Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T08:17:59.628Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 8 - Abstractness and Language as a Social Tool

from Part II - Abstractness and Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 July 2023

Anna M. Borghi
Anna M. Borghi
Affiliation:
University of Rome
Get access

Summary

Chapter 8 shows that the idea that words are social tools particularly suits abstract concepts. I first review studies on conceptual acquisition in infants and children, highlighting the crucial role social and linguistic experiences play, particularly for abstract concepts. I then review studies showing that contexts referring to social situations are more effective for processing abstract than concrete concepts. The importance of social and linguistic experiences makes it necessary to adopt new methods for studying abstract concepts. These methods, which consider language a form of participatory sense-making, focus on online dialogic interactions. The final section outlines the proposal that abstract concepts have an essential social function, enhancing social cohesion. One of the possible reasons why they are so common might be linked to our need to share and co-construct our world with others. This need is particularly evident with words, like abstract ones, the meaning of which is less anchored to perceptual stimuli and more debatable and flexible.

Keywords

abstract concepts acquisitiongoal-derived categoriestestimonyconfidenceknowledge outsourcinginteractive paradigmsreal-time contexts and abstract conceptsabstractness and lifespanthe social function of abstractness
Type
Chapter
Information
The Freedom of Words
Abstractness and the Power of Language
 , pp. 255 - 287
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ahl, R. E., Amir, D., & Keil, F. C. (2020). The world within: Children are sensitive to internal complexity cues. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 200, 104932. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2020.104932Google Scholar
Ahl, R. E., DeAngelis, E., Stephenson, A., Joo, S., Keil, F. C., & Keil, F. (2018). It’s complicated: Children identify relevant information about causal complexity. Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Madison, July 25–28, pp. 88–93.Google Scholar
Aron, A., Aron, E. N., & Smollan, D. (1992). Inclusion of Other in the Self scale and the structure of interpersonal closeness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(4), 596.Google Scholar
Aureli, T., Grazia, A., Cardone, D., & Merla, A. (2015). Behavioral and facial thermal variations in 3-to 4-month-old infants during the Still-Face Paradigm. Frontiers in Psychology, 6. https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01586Google Scholar
Banks, B., & Connell, L. (2023). Multidimensional sensorimotor grounding of concrete and abstract categories. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 378(1870), 20210366.Google Scholar
Barca, L. (2021). Toward a speech-motor account of the effect of age of pacifier withdrawal. Journal of Communication Disorders, 90, 106085. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcomdis.2021.106085Google Scholar
Barca, L., Mazzuca, C., & Borghi, A. M. (2017). Pacifier overuse and conceptual relations of abstract and emotional concepts. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 2014. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02014CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barca, L., Mazzuca, C., & Borghi, A. M. (2020). Overusing the pacifier during infancy sets a footprint on abstract words processing. Journal of Child Language, 47(5), 1084–1099.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barsalou, L. W. (1983). Ad hoc categories. Memory & Cognition, 11(3), 211–227.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W. (1985). Ideals, central tendency, and frequency of instantiation as determinants of graded structure in categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 11(4), 629.Google ScholarPubMed
Barsalou, L. W. (1993). Flexibility, structure, and linguistic vagary in concepts: Manifestations of a compositional system of perceptual symbols. In Theories of memory. Erlbaum, pp. 29–101.Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W., Dutriaux, L., & Scheepers, C. (2018). Moving beyond the distinction between concrete and abstract concepts. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 373(1752). https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0144Google Scholar
Barsalou, L. W., & Wiemer-Hastings, K. (2005). Situating abstract concepts. In Pecher, D., & Zwaan, R., eds., Grounding cognition: The role of perception and action in memory, language, and thought. Cambridge University Press, pp. 129–163.Google Scholar
Bellagamba, F., Borghi, A. M., Mazzuca, C., Pecora, G., Ferrara, F., & Fogel, A. (2022). Abstractness emerges progressively over the second year of life. Scientific Reports, 12, 20940. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-25426-5CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bergelson, E. (2020). The comprehension boost in early word learning: Older infants are better learners. Child Development Perspectives, 14(3), 142–149. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdep.12373CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bergelson, E., & Swingley, D. (2013). The acquisition of abstract words by young infants. Cognition, 127(3), 391–397.Google Scholar
Bolognesi, M. M. (2020). Where words get their meaning: Cognitive processing and distributional modelling of word meaning in first and second language, vol. 23. John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolognesi, M. M., & Caselli, T. (2022). Specificity ratings for Italian data. Behavior Research Methods, 1–18.Google Scholar
Borghi, A. A., & Binkofski, F. (2014). Words as social tools: An embodied view on abstract concepts. Springer.Google Scholar
Borghi, A. M. (2022a). Concepts for which we need others more: The case of abstract concepts. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 31(3), 09637214221079625.Google Scholar
Borghi, A. M. (2022b). Merging affordances and (abstract) concepts. In Djebbara, Z., ed., Affordances in everyday life. Springer, pp. 113–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borghi, A. M., Barca, L., Binkofski, F., Castelfranchi, C., Pezzulo, G., & Tummolini, L. (2019). Words as social tools: Language, sociality and inner grounding in abstract concepts. Physics of Life Reviews, 29, 120–153.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Borghi, A. M., & Cimatti, F. (2009). Words as tools and the problem of abstract words meanings. Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 31, 2304–2309.Google Scholar
Borghi, A. M., Fini, C., & Tummolini, L. (2021). Abstract concepts and metacognition: Searching for meaning in self and others. In Robinson, M. D. & Thomas, L. E., eds., Handbook of Embodied Psychology. Springer, pp. 197–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Borghi, A. M., & Setti, A. (2017). Abstract concepts and aging: An embodied and grounded perspective. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 430. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00430Google Scholar
Borghi, A. M., & Tummolini, L. (2020). Touch me if you can: The intangible but grounded nature of abstract concepts. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 43.Google Scholar
Brown, R. W. (1957). Linguistic determinism and the part of speech. The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 55(1), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0041199CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Camaioni, L., Aureli, T., Bellagamba, F., & Fogel, A. (2003). A longitudinal examination of the transition to symbolic communication in the second year of life. Infant and Child Development, 12(1), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.333CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caselli, M. C., Bello, A., Rinaldi, P., Stefanini, S., & Pasqualetti, P. (2015). Il Primo Vocabolario del Bambino: Gesti, Parole e Frasi. Valori di riferimento fra 8 e 36 mesi delle Forme complete e delle Forme brevi del questionario MacArthur-Bates CDI: Valori di riferimento fra 8 e 36 mesi delle Forme complete e delle Forme brevi del questionario MacArthur-Bates CDI. FrancoAngeli.Google Scholar
Costello, M. C., & Bloesch, E. K. (2017). Are older adults less embodied? A review of age effects through the lens of embodied cognition. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 267.Google Scholar
Davis, C. P., Altmann, G. T., & Yee, E. (2020). Situational systematicity: A role for schema in understanding the differences between abstract and concrete concepts. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 37(1–2), 142–153.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
De Livio, C., Fini, C., Mazzuca, C., & Borghi, A. M. (2022). The role of voice self-perception in the conceptual representation of gender. 18th Annual Conference of the Italian Association of Cognitive Sciences, Rovereto, Trento, December 15–17.Google Scholar
Di Paolo, E. A., Cuffari, E. C., & De Jaegher, H. (2018). Linguistic bodies: The continuity between life and language. MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dove, G. (2016). Three symbol ungrounding problems: Abstract concepts and the future of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 23(4), 1109–1121. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423–015-0825-4Google Scholar
Falandays, J. B., & Spivey, M. J. (2019). Abstract meanings may be more dynamic, due to their sociality: Comment on “Words as social tools: Language, sociality and inner grounding in abstract concepts” by Anna M. Borghi et al. Physics of Life Reviews, 29, 175–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2019.02.011Google Scholar
Fini, C., & Borghi, A. M. (2019). Sociality to reach objects and to catch meaning. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1–9.Google Scholar
Fini, C., Falcinelli, I., Cuomo, G., Era, V., Candidi, M., Tummolini, L., … Borghi, A. M. (2023). Breaking the ice in a conversation: Abstract words prompt dialogues more easily than concrete words. Language and Cognition.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fini, C., Era, V., da Rold, F., Candidi, M., & Borghi, A. M. (2021). Abstract concepts in interaction: The need of others when guessing abstract concepts smooths dyadic motor interactions. Royal Society Open Science, 8(7), 201205.Google Scholar
Frank, M. C., Braginsky, M., Yurovsky, D., & Marchman, V. A. (2017). Wordbank: An open repository for developmental vocabulary data*. Journal of Child Language, 44(3), 677–694. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000916000209CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gilead, M., Trope, Y., & Liberman, N. (2020). Above and beyond the concrete: The diverse representational substrates of the predictive brain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 43.Google Scholar
Gleitman, L. R., Cassidy, K., Nappa, R., Papafragou, A., & Trueswell, J. C. (2005). Hard words. Language Learning and Development, 1(1), 23–64.Google Scholar
Glenberg, A. M. (2019). Turning social tools into tools for action: Comment on “Words as social tools: Language, sociality and inner grounding in abstract concepts” by Anna M. Borghi et al. Physics of Life Reviews, 29, 172–174. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2019.02.009Google Scholar
Grimminger, A., Rohlfing, K. J., Lüke, C., Liszkowski, U., & Ritterfeld, U. (2020). Decontextualized talk in caregivers’ input to 12-month-old children during structured interaction. Journal of Child Language, 47(2), 418–434. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000919000710Google Scholar
Higgins, E. T., Rossignac-Milon, M., & Echterhoff, G. (2021). Shared reality: From sharing-is-believing to merging minds. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 30(2), 103–110.Google Scholar
Huettig, F., Rommers, J., & Meyer, A. S. (2011). Using the visual world paradigm to study language processing: A review and critical evaluation. Acta Psychologica, 137(2), 151–171.Google Scholar
Karmazyn-Raz, H., & Smith, L. B. (2023). Sampling statistics are like story creation: a network analysis of parent–toddler exploratory play. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 378(1870), 20210358.Google Scholar
Kim, J. M., Sidhu, D. M., & Pexman, P. M. (2020). Effects of emotional valence and concreteness on children’s recognition memory. Frontiers in Psychology, 11. https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.615041Google Scholar
Kominsky, J. F., Langthorne, P., & Keil, F. C. (2016). The better part of not knowing: Virtuous ignorance. Developmental Psychology, 52(1), 31–45. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0000065CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kominsky, J. F., Zamm, A. P., & Keil, F. C. (2018). Knowing when help is needed: A developing sense of causal complexity. Cognitive Science, 42(2), 491–523.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koselleck, R. (2004). Futures past: On the semantics of historical time. Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Lahnakoski, J. M., Forbes, P. A., McCall, C., & Schilbach, L. (2020). Unobtrusive tracking of interpersonal orienting and distance predicts the subjective quality of social interactions. Royal Society Open Science, 7(8), 191815.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G. (2006). Conceptual metaphor. Cognitive Linguistics: Basic Readings. Berlin, 185–239.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (2008). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, M., Colunga, E., & Lupyan, G. (2021). Superordinate word knowledge predicts longitudinal vocabulary growth. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 43(43).Google Scholar
Lucariello, J., & Nelson, K. (1985). Slot-filler categories as memory organizers for young children. Developmental Psychology, 21(2), 272.Google Scholar
Lund, T. C., Sidhu, D. M., & Pexman, P. M. (2019). Sensitivity to emotion information in children’s lexical processing. Cognition, 190, 61–71. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.04.017CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lupyan, G., & Mirman, D. (2013). Linking language and categorization: Evidence from aphasia. Cortex, 49(5), 1187–1194. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2012.06.006Google Scholar
Lupyan, G., & Winter, B. (2018). Language is more abstract than you think, or, why aren’t languages more iconic? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 373(1752). https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0137Google ScholarPubMed
Maass, A. (1999). Linguistic intergroup bias: Stereotype perpetuation through language. In Advances in experimental social psychology, vol. 31. Elsevier, pp. 79–121.Google Scholar
Maass, A., Salvi, D., Arcuri, L., & Semin, G. R. (1989). Language use in intergroup contexts: The linguistic intergroup bias. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57(6), 981.Google Scholar
Mazzuca, C., Falcinelli, I., Michalland, A.-H., Tummolini, L., & Borghi, A. M. (2022). Bodily, emotional, and public sphere at the time of COVID-19. An investigation on concrete and abstract concepts. Psychological Research, 1–12.Google Scholar
Mazzuca, C., Majid, A., Lugli, L., Nicoletti, R., & Borghi, A. M. (2020). Gender is a multifaceted concept: Evidence that specific life experiences differentially shape the concept of gender. Language and Cognition, 12(4), 649–678.Google Scholar
Mazzuca, C., & Santarelli, M. (2022). Making it abstract, making it contestable: Politicization at the intersection of political and cognitive science. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McRae, K., Nedjadrasul, D., Pau, R., Lo, B. P.-H., & King, L. (2018). Abstract concepts and pictures of real-world situations activate one another. Topics in Cognitive Science, 10(3), 518–532.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nelson, K. (1988). Where do taxonomic categories come from? Human Development, 31(1), 3–10.Google Scholar
Paoletti, M., Fini, C., Filippini, C., Massari, G., D’Abundo, E., Merla, A., … Borghi, A. M. (2022). Abstract word processing induces parasympathetic activation: A thermal imaging study. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.932118.Google Scholar
Pickering, M. J., & Garrod, S. (2021). Understanding dialogue: Language use and social interaction. Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ponari, M., Norbury, C. F., & Vigliocco, G. (2018). Acquisition of abstract concepts is influenced by emotional valence. Developmental Science, 21(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12549Google Scholar
Reitsma-van Rooijen, M., Semin, G. R., & Van Leeuwen, E. (2007). The effect of linguistic abstraction on interpersonal distance. European Journal of Social Psychology, 37(5), 817–823.Google Scholar
Rossignac-Milon, M., Pinelli, F., & Higgins, E. T. (2020). Shared reality and abstraction: The social nature of predictive models. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 43.Google Scholar
Schwanenflugel, P. J. (1991). Why are abstract concepts hard to understand. The Psychology of Word Meanings, 11, 223–250.Google Scholar
Schwanenflugel, P. J., & Stowe, R. W. (1989). Context availability and the processing of abstract and concrete words in sentences. Reading Research Quarterly, 24, 114–126.Google Scholar
Slone, L. K., Smith, L. B., & Yu, C. (2019). Self-generated variability in object images predicts vocabulary growth. Developmental Science, 22(6), e12816.Google Scholar
Tanenhaus, M. K., Spivey-Knowlton, M. J., Eberhard, K. M., & Sedivy, J. C. (1995). Integration of visual and linguistic information in spoken language comprehension. Science, 268(5217), 1632–1634.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tomasello, M. (2018). A natural history of human thinking. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tomasello, M., & Carpenter, M. (2007). Shared intentionality. Developmental Science, 10(1), 121–125. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00573.xGoogle Scholar
Troyer, M., & McRae, K. (2021). Thematic and other semantic relations central to abstract (and concrete) concepts. Psychological Research, 86, 2399–2416. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-021-01484-8Google Scholar
Villani, C., Lugli, L., Liuzza, M. T., & Borghi, A. M. (2019). Varieties of abstract concepts and their multiple dimensions. Language and Cognition, 11(3), 403–430.Google Scholar
Villani, C., Lugli, L., Liuzza, M. T., Nicoletti, R., & Borghi, A. M. (2021). Sensorimotor and interoceptive dimensions in concrete and abstract concepts. Journal of Memory and Language, 116, 104173.Google Scholar
Villani, C., Orsoni, M., Lugli, L., Benassi, M., & Borghi, A. M. (2022, 2022). Abstract and concrete concepts in conversation. Scientific Report 12, 17572. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598–022-20785-5.Google Scholar
Winter, B., Marghetis, T., & Matlock, T. (2015). Of magnitudes and metaphors: Explaining cognitive interactions between space, time, and number. Cortex, 64, 209–224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2014.10.015Google Scholar
Yee, E., & Thompson-Schill, S. L. (2016). Putting concepts into context. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 23(4), 1015–1027. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423–015-0948-7Google Scholar
Yu, C., Suanda, S. H., & Smith, L. B. (2019). Infant sustained attention but not joint attention to objects at 9 months predicts vocabulary at 12 and 15 months. Developmental Science, 22(1), e12735.Google Scholar
Yu, C., Zhang, Y., Slone, L. K., & Smith, L. B. (2021). The infant’s view redefines the problem of referential uncertainty in early word learning. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 118(52), e2107019118.Google Scholar
Zdrazilova, L., Sidhu, D. M., & Pexman, P. M. (2018). Communicating abstract meaning: Concepts revealed in words and gestures. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences, 373(1752). https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2017.0138Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×