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1 results

  • Chapter 3 - Language as a Social Tool

  • from Part I - Language and Its Power
  • Anna M. Borghi, University of Rome
  • Book:
    The Freedom of Words
    Published online:
    20 July 2023
    Print publication:
    10 August 2023, pp 86-124

  • Summary

    Chapter 3 shows how we can intend language as a social tool. The first part focuses on language and interaction; the second part on how we outsource our knowledge benefiting from others’ knowledge. First, I show that the traditional separations between phonetics, phonology, syntax, and semantics and between production and comprehension do not hold. Rather, language is profoundly interactive. Then I overview innovative approaches that investigate real-time linguistic interactions, illustrating new methods, such as hyperscanning. In the second part , I contend that language is also a social tool because it allows us to strengthen our knowledge by relying on others. I introduce the notion of "community of knowledge," show that we outsource part of our knowledge, and illustrate how children develop the ability to defer toward experts in acquiring and mastering linguistic meaning. Finally, I discuss the possible theoretical consequences of outsourcing knowledge.