Narrative Persuasion. A Cognitive Perspective on Language Evolution PDF Download

Author: Francesco Ferretti
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031092066
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 149

View

Book Description
This book explores the evolutionary and cognitive foundations of human communication, focusing on narrative as its distinctive dimension. Within a framework of continuity with both the communication of our hominin predecessors and that of non-human animals, the book is about a twofold proposal. It includes the idea that (human and animal) communication has an intrinsically persuasive nature along with the hypothesis that humans developed narrative forms of communication in order to enhance their persuasive abilities. In this view, narrative persuasion becomes the feature that distinguishes human communication from animal communication. The study of the transition from animal communication to language addresses both the selective pressures that led communication for persuasive purposes to take a narrative form and the cognitive architectures and expressive systems that enabled our ancestors to cope with the selective pressures of persuasive/narrative-based communication. Language evolution is interdisciplinary, even from the specific perspective of evolutionary pragmatics chosen here. Therefore, this book is intended for researchers working in fields such as cognitive sciences, philosophy, evolutionary biology, cognitive psychology, and primatology. It also represents a valuable resource for advanced students in cognitive sciences, linguistics, and philosophy.

Author: Ines Adornetti
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040153313
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 145

View

Book Description
This collection highlights a range of perspectives on the emerging body of research on evolutionary pragmatics, expanding the borders of language evolution research and indicating exciting new directions for the future of the field. The volume adopts a broad view of pragmatics, providing a counterpoint to classical models of language evolution by exploring the ways in which the origins of language can be traced through the emergence of language structures from use in context. The book synthesizes different lines of inquiry, ranging from evolutionary linguistics to cognitive linguistics, philosophy, and cognitive pragmatics, among other fields, which foreground the impact of the environment on language and of language, through speaker use, on context. The volume is organized around three sections, each taking in turn a different dimension of evolutionary pragmatics research; the origins of language as seen in animal communication; a closer look at the use of language in interaction for the formation of communication channel and linguistic meaning; the role of cooperation and competition dynamics for the emergence of language structure. This book will be of particular interest to scholars in evolutionary linguistics, language origins, cognitive pragmatics, cognitive archaeology, and cognitive semiotics, as well as related areas in philosophy, psychology, and anthropology.

Author: Nathalie Gontier
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192543512
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 1185

View

Book Description
The biological and neurological capacity to symbolize, and the products of behavioral, cognitive, sociocultural, linguistic, and technological uses of symbols (symbolism), are fundamental to every aspect of human life. The Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution explores the origins of our characteristically human abilities - our ability to speak, create images, play music, and read and write. The book investigates how symbolization evolved in human evolution and how symbolism is expressed across the various areas of human life. The field is intrinsically interdisciplinary - considering findings from fossil studies, scientific research from primatology, developmental psychology, and of course linguistics. Written by world leading experts, thirty-eight topical chapters are grouped into six thematic parts that respectively focus on epistemological, psychological, anthropological, ethological, linguistic, and social-technological aspects of human symbolic evolution. The handbook presents an in-depth but comprehensive and interdisciplinary overview of the of the state of the art in the science of human symbolic evolution. This work will be of interest to academics and students active in all fields contributing to the study of human evolution.

Author: Przemysław Żywiczyński
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027247242
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 252

View

Book Description
Pantomime is a unique form of communication, which we improvise “on the fly” to transmit information when unable to use language, for example during intercultural contacts or when the use of language is blocked or constrained, as in the case of some medical conditions or the game of charades. Pantomimic communication has been investigated from a number of perspectives, including neuropsychological, developmental and gesture research. Recently, pantomime has come under the attention of evolutionary linguistics as a strong candidate for a precursor of verbal communication. The volume Perspectives on pantomime: evolution, development, interaction brings together authors who are at the forefront of these studies, which challenge the notion that pantomime is merely a fallback mode of expression. This multidisciplinary journey traverses language evolution, cognitive science, cognitive semiotics, sign language linguistics, psychology and gesture studies to unveil the profound role that pantomime plays in human communication.

Author: Yair Lior
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000638413
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 756

View

Book Description
The past two decades have seen a growing interest in evolutionary and scientific approaches to religion. The Routledge Handbook of Evolutionary Approaches to Religion is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting and emerging field. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors the handbook pulls together scholarship in the following areas: evolutionary psychology and the cognitive science of religion (CSR) cultural evolution the complementarity of evolutionary psychology, cognitive science and cultural evolution Within these sections central issues, debates and problems are examined, including: Cliodynamics, cultural group selection, costly signaling, dual inheritance theory, literacy, transmitting narratives, prosociality, supernatural punishment, cognition and ritual, meme theory, fusion theory, sexual selection, agency detection, evoked culture, social brain hypothesis, theory of mind, developmental psychology, emergence theory, social learning, cultural cybernetics, cultural epidemiology, evolutionary and cultural psychology, memetics, by-product and adaptationist theories of religion, systems and information theory, and computer modeling. This Handbook is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies and anthropology. It will also be very useful to those in related fields, such as psychology, sociology of religion, cognitive biology, and evolutionary biology.

Author: Steven Mithen
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 154160539X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 336

View

Book Description
A top scholar reveals the most complete picture to date of how early human speech led to the languages we use today The emergence of language began with the apelike calls of our earliest ancestors. Today, the world is home to thousands of complex languages. Yet exactly how, when, and why this evolution occurred has been one of the most enduring—and contentiously debated—questions in science. In The Language Puzzle, renowned archaeologist Steven Mithen puts forward a groundbreaking new account of the origins of language. Scientists have gained new insights into the first humans of 2.8 million years ago, and how numerous species flourished but only one, Homo sapiens, survives today. Drawing from this work and synthesizing research across archaeology, psychology, linguistics, genetics, neuroscience, and more, Mithen details a step-by-step explanation of how our human ancestors transitioned from apelike calls to words, and from words to language as we use it today. He explores how language shaped our cognition and vice versa; how metaphor advanced Homo sapiens’ ability to formulate abstract concepts, develop agriculture, and—ultimately—shape the world. The result is a master narrative that builds bridges between disciplines, stuns with its breadth and depth, and spans millennia of societal development. Deeply researched and brilliantly told, The Language Puzzle marks a seminal understanding of the evolution of language.

Author: Noel Scott
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1802625798
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 425

View

Book Description
Compiled from 10 years of research, with chapters contributed by experts in the field, we demonstrate how tourism will benefit from applying a new paradigm found in mainstream psychology, termed here the ‘Cognitive Wave’.

Author: Mark J. Bruhn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317936868
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 284

View

Book Description
Cognition, Literature, and History models the ways in which cognitive and literary studies may collaborate and thereby mutually advance. It shows how understanding of underlying structures of mind can productively inform literary analysis and historical inquiry, and how formal and historical analysis of distinctive literary works can reciprocally enrich our understanding of those underlying structures. Applying the cognitive neuroscience of categorization, emotion, figurative thinking, narrativity, self-awareness, theory of mind, and wayfinding to the study of literary works and genres from diverse historical periods and cultures, the authors argue that literary experience proceeds from, qualitatively heightens, and selectively informs and even reforms our evolved and embodied capacities for thought and feeling. This volume investigates and locates the complex intersections of cognition, literature, and history in order to advance interdisciplinary discussion and research in poetics, literary history, and cognitive science.

Author: Judith F. Duchan
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1136482180
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 523

View

Book Description
This volume describes the theoretical and empirical results of a seven year collaborative effort of cognitive scientists to develop a computational model for narrative understanding. Disciplines represented include artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, communicative disorders, education, English, geography, linguistics, and philosophy. The book argues for an organized representational system -- a Deictic Center (DC) -- which is constructed by readers from language in a text combined with their world knowledge. As readers approach a new text they need to gather and maintain information about who the participants are and where and when the events take place. This information plays a central role in understanding the narrative. The editors claim that readers maintain this information without explicit textual reminders by including it in their mental model of the story world. Because of the centrality of the temporal, spatial, and character information in narratives, they developed their notion of a DC as a crucial part of the reader's mental model of the narrative. The events that carry the temporal and spatial core of the narrative are linguistically and conceptually constrained according to certain principles that can be relatively well defined. A narrative obviously unfolds one word, or one sentence, at a time. This volume suggests that cognitively a narrative usually unfolds one place and time at a time. This spatio-temporal location functions as part of the DC of the narrative. It is the "here" and "now" of the reader's "mind's eye" in the world of the story. Organized into seven parts, this book describes the goal of the cognitive science project resulting in this volume, the methodological approaches taken, and the history of the collaborative effort. It provides a historical and theoretical background underlying the DC theory, including discussions of deixis in language and the nature of fiction. It goes on to outline the computational framework and how it is used to represent deixis in narrative, and details the linguistic devices implicated in the DC theory. Other subjects covered include: crosslinguistic indicators of subjectivity, psychological investigations of the use of deixis by children and adults as they process narratives, conversation, direction giving, implications for emerging literacy, and a narrator's experience in writing a short story.

Author: Frank Hakemulder
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027265135
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 331

View

Book Description
Narrative Absorption brings together research from the social sciences and Humanities to solve a number of mysteries: Most of us will have had those moments, of being totally absorbed in a book, a movie, or computer game. Typically we do not have any idea about how we ended up in such a state. Nor do we fully realize how we might have changed as we return for the fictional worlds we have visited. The feeling of being absorbed is one of the most illusive and transient feelings, but also one that motivates audiences to spend considerable amounts of time in narrative worlds, and one that is central to our understanding of the effects of narratives on beliefs and behavior. Key specialists inform the reader of this book about the nature of the peculiar state of consciousness during episodes of absorption, the perception of absorption in history, the role of absorption in meaningful experiences with narratives, the relation with related phenomena such as suspense and identification, issues of measurement, and the practical implications, for instance in education-entertainment. Various fields have worked separately on topics of absorption, albeit using different terminology and methods, but having reached a high level of development and complexity in understanding absorption. Now is the time to bring them together. This volume will be a point of reference for years to come.