Concrete and ‘Abstract’ Knowledge

Abstract

This chapter begins on the note that pre-linguistic categorisation is central to the furnishing of the world. Thus, linguification becomes central only after we are cognitively anchored in reality. Hereafter, I address features central to language acquisition that I claim are crucial parameters in the explanation of abstract knowledge acquisition in derived embodiment processes. I discuss (1) the reality of the phenomenon, event, or object, (2) the attentional focus of the language learner, and (3) the interlocutor. Qualitative shifts in those components seem essential in the transfer from the first stage (concrete level) to the next stage (abstract level). Obviously, the reality of the referent of what one linguistically addresses changes from being immediately present (on-line) to absent (off-line). The off-line condition imputes a challenge to the second parameter, the learner’s imaginative abilities to which he or she must turn in order to understand to what language refers. When the referent is present, the understanding will get external support from perceptual processes. Contrariwise, in the off-line condition, the language learner relies on vicarious internal, self-sustained cues to attain understanding. The chapter deals primarily with the first parameter that leads to considerations about the imagination, the relation between imagination and re-enactments as well as the distribution of non-conscious and conscious processes and thus introduces the concept of first order linguification processes. Since phenomenally experienced imagery may play an important part in abstract language acquisition, space is devoted to further explorations of the question of the phenomenal qualities of re-enactments, which inevitably invites discussions on different notions of consciousness. The chapter closes with a presentation of different attention states and the moderating impact of the interlocutor.