The Cognitive Construction of Dialog: Language and Mind

Abstract

The rapid spread of interdisciplinary methods on the study of language has provoked a massive reconfiguration of the concept of dialog in research. Likewise, computer-based communication and the large data that it provides has completely changed our notion of what language entails: we have moved away from written text to spoken conversation, from a sentence-based approach to large corpora and from monologic to an increasing dialogic view of language. This chapter reviews the human memory system and establishes a connection with some theories in the field of Cognitive Linguistics in order to shed some light in understanding the final purpose of human communication and how it connects our most social nature with knowledge and information across our lifespan. Interactions are described as being dialogic in nature having the ultimate goal for the initiator of the communicative interaction to collect information from the outside, and the recipient of that interaction in the role of instantiating that objective. Dialog is seen as specific (the present time frame determines meaning construction), focused, prominent and dynamic (users alternate roles during dialog from initiator to recipient and viceversa). Communicative interaction (“usage events” according to Cognitive Linguistics) is so important in our lives that it shapes the way the brain is wired and posits some interesting theories on how language usage is constructive per se. The chapter finally draws on the correlation that exists between these usage events (“construals” in Current Discourse Space), the subjects of conceptualization, the objects of conceptualization and cognitive mapping, more in particular Working Memory, as the main engine that allows for repetitive stimulation and Long-Term Memory (Semantic and Episodic Memory) which finally stores complex semantic networks made up of form (phonological load) and meaning (semantic load). These sophisticated cognitive patterns stand for knowledge as we know it and represent permanent structures from which users can retrieve, reshape and extend along life experience.