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Twice‐Born, Once Conceived: Meaning Construction and Cultural Cognition
Author(s) -
Shore Bradd
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1991.93.1.02a00010
Subject(s) - meaning (existential) , consciousness , relation (database) , synesthesia , cognition , psychology , epistemology , bridge (graph theory) , semiotics , sociology , cognitive science , cognitive psychology , computer science , perception , philosophy , medicine , database , neuroscience
Cultural cognition is the product of two different sorts of meaning: (a) the (objective) semiotic organization of cultural texts or models, and (b) the (subjective) processes of meaning construction through which cultural symbols become available to consciousness as “experience.” This article proposes a way to bridge these two kinds of meaning by considering how cultural knowledge is grounded in sensory experience. Several cognitive processes (schematization, synesthesia, secondary intersubjectivity) are proposed for linking the objectively available schemata found in cultural practices and the processes of meaning construction by which individuals appropriate symbols to consciousness. The nature of the relation between public symbols and individual experience is discussed in relation to a number of current issues in post‐structuralist culture theory.