Linguistic relativity from an enactive perspective: the entanglement of language and cognition

Abstract

We seek to relate the fields of linguistic relativity (LR) and the enactive approach in cognitive science. We distinguish contemporary research on LR, starting after the mid-1990s, from earlier approaches to the field. Current studies are characterised by a nuanced methodology rooted in the psycholinguistics tradition. While improving on earlier research, they also move away from philosophically oriented discussions about the relation between language and cognition and focus instead on experimentally testing relativistic effects for specific cognitive domains. We claim that this procedure retains some fundamental assumptions from classical cognitive science, precisely those that are challenged by an enactive perspective. These include a commitment to the modularity of mind and a computational understanding of the interactions between cognitive domains. We contend that contemporary LR research is, in fact, compatible with these classical cognitivist ideas, despite superficial points of tension. We then survey recent post-cognitivist approaches to language in cognitive science and explore ways in which LR and the enactive framework could be mutually enriched. Whereas the structural or categorial aspects of language are central for LR research, these are usually downplayed in post-cognitivist approaches, often influenced by the integrationist distinction between first-order linguistic practices and second-order constructs. We advance a specifically enactive perspective that seeks to preserve the systematic features of language while also integrating them within a dynamical understanding of the relation between language and cognition at multiple timescales.