Research

My research focuses on the study of language from a holistic perspective. Questions I deal with and tend to answer in the affirmative: Is it problematic to treat human language 'merely' as a social phenomenon? Does intentionality describe an essential cognitive asset for lingustic behavior? Can we achieve a better understanding of the human ability to speak by looking at other intentional behaviors in nonhuman primates? So far, my research has drawn attention to patterns of variation in linguistic and non-linguistic behaviors which are only characteristic of behavior based on general cognitive abilities and intentional goal orientations. In other words, they are not characteristic of behaviors based on innate, biologically evolved dispositions in the individual. This insight was gained by an extensive comparative study on the formal encoding of meaning (the expression of reciprocal relations between entities) across languages, and primatologists' observations of dedicated tool practices across different ape populations. The identified patterns of variation in the means ("tools") used to either express meaning in language or manipulate inert objects in material practices, are identical with one another - notwithstanding the different functional domains or complexities of behavior. Using the comparative method, it is thus possible to identify clear markers of behavior which verify the ontology of a behavior as being of cultural origin. In respect to language, this finding refutes the long-standing Chomskyan assumption about an innate cognitive linguistic endowment called Universal Grammar (UG). In addition, it refutes strong assumptions by linguistic functionalism that define language as a primarily social phenomenon. Sociality alone does not explain the human ability to invent and use linguistic signs felicitously, even though communication may be called an intrinsically social behavior. My current research focuses on a line of argument which can make this claim more explicit (see Kuhle, 2018, in Language Sciences and Kuhle, 2018, with Lexington Books).