Enactive processing of the syntax of sign language

Christopher Mole

Graham H. Turner

pp. 317-332

in: Phenomenology and the cognitive sciences 18 (2), 2019.

Abstract

It is unfashionable to suggest that enactive processes - including some that involve the mirror neuron system - might contribute to the comprehension of sign language. The present essay formulates and defends a version of that unfashionable suggestion, as it applies to certain forms of syntactic processing. There is evidence that has been thought to weigh against any such suggestion, coming from neuroimaging experiments and from the study of Deaf aphasics. In both cases it is shown to be unpersuasive.