The Multidimensionality of Language

Gabriella Vigliocco

Experimental Psychology, University College London

As psychologists we study language as a system of abstract symbols and ask questions about how this system develops and is used. While this conception of language has given us key insights into the mechanisms of language development and processing, it neglects the communicative context in which language emerge in childhood and is used in adulthood. Infants learn language in multimodal and social contexts (with their caregivers), and there is evidence that multimodality and contingencies in the social interaction play a role in language development. Adults, also, use language in multimodal and social contexts very often, and evidence suggest, again, that bodily signals and dialogic dynamics impact language processing. In this talk I will present a new framework for the study of language development and processing that considers multimodality and social interaction as dimensions that characterise the communicative context in which language unfolds. I will discuss the implications of such a framework and present results of studies of language learning that demonstrate the usefulness of such framework.

Gabriella Vigliocco is Professor of the Psychology of Language in the Department of Experimental Psychology at University College London , where she directs the Language and Cognition Laboratory. She was awarded her PhD from the University of Trieste in 1995 and completed her postdoctoral studies at the University of Arizona before serving as a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics between 1999 and 2000. Vigliocco leads a multi-disciplinary team comprising psychologists, linguists, computer scientists and cognitive neuroscientists who share a vision that the integration of multiple levels of analysis and the use of different methodological approaches can lead to a better understanding language and cognition. They seek to understand the relationship between language and other aspects of cognitive function and to use this knowledge to impact education and improve the lives of people with language disorders.