
Chris Sinha, University of East Anglia ![]() |
Vera Sinha, University of Oxford ![]() |
This course takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of variation between cultures in language and cognition, drawing upon anthropology, biology, philosophy and psychology as well as linguistics. The theoretical background is the biocultural approach to language as a human-specific symbolic niche, interlocking with other dimensions of the human niche complex. This gives us a context within which to understand cultural variation and cultural evolutionary processes in relation to the cognitive domains of space, time and number. We also provide a critical evaluation of the (meta-)methodological issues involved in the study of endangered languages and cultures, in both a scientific and a historical and socio-political context. The course consists of four 1.5 hour sessions, each comprising a lecture of about one hour followed by a seminar discussion of about 30 minutes.
Session 1: Artefacts, symbols, and the dynamics of human biocultural niche construction
Session 2: Time and events—in language, mind and world
Session 3: Fingers, hands, feet and toes: Embodied number in an Amazonian society
Session 4: Learning about, learning from, learning with—towards a practice and theory of situated language sciences
Further reading