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The WAT Proposal and the Role of Language

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Words as Social Tools: An Embodied View on Abstract Concepts

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Psychology ((BRIEFSCOGNIT))

Abstract

The chapter illustrates the words as social tools (WAT) theory on abstract concepts and words. The theory has five main tenets. (1) embodiment and grounding. Both concrete and abstract concepts and words are embodied and grounded in perception, action, and emotional systems; (2) importance of language. For the representation of abstract concepts, the linguistic mediation is more crucial than for the representation of concrete ones, given that the scaffolding function of the physical environment is less powerful for abstract than for concrete concepts; (3) acquisition modality. The acquisition modality of abstract concepts and words relies more on language than the acquisition of concrete concepts and words; (4) brain representation. While both activate the sensorimotor network, the linguistic network is activated more by abstract than by concrete concepts and words. (5) linguistic diversity. Abstract concepts and words are more affected by differences between languages than concrete ones; that is, their meaning changes more depending on the cultural and linguistic milieu in which they are learned. Overall, abstract concepts do not differ from concrete ones in embodiment, but differ from them in acquisition modality, in brain representation, in variability across languages, and they are also likely to differ in the assessment of quantity. Once outlined the main principles of the theory, in the rest of the chapter we discuss the reasons of the dominance of language and the role played by labels and linguistic explanations for abstract concepts and words, as well as the possible mechanisms underlying the activation of its motor counterpart, the mouth effector.

You learned the concept “pain” when you learned language.

For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word meaning, it can be explained thus: The meaning of a word is its use in the language.

Every explanation is after all an hypothesis.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

    Anna M. Borghi

  2. Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, Italian National Research Council, Rome, Italy

    Anna M. Borghi

  3. RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Ferdinand Binkofski

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  1. Anna M. Borghi
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  2. Ferdinand Binkofski
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Correspondence to Anna M. Borghi .

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Borghi, A.M., Binkofski, F. (2014). The WAT Proposal and the Role of Language. In: Words as Social Tools: An Embodied View on Abstract Concepts. SpringerBriefs in Psychology(). Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-9539-0_2

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