Keynote

Linguistic complexity and embodiment processes
Prof. Maria Célia Lima-Hernandes
University of São Paulo
Abstract

The aim of this presentation is to expose some contributions of cognition to Linguistics, especially focusing on the relationship between complexity and language, so that, at the end, the adaptation that the speech context produces in the syntax is clear. This adaptation to dynamic contexts can say a lot about the relationship between body and mind, which is why I will necessarily deal with grammar as embodiment. This exhibition will address the parallel between the complexity of the “inner child” and the complexity of the language world, necessarily passing through the situated status of the body in its development. I will resort to the classical model of cognitive categories with the additions that we have been inferring from research on grammatical contexts that are less central to usage. Before I conclude my talk, I will address the principles that favor the study of these complexities and how trends are exposed to the researcher who adopts this model.

Keywords: embodiment; cognitive categories; dynamic contexts; linguistic complexity.

Bio

Maria Célia Lima-Hernandes is PhD in Linguistics and Master in Neurosciences. Professor and Researcher at the University of São Paulo. She is interested in the relationships between cognition and grammatical complexities through heritage languages in their interculturality and superdiversity and in their complexities and cognitive factors. She collaborates with an interdisciplinary research group that studies the ventral occipital region of congenital blind people in haptic functions.