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It is widely assumed that there is a natural, prelinguistic conceptual domain of time whose linguistic organization is universally structured via metaphoric mapping from the lexicon and grammar of space and motion. We challenge this assumption on the basis of our research on the Amondawa (Tupi Kawahib) language and culture of Amazonia. Using both observational data and structured field linguistic tasks, we show that linguistic space-time mapping at the constructional level is not a feature of the Amondawa language, and is not employed by Amondawa speakers (when speaking Amondawa). Amondawa does not recruit its extensive inventory of terms and constructions for spatial motion and location to express temporal relations. Amondawa also lacks a numerically based calendric system. To account for these data, and in opposition to a Universal Space-Time Mapping Hypothesis, we propose a Mediated Mapping Hypothesis, which accords causal importance to the numerical and artefact-based construction of time-based (as opposed to event-based) time interval systems.

Our aim in this article is to argue that an adequate account of semantic development in early ®rst language acquisition requires a theory and methodology that synthesize the insights of cognitive and cultural linguistics with a Vygotskian sociocultural approach to human development. This involves recasting and extending the notion of embodiment, which is a central philosophical underpinning of cognitive linguistics. We discuss evidence from the cross-linguistic and cross-cultural study of spatial semantic development, and argue that current controversies regarding language-speci®c acquisition strategies and universal cognitive bases of semantic development may best be resolved by viewing the issue of``linguistic relativity'' in a sociocultural, as well as a grammatical, perspective.

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The focus in blending theory on the dynamics of meaning construction makes it a productive tool for analysing psychological processes in a developmental perspective. However, blending theory has largely preserved the traditionally mentalist and individualist assumptions of classical cognitive science. This article argues for an extension of the range of both theory and data, to encompass the socially collaborative, culturally and materially grounded nature of the human mind. An approach to young children's symbolic play in terms of conceptual blending is presented, together with an analysis of an episode of sociodramatic play which highlights the role of cultural material objects as crucial meaning-bearing elements in the blend. From a developmental perspective, conceptual blending can be viewed as a microgenetic process, in which not only cognitive strategies, but social roles, relationships and identities are negotiated by participants in social and communicative interactions. #

The main goal of this paper is to argue for an ‘epigenetic developmental interpretation’ of connectionist modelling of human cognitive processes, and to propose that Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) models provide a superior account of developmental phenomena than that offered by cognitivist (symbolic) computational theories. After comparing some of the general characteristics of epigeneticist and cognitivist theories, we provide a brief overview of the operating principles underlying Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and their associated learning procedures. Four applications of different PDP architectures to developmental phenomena are described. First, we assess the current status of the debate between symbolic and connectionist accounts of the process of English past tense formation. Second, we introduce a connectionist model of concept formation and vocabulary growth and show how it provides an account of aspects of semantic development in early childhood. Next, we take up the problem of compositionality and structure dependency in connectionist nets, and demonstrate that PDP models can be architecturally designed to capture the structural principals characteristic of human cognition. Finally, we review a connectionist model of cognitive develop ment which yields stage‐like behavioural properties even though architectural and input assumptions remain constant throughout training. It is shown how the organizational characteristics of the model provide a simple but precise account of the equilibration of the processes of accommodation and assimilation. The article concludes that a coherent epigcnctic‐developmental interpretation of PDP modelling rquires the rejection of so‐called hybrid‐architecture theories of human cognition.

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Niche construction theory is a relatively new approach in evolutionary biology that seeks to integrate an ecological dimension into the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection. It is regarded by many evolutionary biologists as providing a significant revision of the Neo-Darwinian modern synthesis that unified Darwin’s theory of natural and sexual selection with 20th century population genetics. Niche construction theory has been invoked as a processual mediator of social cognitive evolution and of the emergence and evolution of language. I argue that language itself can be considered as a biocultural niche and evolutionary artifact. I provide both a general analysis of the cognitive and semiotic status of artifacts, and a formal analysis of language as a social and semiotic institution, based upon a distinction between the fundamental semiotic relations of “counting as” and “standing for.” I explore the consequences for theories of language and language learning of viewing language as a biocultural niche. I suggest that not only do niches mediate organism-organism interactions, but also that organisms mediate niche-niche interactions in ways that affect evolutionary processes, with the evolution of human infancy and childhood as a key example. I argue that language as a social and semiotic system is not only grounded in embodied engagements with the material and social-interactional world, but also grounds a sub-class of artifacts of particular significance in the cultural history of human cognition. Symbolic cognitive artifacts materially and semiotically mediate human cognition, and are not merely informational repositories, but co-agentively constitutive of culturally and historically emergent cognitive domains. I provide examples of the constitutive cognitive role of symbolic cognitive artifacts drawn from my research with my colleagues on cultural and linguistic conceptualizations of time, and their cultural variability. I conclude by reflecting on the philosophical and social implications of understanding artifacts co-agentively.