducible to literal paraphrase. Such a position requires support from an account of metaphorical meaning that can render metaphors cognitively meaningful without the reduction to literal statement. It therefore requires a theory of meaning that can integrate metaphor within its sematics, yet specify why it is not reducible to literal paraphrase. I introduce the idea of a “second-order meaning”, of which metaphor is but one instance, that is a function on literal-conventional, i.e., first-order meaning, and outline a linguistic framework designed to provide a representation of linguistic meaning for both. This framework is designed to represent linguistic units ranging from a single word to an entire text since I argue that the by-now familiar position that the sentence is the appropriate unit for metaphor has mislead us into asking the wrong questions about metaphorical meaning. With this apparatus, we can specify the conditions under which an utterance may transcend the constraints on first-order meaning (transgressions not always apparent on the sentential level), without thereby being “meaningless”. Conversely, we can specify the conditions that may render apparently odd utterances first-order meaningful rather than metaphorical. In this way we see how metaphorical language differs both from deviant language and from specialized language such as technical language, fanciful and fantastical language (in fairy tales, science fiction, etc.).     

Language, meaning, and social cognition.

Social cognition is meant to examine the process of meaningful social interaction. Despite the central involvement of language in this process, language has not received the focal attention that it deserves. Conceptualizing meaningful social interaction as the process of construction and exchange of meaning, the authors argue that language can be productively construed as a semiotic tool, a tool for meaning making and exchange, and that language use can produce unintended consequences in its users. First, the article shows a particular instance of language use to be a collaborative process that influences the representation of meaning in the speaker, the listener, and the collective that includes both the speaker and listener. It then argues that language use and social cognition may have reciprocal effects in the long run and may have significant implications for generating and maintaining cultural differences in social cognition.     

A logic for epistemic two-dimensional semantics

Epistemic two-dimensional semantics is a theory in the philosophy of language that provides an account of meaning which is sensitive to the distinction between necessity and apriority. While this theory is usually presented in an informal manner, I take some steps in formalizing it in this paper. To do so, I define a semantics for a propositional modal logic with operators for the modalities of necessity, actuality, and apriority that captures the relevant ideas of epistemic two-dimensional semantics. I also describe some properties of the logic that are interesting from a philosophical perspective, and apply it to the so-called nesting problem.     

Age, working memory, and on-line syntactic processing in sentence comprehension

One hundred twenty-seven individuals who ranged in age from 18 to 90 years were tested on a reading span test and on measures of on-line and off-line sentence processing efficiency. Older participants had reduced working-memory spans compared with younger participants. The on-line measures were sensitive to local increases in processing load, and the off-line measures were sensitive to the syntactic complexity of the sentences. Older and younger participants showed similar effects of syntactic complexity on the on-line measures. There was some evidence that older participants were more affected than younger participants by syntactic complexity on the off-line measures. The results support the hypothesis that on-line processes involved in recognizing linguistic forms and determining the literal, preferred, discourse-coherent meaning of sentences constitute a domain of language processing that relies on its own processing resource or working-memory system.     

The Problem of Religious Language ‘Look at it this way’ (Wittgenstein)*

This essay is critical of some of the attempts made to solve problems of meaning in religious languages, but remains open-minded about them and accepts the Wittgensteinian invitation to look at their dissolution by way of the experiences of meaning and the aspects of language on which they rely. I have argued that there were and are no lasting problems with religious language per se and that the force and meaning of what is said in using religious language over time and circumstance may vary even to the point of having to retrieve concepts feared lost. We may in addition give ourselves our own personal interpretations by which we want to live and discuss with those in our space of reasons where good conversation is ever an inexhaustible provision on the way to enlightened understanding. Furthermore, we are not merely passive recipients of the meanings and significance of the languages we know. Finally, much of the meaning of religious language comes with the experience of being struck again by what has always been loved and by new aspects of, or different ways of taking, what is presented.     

Language Learning in Wittgenstein and Davidson

In this paper, I discuss language learning in Wittgenstein and Davidson. Starting from a remark by Bakhurst, I hold that both Wittgenstein and Davidson’s philosophies of language contain responses to the problem of language learning, albeit of a different form. Following Williams, I hold that the concept of language learning can explain Wittgenstein’s approach to the normativity of meaning in the Philosophical Investigations. Turning to Davidson, I hold that language learning can, equally, explain Davidson’s theory of triangulation. I sketch an account of triangulation as Davidson’s response to the problem of the normativity of meaning and explain the role that language learning plays in this account.     

语境、意向与意义——兼评塞尔的意向性意义理论

塞尔在其前期理论把语言的意义归之于言语行为,特别是交流意向,但在其后期理论则把意义归结为表征意向,而交流意向派生于表征意向,甚至割断了意义和交流之间的联系。笔者通过引入语境因素和指称意向的概念,澄清了语境、意向和意义之间的关系,使塞尔具有私人性的表征意向和交流意向具有一定的公共性,以此扭转塞尔理论中的心理主义趋向,回归到弗雷格的反心理主义的语义学进路。     

Deflationism And The Truth Conditional Theory of Meaning

Controversy has arisen of late over the claim that deflationism about truth requires that we explain meaning in terms of something other than truth-conditions. This controversy, it is argued, is due to unclarity as to whether the basic deflationary claim that a sentence and a sentence that attributes truth to it are equivalent in meaning is intended to involve the truth-predicate of the object language for which we develop an account of meaning, or is intended to involve the truth-predicate of the metalanguage in which we develop an account of meaning. The former view is compatible with the truth-conditional theory of meaning for the object language, the latter is incompatible with it. However, the former view is also trivially true; hence we should endorse the claim that any form of deflationism worth being interested in is incompatible with understanding meaning truth-conditionally.     

Life Meaning and Sign Meaning

Abstract

Philosophers once dismissed questions about meaning in life as conceptually confused. Only language and related phenomena, it was thought, can have meaning; thus, to ask about the meaning of life is to misapply the concept. Recent work by Susan Wolf, Thaddeus Metz, Aaron Smuts, and others has brought new attention and respectability to the topic. However, while talk of life meaning is no longer considered nonsense, most theorists continue to assume that such talk has nothing to do with meaning in the ‘sign’ sense that applies to language. In this paper I argue that this assumption is not well justified and that reflection on the example of Sherlock Holmes's life can help us to see why.