Dipartimento di Scienze Mediche e Chirurgiche, University "Magna Graecia" of Catanzaro, Viale Salvatore Venuta, 88100, Germaneto, Italy.
Faculty of Philosophy, Pontifical University Antonianum, Via Merulana 124/B, 00185, Rome, Italy.
Neurosci Biobehav Rev. 2016 Oct;69:69-78. doi: 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.07.033. Epub 2016 Jul 28.
This work reviews key behavioural, neurophysiological and neuroimaging data on the neural substrates for processing the meaning of linguistic material, and tries to articulate the picture emerging from those findings with the notion of meaning coming from specific approaches in philosophy of language (the "internalist" view) and linguistics (words point at experiential clusters). The reviewed findings provide evidence in favour of a causal role of brain neural structures responsible for sensory, motor and even emotional experiences in attributing meaning to words expressing those experiences and, consequently, lend substantial support to an embodied and "internalist" conception of linguistic meaning. Key evidence concern verbs, nouns and adjectives with a concrete content, but the challenge that abstract domains pose to the embodied approach to language is also discussed. This work finally suggests that the most fundamental role of embodiment might be that of establishing commonalities among individual experiences of different members of a linguistic community, and that those experiences ground shared linguistic meanings.
本文综述了关于语言材料意义处理的行为、神经生理学和神经影像学的关键数据，并尝试将这些发现与语言哲学（“内在主义”观点）和语言学（词语指向体验聚类）中意义的概念联系起来。综述结果为负责感觉、运动甚至情感体验的大脑神经结构在赋予表达这些体验的词语以意义方面的因果作用提供了证据，从而为语言的具身化和“内在主义”概念提供了实质性支持。关键证据涉及具有具体内容的动词、名词和形容词，但也讨论了抽象领域对语言具身方法的挑战。这项工作最终表明，具身化的最基本作用可能是在语言社区的不同成员的个人体验之间建立共性，而这些体验则构成了共同的语言意义。
