Language as an Inner/Cognitive Tool

Anna M. Borghi

doi:10.1017/9781108913294.004

Chapter 2 - Language as an Inner/Cognitive Tool

from Part I - Language and Its Power

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 July 2023

Anna M. Borghi

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Anna M. Borghi: Affiliation:
University of Rome

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Summary

Chapter 2 develops the idea that language operates as an inner tool, enhancing cognition. The first part focuses on inner speech, and the second on language as a way to access meaning. I describe inner speech and outline the history of the concept focusing on the traditions started by Vygotsky and Baddeley. I describe the main methods to investigate it, from questionnaires to experiments, the debate on whether inner speech involves articulation, and its functions for memory and metacognition. I then illustrate inner speech’s neural bases and evidence that different kinds of inner speech exist. In the second part, I discuss how embodied/grounded, distributional, and hybrid views intend meaning. Language might work as a shortcut to access meaning and enhance our cognition, providing an efficient way to access simulations, respond to contextual challenges, and, more generally, a new way of being in the world.

Keywords

inner speech Vygotsky working memory articulation varieties of inner speech simulation language as shortcut embodied/grounded cognition distributional semantics hybrid views

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Freedom of Words
Abstractness and the Power of Language
, pp. 52 - 85

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108913294.004 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2023

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