Fleshing out Language and Intersubjectivity: An Exploration of Merleau-Ponty’s Legacy to Cognitive Linguistics

Abstract

Abstract This paper examines how recent cognitive linguistic work on conceptualization and intersubjectivity (Verhagen 2005, 2008; Langacker 2008) echoes Merleau-Ponty’s older reflection on the notion of intersubjectivity, a key factor in embodiment and language. Three topics are explored in this respect. First, the largely implicit references to Merleau-Ponty in Lakoff and Johnson’s Philosophy in the Flesh (1999) are related more explicitly to Merleau-Ponty’s notion of flesh. Second, the discursive status of usage events is shown to be directly connected to the linguistic consequences of Merleau-Ponty’s intercorporality, as it brings together living bodies in intersubjective experiences. The third objective is methodological: the focus is not only on Merleau-Ponty’s often quoted Phenomenology of Perception 1945, 1958), but shows lines of continuity with the explicit philosophy of language in his later work, like Eloge de la philosophie (1960,1963), Signes (1960, 1968b), Conscience et acquisition du langage (1964, 1973a) and La prose du monde (1969, 1973b). This discussion includes Merleau’s relation to Saussurean linguistics, and gives rise, perhaps surprisingly, to a dynamic view on language as a locus of intersubjective creativity, which reaches beyond the individual basis of perception, gesture and incorporated language.