Transactional Cognition: Building a reliable Post-Chomsky Model for Human Language and Cognition.Schwarz, Henry (2006) Transactional Cognition: Building a reliable Post-Chomsky Model for Human Language and Cognition. In: 11th annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, 22-25 June 2007, Las Vegas, USA. Full text available as:
Alternative URL: http://www.hallerschwarz.com/trans.COG.121506.pdf AbstractAn improved model of the relationship between language and human cognition has become critical to a wide spectrum of research, from new studies in neuroscience to new ideas appearing in both literature and philosophy. In recent decades linguistics research has given great emphasis to the analysis of language rules and structures with very positive results. This almost exclusive focus, however, has not come without a certain measure of controversy and neglect of other perspectives from which our understanding of language and its function in cognition might be materially advanced. This study offers a new baseline for understanding human language through a series of transaction-based models that specifically illustrate its use and nature both today and at its point of origin, as a method to assess more accurately underconsidered features in both our individual and social cognitive natures, reconcile features from other research that are explained by these models, and uncover one or more intriguing new hypotheses for further investigation. A model for evolutionary development offers possibilities open to experimental verification. A model for transactional cognition suggests that silent, language-based thinking may be a very recent development. A two-tier, cross-domain neurological model for grammar and language function may resolve, finally, the question of an innate vs. learned grammar. Comments/DiscussionTaking an evolutionary viewpoint, this paper/poster proposes a model for understanding what might be termed the highest form of animal consciousness, or human consciousness of language-based thought, as essentially a transactional and interpersonal, rather than singular or individual phenomenon. Among its many other benefits, this model opens the way to new options in neurocognitive experimentation and verification.
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