The Roles of Language in Human Cognition

Guillaume Beaulac focuses on paradigmatic theories of the role of language in cognition used in cognitive science, both by philosophers and psychologists. Each of these views offers a different perspective on how language contributes to or changes cognition and, as such, these theories give rise to different interpretations of language’s role. On some views, language is completely transformative while, on others, its role has much less impact on the mind’s structure and organization. He analyzes some of these frameworks and investigates their limitations. Using the analysis of these theories as a starting point, he develops a picture of the complex interaction between language and cognition that he deems more plausible by taking very seriously the idea that our mind is composed of many subsystems, and that language can interact and modify each one in different ways. He will then show there already exist examples in the literature suggesting we should not assign a single role to language. Moreover, he claims that the different roles posited by different theories each represent an aspect of the very complex interactions language— or to be more precise, parts of the faculty of language—will have with various cognitive processes. The resulting approach is a pluralistic perspective, according to which there are multiple roles for language in cognition, namely as a tool, as a means of internal communication and as a transforming, rewiring agent.