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Levinson, S. C. (2023). On cognitive artifacts. In R. Feldhay (
Ed. ), The evolution of knowledge: A scientific meeting in honor of Jürgen Renn (pp. 59-78). Berlin: Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.Abstract
Wearing the hat of a cognitive anthropologist rather than an historian, I will try to amplify the ideas of Renn’s cited above. I argue that a particular subclass of material objects, namely “cognitive artifacts,” involves a close coupling of mind and artifact that acts like a brain prosthesis. Simple cognitive artifacts are external objects that act as aids to internal
computation, and not all cultures have extended inventories of these. Cognitive artifacts in this sense (e.g., calculating or measuring devices) have clearly played a central role in the history of science. But the notion can be widened to take in less material externalizations of cognition, like writing and language itself. A critical question here is how and why this close coupling of internal computation and external device actually works, a rather neglected question to which I’ll suggest some answers.Additional information
link to book -
Levinson, S. C. (2016). Language and mind: Let's get the issues straight! In S. D. Blum (
Ed. ), Making sense of language: Readings in culture and communication [3rd ed.] (pp. 68-80). Oxford: Oxford University Press. -
Levinson, S. C. (2016). The countable singulare tantum. In A. Reuneker, R. Boogaart, & S. Lensink (
Eds. ), Aries netwerk: Een constructicon (pp. 145-146). Leiden: Leiden University. -
De León, L., & Levinson, S. C. (
Eds. ). (1992). Space in Mesoamerican languages [Special Issue]. Zeitschrift für Phonetik, Sprachwissenschaft und Kommunikationsforschung, 45(6). -
Levinson, S. C. (1992). Space in Australian Languages Questionnaire. In S. C. Levinson (
Ed. ), Space stimuli kit 1.2 (pp. 29-40). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.Abstract
This questionnaire is designed to explore how spatial relations are encoded in Australian language, but may be of interest to researchers further afield. -
Levinson, S. C. (1992). Space in Australian Languages Questionnaire. In S. C. Levinson (
Ed. ), Space stimuli kit 1.2 (pp. 29-40). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.3512641.Abstract
This questionnaire is designed to explore how spatial relations are encoded in Australian language, but may be of interest to researchers further afield. -
Levinson, S. C. (1992). Activity types and language. In P. Drew, & J. Heritage (
Eds. ), Talk at work: Interaction in institutional settings (pp. 66-100). Cambridge University Press. -
Levinson, S. C., Brown, P., Danzinger, E., De León, L., Haviland, J. B., Pederson, E., & Senft, G. (1992). Man and Tree & Space Games. In S. C. Levinson (
Ed. ), Space stimuli kit 1.2 (pp. 7-14). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.2458804.Abstract
These classic tasks can be used to explore spatial reference in field settings. They provide a language-independent metric for eliciting spatial language, using a “director-matcher” paradigm. The Man and Tree task deals with location on the horizontal plane with both featured (man) and non-featured (e.g., tree) objects. The Space Games depict various objects (e.g. bananas, lemons) and elicit spatial contrasts not obviously lexicalisable in English.Additional information
1992_Man_and_tree_and_space_games_stimuli.zip -
Levinson, S. C., & Annamalai, E. (1992). Why presuppositions aren't conventional. In R. N. Srivastava (
Ed. ), Language and text: Studies in honour of Ashok R. Kelkar (pp. 227-242). Dehli: Kalinga Publications.
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