The resurgence in recent years of research into linguistic relativity, the emergence of a cultural linguistics, and the increasing salience of socio-cultural approaches to first and second language acquisition, have placed the relationships between language, culture and mind once more at the leading edge of contemporary basic and applied linguistic research.
The course will address theoretical and methodological issues in cognitive and comparative cultural linguistics, language development and language evolution. Topics covered will include: cognitive typology; cultural schemas and language structure; participation and learning; internalization and externalization; culture, ecology and evolution.
The course will consist of 5 lectures of 1 hour 15 minutes, each lecture to be followed by a small group presentation (30 minutes preparation, 30 minutes presentation) of critical issues arising from the lecture, from previous reading and from students own research. This presentation will set the scene for a general discussion and summary (45 minutes).
Course structure:
Lecture 1: Language, Culture and Mind: Independence or Interpenetration?
Lecture 2: Participation, practice and materiality in cultural learning.
Lecture 3: The ecology and evolution of symbolization
Lecture 4: Cognitive typology: space and motion in Amondawa (Tupi Kawahib).
Lecture 5: Space, Time and Artefacts
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Sampaio, W., Sinha, C. and da Silva Sinha, V. (in press). Mixing and mapping: motion, path and manner in Amondawa. In E. Lieven and J. Guo (eds.) Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Study of Language. Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum.
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Sinha, C. (2005). Blending out of the background: Play, props and staging in the material world. Journal of Pragmatics 37,1537?1554.
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Sinha, C. and K. Jensen de López (2000) Language, culture and the embodiment of spatial cognition. Cognitive Linguistics 11, 17-41.
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Sinha, C. (2004) The Evolution of Language: From Signals to Symbols to System. In D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel (eds.) Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach. Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 217-235.
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Sinha, C. (1999) Situated selves: learning to be a learner. In J. Bliss, P. Light and R. Säljö (eds.) Learning Sites. Social and Technological Resources for Learning. Oxford, Pergamon Press.
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Chris Sinha and Cíntia Rodríguez. Language and the signifying object: from convention to imagination. To appear in: Jordan Zlatev, Timothy P. Racine, Chris Sinha and Esa Itkonen (Eds.) The Shared Mind: Perspectives on intersubjectivity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
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