Publication 2502

Excerpt: Describing language in the light of the enactive paradigm is a most challenging issue: language is to be reconsidered in terms of sensorimotor interactions with an environment in which both the individual and the environment are modified, in which not one,but several individuals are involved – an experience that is, all in one, that of the speaker and hearer at the instant of uttering or thinking; that of the child developing into an adult through social intercourse; that of the tribe turning to a full-fledged civilization; and that of the linguist interfering with his object of scrutiny by linguistic means. As a selection has to be made, this chapter will primarily focus on the immediate experience of languaging, and secondarily broach more general subjects like acquisition and evolution.