UCD School of Computer Science and Informatics, University College Dublin Dublin, Ireland.
Front Psychol. 2014 Jul 18;5:760. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00760. eCollection 2014.
Received approaches to a unified phenomenon called "language" are firmly committed to a Cartesian view of distinct unobservable minds. Questioning this commitment leads us to recognize that the boundaries conventionally separating the linguistic from the non-linguistic can appear arbitrary, omitting much that is regularly present during vocal communication. The thesis is put forward that uttering, or voicing, is a much older phenomenon than the formal structures studied by the linguist, and that the voice has found elaborations and codifications in other domains too, such as in systems of ritual and rite. Voice, it is suggested, necessarily gives rise to a temporally bound subjectivity, whether it is in inner speech (Descartes' "cogito"), in conversation, or in the synchronized utterances of collective speech found in prayer, protest, and sports arenas world wide. The notion of a fleeting subjective pole tied to dynamically entwined participants who exert reciprocal influence upon each other in real time provides an insightful way to understand notions of common ground, or socially shared cognition. It suggests that the remarkable capacity to construct a shared world that is so characteristic of Homo sapiens may be grounded in this ability to become dynamically entangled as seen, e.g., in the centrality of joint attention in human interaction. Empirical evidence of dynamic entanglement in joint speaking is found in behavioral and neuroimaging studies. A convergent theoretical vocabulary is now available in the concept of participatory sense-making, leading to the development of a rich scientific agenda liberated from a stifling metaphysics that obscures, rather than illuminates, the means by which we come to inhabit a shared world.
我们对被称为“语言”的统一现象的研究方法，坚定地立足于笛卡尔的观点，认为存在着互不关联的、不可观察的心智。对这一观点的质疑，使我们认识到，语言与非语言之间的传统界限可能是任意的，忽略了在言语交流中经常出现的许多现象。本文提出，发声或语音是一种比语言学家研究的正式结构更为古老的现象，而声音在其他领域，如在仪式和礼仪系统中，也得到了进一步的阐述和编码。可以说，声音必然会产生受时间限制的主观性，无论是在内在言语（笛卡尔的“我思”）、对话中，还是在世界各地的祈祷、抗议和体育场馆中发现的集体言语的同步发声中。这种转瞬即逝的主观极点的概念与动态交织的参与者联系在一起，参与者实时地相互施加影响，为理解共同基础或社会共享认知的概念提供了一种富有洞察力的方式。它表明，智人具有构建共享世界的非凡能力，其基础可能在于这种动态交织的能力，例如在人类互动中，共同关注的中心地位。在联合演讲中的动态纠缠的实证证据在行为和神经影像学研究中得到了发现。参与式意义建构的概念提供了一个收敛的理论词汇，从而为发展一个丰富的科学议程提供了可能性，该议程摆脱了一种窒息的形而上学，这种形而上学模糊了而不是阐明了我们如何共同居住在一个共享世界的方式。
