“Inglés y Se Enseñanza II”

On Bickerton
On Bickerton: Questions
Bickerton Dereck, 1990, “ Language as Representation. The Atlas”, Language and
Species, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1992, ch:2.

1. What comes first: consciousness or language? Or Is it that both emerge at the same time?
Consciousness is related to the issue of representation. Consciousness is a way of
representation which makes reality be a map the human species can ‘draw’ in the brain.
Thus, when we talk about reality we should not understand this as a direct copy from the
outside world, but as what the human species have understood of it; how they have
represented it.
The human species, also, take notice they can do something with the brain beyond their
senses when perceiving other members of their own group. It is probably then that the ‘I’
emerges and thus, the origin of the state of awareness takes place ( origins of thought). It
may be the case, then, that the human species feel the need to put through these
perceptions via tools other than material ones ; a symbolic tool such as language comes
up.

2. What does autonomy mean ? What does completeness mean?

These two concepts are related to the meaning assigned to each element of the ‘lexicon’ –
explained in class –
The lexicon embodies a system of concepts. A concept – also explained in class – is the
cluster or group of different perceptions from reality that make up a whole. We, in class,
gave the example of : FISH + RIVER + TREE BRANCH . The human species have been able to
put the three together to catch fish, thus the concept of ‘fishing as a means to survive ‘ gets
to be printed in the brain. We can assume, then, that the human species (HS) need
language , conceived as a symbolic tool – to pass so ‘much explanation’ onto their group
members. Therefore, we may reckon that uttering something ‘pre-linguistic’ such as ‘ go
fishing’ is much more energetically economical when starving , than uttering : “ see fish in
river – go take tree branch with sharp end – . We can conclude that a concept is a sort of ‘
compressed explanation of , in this case , a process” and, that language comes to play an
adaptive role since the mere uttering of ‘fishing cane’ can save the species from starving in
matters of seconds.
The striking point is that the brain both organizes these perceptions and maps them onto
‘linguistic items ‘ unconsciously and quite rapidly. When delving into these processes, the
terms ‘autonomy’ and ‘ completeness’ come out for these refer to the way in which the
brain works .
 A system of concepts is a complex way to represent reality. It is a ‘level’ of representation
activated by the thread of neural components to organize the flow of information that
comes from the senses. This flow of data has to be organized and this system of concepts is
what guarantees the organization since it works consistently and steadily. For these
processes to take place, the brain ‘knows’ that there are rules or constraints to comply
with. These constraints will organize the perceived information in both an autonomous
and in a discretely fashion. Autonomous implies unconscious ; the brain tends to organize
sensual data hierarchically involuntarily and tends to give that organization a unit (
completeness).
It is thank to these mental constraints that the HS can communicate, otherwise ‘ go fishing’
will not be understood in the same way and the HS would not have survived. A concept
predicts behavior.

3. What does ‘ the dynamic element’ stand for?

The brain tends to map the perceived data onto entities, behavior and attributes . This is
when words emerge; words refer to these categories. Yet, the representation process will
differ, i.e the way in which an entity is represented is not the same as the way behavior is.
The first factor to understand these differences is to think of time since language evolved .
Then, we can see that the representations mapped onto words took place in a dynamic
fashion - at different times-.
The concepts of entities preceded the concepts of behavior; these are more abstract than
entities. ( The more abstract they are , the more mental energy is needed). Behaviour can
be predicated not of just one kind of entity –creature - but of any kind. For example :
birds, bats, butterflies , airplanes, balloons FLY; a single ‘moving through the air’ feature is
taken into consideration among countless variables such as with 2, 4 or 0 wings; high,
low…etc. Give / hit can be broken into steps. For example: to give some food to the
offspring implies : 1) to get food, 2) to see the offspring , 3) to hand foo d in , 4) to receive
the food. In sum, verbs represent chunks of behavior functionally significant for the species
or for culture. By uttering verbs ,the HS saves time.

4. Why colours are learnt and through the spectrum?

In matters of attributes, colours are not determined by any neurological makeup as entities
and behavior are. Thus, there is not any biological constraint to tell how the spectrum is
to be divided or categorized. Colours are not attributes since there is no binary opposition
between red and green , they are part of a spectrum. There are binary oppositions, though,
for hot –cold; tall- short -.. These may derive from an opponent pairs of cells in the brain.
The attributes are not limited , then. They are bound to a single species and are assigned to
everything and everybody. The sense of an attribute - thus an adjective - depends on the
noun - thus entity - they qualify.

5. What does it mean that the lexicon is hierarchically structured?

This is also a ‘natural’ constraint the neurological frame of the brain imposes on the
sensual information coming from the senses. The data get to be organized in a hierarchy;
the superordinate gets to be at the ‘top’ and the subordinates ‘below’; for example,
mammals at the top and the animals fed on milk below.
6. Do representations have their own properties?
In fact, the mind has a neurological frame that organizes the information coming from
the sense. If there is an ‘organization , there should be rules / constraints. These are
the ones explained above. Thus, language is the means to materailise those
representations via words and sentences , which have their own features.