Rethinking the role of language in embodied cognition
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences December 26, 2022 Guy Dove
The author develops and defends a novel account of how language contributes to human concepts, grounded in the embodied nature of the language system itself. The account diverges from traditional views and is situated within a flexible, multimodal, and multilevel model of the conceptual system. The essay responds to growing evidence that the language system plays a role in semantic memory, including abstract concepts, and argues that language's cognitive role is best understood through its embodied basis.