Meaning, consciousness, and the onset of language

Peter Lang Publishing Group, 2016

A cognitive semiotic perspective on the nature and limitations of concepts andconceptual frameworks.

Mental content, also called meaning, is ostensibly organized in a layered architecture based on integration of material from lower to higher levels. Thus, qualia are integrated in objects, and these in situations, etc. However, I argue and show that there are significant transversal bindings connecting material of non-adjacent levels, and that these bindings constitute the structural entities we call signs, or semiotic functions. The finding of these bindings therefore grounds semiotics in cognition, and it allows cognitive studies to progress into the realm of cultural phenomena, communication, and the semiosis of language and thought. What I present in this article is a special version of the very base of the approach we now call cognitive semiotics.

Studia Semiotyczne, 2017

S U M M A RY : The paper discusses possible roles of consciousness in a semiotic (meaning-making) activity of a cognitive agent. The discussion, we claim, is based on two related approaches to consciousness: on Chalmers' theory of phenomenal and psychological consciousness and on Damasio's neural theory , which draws a distinction between core and extended consciousness. Two stages of cognitive-semiotic processing are discussed: the moment of perception of a sign as a meaningful entity and the metasemiotic processes understood as the human capacity to reflect on signs and their usage, analyse and control processes of recognition, interpretation of signs and to detect and correct errors in semiotic activity. In the case of the first stage, it is argued that signs as meaningful entities have a distincly experiential character. The feeling of meaningfulness is a result of phenomenal consciousness, in particular a result of the so-called valuation features of phenomenal experience. I claim that this aspect of cogni-tive-semiotic activity is possible owing to a special neural mechanism called a semiotic marker. It is argued that semiotic systems have to be able to use signs as signs, i.e. they should display some metacognitive capacities, in particular an ability to analyse semiosis at a metalevel. It is argued that such metasemiosis is dependent on psychological consciousness (in Chalmers' terms: awareness) and is realized at the neural level in the form of extended consciousness. The paper is based on a particular understanding of cognitive semiotics as a discipline involving analyses of cognitive processes as semiotic processes, i.e. processes requiring usage of signs.

Mind and Matter - Challenges and Opportunities in Cognitive Semiotics and Aesthetics, 2022

This chapter revises evolving theories on cognition in relation to semiotics, the transdisciplinary study and doctrine of sign systems, and meaning-making. Cognition entails very complex networks of biological processes and actions that encompass perception, attention, manipulation of objects, memory mechanisms, and the formation of knowledge by means of direct experience as well as by learning from others, for which forms of communication and comprehension are also necessary. In view of this complexity, many different disciplines are involved in the study of cognition. These include neuroscience, anthropology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, semiotics, linguistics, and more recently, computational intelligence, information processing, and neural networks used in machine learning, to name but a few. The chapter opens with an introduction to the field of cognitive semiotics and continues with a brief presentation of the interdisciplinary evolution of the 4Es. It also includes an in-depth discussion of Peircean semiotics in relation to the approaches known as wide cognition.

In this paper we intend to discuss, from different perspectives, the relationship between language and consciousness. The whole writing will be guided by a clear theoretical perspective, the perspective of Neural Darwinism. This guideline will emerge in a variety of considerations, both in the scientific evaluation of various deficiencies related to language and cognition in general, such as Williams Syndrome (SW) or deficits of the autistic spectrum, and in the logical and philosophical evaluation of some historical case such as Helen Keller, or person suffering from congenital insensitivity to pain. Our online guide will lead us to reduce language to its syntactic dimension, showing how the semantic dimension is not a feature of natural languages, but of consciousness, of which language is just one part among others. We want to show how the language is a system of keys to activate our multimodal memories and, therefore, remembrance is the origin of the cognitive dimension. We will support this theory taking into account the principles of neural Darwinism developed by Gerald M. Edelman (1978) and conclude the work with some philosophical and evolutionary considerations, claiming a historical and gradual evolution of language consequent to the final development of our vocal apparatus.

Studies in Logic, Grammar and Rhetoric, 2017

The main goal of the paper is to present a putative role of consciousness in language capacity. The paper contrasts the two approaches characteristic for cognitive semiotics and cognitive science. Language is treated as a mental phenomenon and a cognitive faculty (in contrast to approaches that define language as a primarily social phenomenon). The analysis of language activity is based on the Chalmers' (1996) distinction between the two forms of consciousness: phenomenal (simply " consciousness ") and psychological (" awareness "). The approach is seen as an alternative to phenomenological analyses typical for cognitive semiotics. Further, a cognitive model of the language faculty is described. The model is implemented in SNePS/GLAIR architecture and based on GATN grammar and semantic networks as a representation formalism. The model – reflecting traditionally distinguished linguistic structures (Jackendoff 2002: 198) – consists of phonological, syntactic, and semantic modules. I claim that the most important role in the phenomenon of language (and in explanations thereof) is played by psychological consciousness. Phenomenal consciousness accompanies various stages of language functioning (e.g. linguistic qualia), but is not indispensable in explanations of the language faculty.

Human language is a remarkable and complex system of communication that distinguishes us from other species on the planet. It serves as a tool for expressing our thoughts, sharing information, and creating social bonds. The study of language and its nature has fascinated linguists, philosophers, and researchers for centuries, leading to various theoretical frameworks and perspectives. One such perspective is the semiotic view, which explores language as a semiotic system of signs and symbols. The semiotic approach to understanding language emphasizes the relationship between signs, meanings, and their interpretation. Developed by scholars such as Ferdinand de Saussure and Charles Peirce, semiotics provides a framework to analyze human language's structure, function, and characteristics. In this context, this paper aims to explore the nature of human language and its key characteristics from a semiotic perspective using a real-life scenario where we explain how a message is conveyed through signals and channels. Additionally, we examine the nature of human language, referring to the definition Bloch and Trager gave in 1942. Finally, we conclude by asserting that all human languages are equally important and necessary, with no one language being superior in structure, history, or biology.

BioSystems , 2019

Exploring continuity from organic codes and natural signals to cultural sign and symbol systems, this paper is undergirded conceptually by a semiotic tree depicting an ascending hierarchy of semiotic forms. Originating in underground roots from a medley of organic codes, the human use of codified meanings surfaces in the trunk, (in Latin Caudex or Codex), our simplest semiotic instrument. Ascending branches represent natural and man-made signals, and indicative and denotive signs, rising to more complex fully symbolic abstract forms in various sign systems. Each level corresponds to a different mental organization, determining the quality and nature of subjective experience and knowledge, epistemology and information being closely tied to semiotic and semantic factors. The psychoanalytic method focuses on unconscious phenomena descending interpretively below the limen of linguistic consciousness generating a semantic field that exposes multiple levels and kinds of meanings. This positions us optimally to observe different semiotic organizations, a multi-coded spectrum of human enacted and mediated meanings that is best systemized along developmental lines (Aragno 1997/2016). Freud's decoding the grammar of dreams enables the linguistic interpretation of condensed and displaced pictographic representations of a deeply unconscious 'Primary Process' semantic bridging biological and psychological processes that are ongoing throughout life. A multilayered model of mind reframes theoretical understanding around epigenetic and morphological principles that are applicable to phylogenetic and ontogenetic development. From this revised meta-theoretical base, this paper illustrates how language absorbs and often serves deep unconscious functions, as well as, conversely, elevating abstract cognition and conscious articulation, presenting examples that are specific to a dialogue designated as the " talking cure. " A bio-semiotic multiple-code model of mind is based on progressive stages in the development of Symbolization, a cerebral faculty unique to our species, distinguishing us from all other animals, without which we could neither speak nor conceive of " Mind " at all. Conscious 'Mind' emerges through a signifying act, assigning a name to a 'person' or 'thing' that can be represented within, in its absence: This simple concept has far reaching cognitive/psychological consequences impacting on all organizations of experience and knowledge.

Like M. Jordan, who discovered in his old age that he had always been talking prose, I realized a few years ago that I have been doing cognitive semiotics my whole life. In my 1978 dissertation I argued for an «integral linguistics», meaning both that linguistic theory should be conceived within a wider semiotic framework, and that we should abandon the «autonomy postulate», according to which theoretical models must be independent of empirical findings, which dominated both linguistics and semiotics at the time. When you build theory with the help of a phenomenological method, there is a much shorter distance between theory and experience, because phenomenology is empirical attention to consciousness. Much later I became acquainted with Paul Bouissac's description of semiotics as «meta-analysis», which «consists in reading through a large number of specialised scientific publications/…/ in one or several domains of inquiry, and of relating the partial results within a more encompassing model». Cognitive science is for the most part also a kind of meta-analysis. Nevertheless, semiotics has interest in adopting the practice of cognitive science that consists in submitting its own questions to empirical study. The essential difference between cognitive science and semiotics, however, resides elsewhere, in the point of view taken in the construction of the encompassing model. In semiotics, the point of view that determines the construction of the model is meaning in the widest sense of the term. In cognitive science it is cognition, but in a sense itself redefined by the approach, first, during the reign of the computer metaphor, as everything in the mind which may be simulated on a computer, and then, with the later brain model, as everything which can be detected as occurring in the brain. Semiotics, on the other hand, has generated its own reductionist models from within, most notoriously those of Saussure and Peirce. To avoid reductionism, it will be argued, Husserlean phenomenology, rather than the Peircean brand, is a more suitable method to employ in the study of meaning.

Caucasus Journal of Social Sciences, 2023

The article delves into the intricate domain of experimental research about linguistic consciousness dynamics. The exploration of linguistic consciousness dynamics encompasses a multifaceted examination that includes the analysis of how social, cultural, and psychological factors contribute to the formation of linguistic consciousness, the delineation of the developmental patterns it follows, the methodological principles that underpin its analysis, and the utilization of experimental techniques for its thorough investigation. The emergence of consciousness as a precise regulator of human behaviour is rooted in a complex interplay of inherent and acquired elements, all of which materialize during socialization. It is imperative to acknowledge that knowledge does not arise from unmediated perception; instead, perception is structured by cognitive models and schemas. Within the purview of the article, we underscore the efficacy of employing experimental methodologies, specifically those drawn from the realm of psycholinguistics, as a potent avenue for determining the precise position of specific concepts and the semantics of particular words within the intricate hierarchy of meanings and thoughts held by native speakers. The empirical data derived from experimental inquiries into the dynamics of linguistic consciousness serves as compelling affirmation for the existence of systematicity within this cognitive realm. Crucially, this systematicity does not represent an immutable trait etched indelibly into individuals; instead, it emerges due to their progressively deepening comprehension of the tangible world and the accrual of a more extensive spectrum of social experiences.