From Machine Language to Embodied Cognition

This chapter examines the evolution of conceptions of language within the framework of cognitive science, focusing on the shift from a computational paradigm to an embodied approach to cognition. Grounded in a central question — how the mind-as-computer metaphor was gradually replaced by a view of language rooted in lived experience and body–environment interaction — the study adopts a historical, comparative, and critical methodology. The analysis traces major paradigms and compares linguistic models, from Chomskyan formalism to cognitive linguistics. It draws on insights from the philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, and linguistics to shed light on the epistemological transformations at stake. This chapter, through its historical, theoretical, and practical sections, aims to highlight the continuities, ruptures, and conceptual contributions that have led to a reconfiguration of language as a phenomenon that is at once cognitive, physical, and contextual, from a resolutely interdisciplinary perspective.