"COGNITION, INTERACTION, AND MEANING" - CNPq Directory

Leader: Prof. Dr. Edwiges Maria Morato (IEL / UNICAMP).

Deputy leader: Prof. Dr. Ana Luiza Bustamante Smolka (FE / UNICAMP)

Description: Joined the CNPq, the Research Group COGITES  - Cognition, Interaction and Meaning - has brought together researchers from IC to postdoctoral, from different backgrounds (such as Linguistics, Philosophy, Medicine, Speech Therapy, Performing Arts, Education) from UNICAMP and other institutions,  and is dedicated to the study of the relationship between language and cognition through the analysis of linguistic and interactional practices, especially those involving individuals with aphasia and Alzheimer's disease.

The research group has focused on his researches certain phenomena, such as "meta" order processes (metalinguistic activities, epi-linguistic operations, meta-enunciative forms, metaformulative strategies etc.), referencing, interactional frames, communicative competence, metaphoricity, multimodality, speech/writing relationship. More recently, the RG is also dedicated to the study of the structure of conversational processes (management of the discursive topic, deictics, gestures, shift dynamics, reformulation activities, contextualization, etc.).

In the specific field of neurolinguistic studies, RG members are dedicated to the critical review of the semiotics of language pathologies (anomie, automatism, perseveration, paraphasia, confabulation, etc.), to the relationship between normal and pathological, to the discussion of implications of biomedical and social models for understanding, and to diagnosis of language and cognitive disorders until the interrelationship between language and memory.

More recently, the Group has been dedicated to the creation and theoretical-methodological treatment of their data collection, consisting either through semi-structured interviews and protocols of ultimately oriented studies, or through the observation of various natural interaction contexts, such as the data constituting the AphasiAcervus, related to the recording and transcription of done activities in the Aphasia Center (CCA), UNICAMP.

The theoretical foundation on which the studies of the COGITES  anchor is guided by an interactionist perspective of Vygotsky's membership,  in line with the current contributions of Michael Tomasello. One of the central theses of this perspective is that the organization and structure of human cognition consist of our sociocultural, physical, cognitive, linguistic, emotional experiences - modulated by life in society. From this perspective, there are no integral possibilities of cognitive processes outside language, and no integral possibilities of language outside human interactive processes (Morato, 1996).

Under this approach, the COGITES has developed three centers of research, with the support of various promoting agencies for research:

1. Description and analysis of linguistic and cognitive processes of individuals with and without neurological impairment: reformulation activities and "meta" order operations (metalanguage, meta-enunciation, meta-discursiveness, etc.), referencing, metaphoricity, topic organization, deification, structuring and organization of conversational interaction, the relationship between conceptual and interactive frames.

2. Reanalysis of the traditional semiotics of aphasia (anomie, automatism, paraphasia, agrammatism, confabulation, etc.) and the study of language and socio-cognitive issues,  related to Alzheimer's Disease and aging. This research group is also dedicated to the study of the relationship between language and memory as well as the discussion of models (not essentially or strictly biomedical) of understanding and coping with linguistic and cognitive disorders.

3. Constitution and theoretical-methodological treatment of different linguistic and interactional corpora, as those related to data of individuals with Alzheimer's Disease and individuals with aphasia (AphasiAcervus), either through oriented protocols, or through analysis of varied contexts  and natural interactional practices, such as those developed in the activities of Aphasies Center (CCA), UNICAMP.

From the institutional point of view, the COGITES is one of the research groups that make up the Phonetics and Psycholinguistics Laboratory (LAFAPE), one of the internal research centers of the Language Studies Institute of the State University of Campinas / UNICAMP.

CURRENT RESEARCH AREAS (Postgraduate Linguistics Program - IEL - UNICAMP)

1. Language and Thought;

2. Form and function of natural languages;

3. Text and Discourse functioning.