Ungrounding symbols in language development: implications for modeling emergent symbolic communication in artificial systems

The relation of symbolic cognition to embodied and situated bodily dynamics remains one of the hardest problems in the contemporary cognitive sciences. In this paper we show that one of the possible factors contributing to this difficulty is the way the problem is posed. Basing on the theoretical frameworks of cognitive semiotics, ecological psychology and dynamical systems we point to an alternative way of formulating the problem and show how it suggests possible novel solutions. We illustrate the usefulness of this theoretical change in the domain of language development and draw conclusions for computational models of the emergence of symbols in natural cognition and communication as well as in artificial systems.