This book explores embodiment in second language education, sociocultural theory and research. It focuses on process drama, an embodied approach that engages learners’ imagination, body and voice to create a felt-experience of the second language and culture. Divided into three parts, it begins by examining the aesthetic and intercultural dimension of performative language teaching, the elements of drama and knowing-in-action. The central part of the book examines issues related to play, emotions, classroom discourse and assessment when learning a language through process drama, in a sociocultural perspective. The third part is an analysis of the author’s qualitative research, which informs a subtle discussion on reflective practitioner methodology, learner engagement and teacher artistry. Each chapter includes a drama workshop, illustrating in practice what embodying language in action can look like when working with asylum seekers, adult learners with intellectual disabilities, pre-service teachers, international students and children involved in a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) programme. A unique combination of theory, research and reflective practice, this book provides valuable insights for teacher/artists, teacher educators and researchers in the fields of performative and sociocultural language learning.

In the last 10-15 years, the "embodied" and "grounded" cognition approach has become widespread in all fields related to cognitive science, such as cognitive and social psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, anthropology, computational modelling and robotics. According to this approach, our cognitive activity is grounded in sensory-motor processes and situated in specific contexts and situations. Therefore, in this view, concepts consist of the reactivation of the same neural pattern that is present when we perceive and/or interact with the objects they refer to. In the same way, understanding language would imply forming a mental simulation of what is linguistically described. This simulation would entail the recruitment of the same neurons that are activated when actually acting or perceiving the situation, action, emotion, object or entity described by language. In the last years a lot of evidence has been collected in favour of EC and GC view. The aim of this Research Topic is twofold. First, it intends to give an idea of the field of embodied and grounded cognition in its broadness. We therefore intend to invite scientists of different disciplines (anthropology, philosophy, linguistics, cognitive and social psychology, neuroscience, computer science) to submit their proposals. The second aim of this Research Topicis to focus on some challenges that in our opinion embodied and grounded theories of cognition need to face. First, we believe that one important challenge for EC and GC views is to account for the way the so-called "abstract concepts" and abstract words are represented. Evidence on the representation of concrete concepts and words is compelling, whereas evidence on abstract concepts representation is still too scarce and limited to restricted domains. We therefore welcome proposals dealing with this complex issue. Second, we think that embodied and grounded theories of cognition would need to formulate more precise hypotheses, and that in general within the field a larger theoretical effort should be made. It is striking that, even if a lot of work in the field of computational modelling and robotics starts from an embodied approach, experimental and modelling work on embodied cognition remain somehow separate. We therefore invite researchers to submit papers proposing models which might help to explain phenomena as well as to constrain and specify in more detail the predictions and the claims advanced within the framework of EC and GC theories.

This edited volume seeks to integrate research and scholarship on the topic of embodiment, with the idea being that thinking and feeling are often grounded in more concrete representations related to perception and action. The book centers on psychological approaches to embodiment and includes chapters speaking to development as well as clinical issues, though a larger number focus on topics related to cognition and neuroscience as well as social and personality psychology. These topical chapters are linked to theory-based chapters centered on interoception, grounded cognition, conceptual metaphor, and the extended mind thesis. Further, a concluding section speaks to critical issues such as replication concerns, alternative interpretations, and future directions. The final result is a carefully conceived product that is a comprehensive and well-integrated volume on the psychology of embodiment. The primary audience for this book is academic psychologists from many different areas of psychology (e.g., social, developmental, cognitive, clinical). The secondary audience consists of disciplines in which ideas related to embodied cognition figure prominently, such as counseling, education, biology, and philosophy.

Embodied cognition represents one of most important research programs in contemporary cognitive science. Although there is a diversity of opinion concerning the nature of embodiment, the core idea is that cognitive processes are influenced by body morphology, emotions, and sensorimotor systems. This idea is supported by an ever increasing collection of empirical studies that fall into two broad classes: one consisting of experiments that implicate action, emotion, and perception systems in seemingly abstract cognitive tasks and the other consisting of experiments that demonstrate the contribution of bodily interaction with the external environment to the performance of such tasks. Now that the research program of embodied cognition is well established, the time seems right for assessing its further promise and potential limitations. This research topic aims to create an interdisciplinary forum for discussing where we go from here. Given that we have good reason to think that the body influences cognition in surprisingly robust ways, the central question is no longer whether or not any cognitive processes are embodied. Instead, other questions have come to the fore: To what extent are cognitive processes in general embodied? Are there disembodied processes? Among those that are embodied, how are they embodied? Is there more than one kind of embodiment? Is embodiment a matter of degree? There are a number of specific issues that could be addressed by submissions to this research topic. Some supporters of embodied cognition eschew representations. Should anti-representationalism be a core part of an embodied approach? What role should dynamical models play? Research in embodied cognition has tended to focus on the importance of sensorimotor areas for cognition. What are the functions of multimodal or amodal brain areas? Abstract concepts have proved to be a challenge for embodied cognition. How should they be handled? Should researchers allow for some form of weak embodiment? Currently, there is a split between those who offer a simulation-based approach to embodiment and those who offer an enactive approach. Who is right? Should there be a rapprochement between these two groups? Some experimental and robotics researchers have recently shown a great deal of interest in the idea that external resources such as language can serve as form of cognitive scaffolding. What are the implications of this idea for embodied cognition? This research aims to bring together empirical and theoretical work from a diversity of perspectives. Subtitling is one of the most important disciplines in the history of social sciences, with the help of cognitive psychology. Researchers are encouraged to submit papers to discussing the future of embodied cognition, methods, models, or theories.

In Embodied Minds in Action, Robert Hanna and Michelle Maiese work out a unified treatment of three fundamental philosophical problems: the mind-body problem, the problem of mental causation, and the problem of action. This unified treatment rests on two basic claims. The first is that conscious, intentional minds like ours are essentially embodied. This entails that our minds are necessarily spread throughout our living, organismic bodies and belong to their complete neurobiological constitution. So minds like ours are necessarily alive. The second claim is that essentially embodied minds are self-organizing thermodynamic systems. This entails that our mental lives consist in the possibility and actuality of moving our own living organismic bodies through space and time, by means of our conscious desires. The upshot is that we are essentially minded animals who help to create the natural world through our own agency. This doctrine—the Essential Embodiment Theory—is a truly radical idea which subverts the traditionally opposed and seemingly exhaustive categories of Dualism and Materialism, and offers a new paradigm for contemporary mainstream research in the philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience.

We interact with our environment through perception and action. Perception is based on sensory components while actions are based on motor components. It is commonly accepted that these sensorimotor components constitute the foundation of knowledge (i.e., percepts and concepts), action and emotion. However, whether or not these components remain part of knowledge, action and emotion is still being debated (see Glenberg, Witt, & Metcalfe, 2013). According to the classical symbolic/abstracted approach of cognition, cognitive processes operate on symbols that are abstracted from these components. Reversely, embodied cognition theory states that knowledge, action and emotion remain grounded in these sensorimotor components (see Wilson, 2002). This embodiment revolution assumes that the interactions between present and absent —but simulated in memory— sensory-motor components determine the emergence of knowledge, action and emotion (Barsalou, 2008). It also implies that perception, memory (in particular conceptual knowledge), action and emotion interact together in a closer way that previously thought (e.g. Riou, Lesourd, Brunel & Versace, 2011; Corveleyn, Lopez-Moliner & Coello, 2012; Vermeulen et al., 2013). Despite the accumulation of empirical evidence showing that perception, memory, action and emotion interact together, less is known about the dynamics of these interactions. It remains to precise the temporal dynamic (when these interactions occur), the neural underlying networks, and the factors that modulate these interactions. The present research topic focuses on the dynamic relationship between present and absent sensorimotor components across perception, memory, action and emotion in a grounded cognition perspective. This research topic aims 1) to demonstrate the validity of the embodied cognition theories 2) to highlight the dynamics of emergence of conceptual knowledge, action and emotion 3) to provide a comprehensive state-of-the-art theoretical explanation and/or models.

In recent years there has been an increasing awareness that a comprehensive understanding of language, cognitive and affective processes, and social and interpersonal phenomena cannot be achieved without understanding the ways these processes are grounded in bodily states. The term 'embodiment' captures the common denominator of these developments, which come from several disciplinary perspectives ranging from neuroscience, cognitive science, social psychology, and affective sciences. For the first time, this volume brings together these varied developments under one umbrella and furnishes a comprehensive overview of this intellectual movement in the cognitive-behavioral sciences. The chapters review current work on relations of the body to thought, language use, emotion and social relationships as presented by internationally recognized experts in these areas.

Leading international scholars provide a coherent framework for analyzing body movement and talk in the production of meaning.

"Our thoughts depend on knowledge about objects, people, properties, and events. To think about where we left our keys, what we are going to make for dinner, when we last fed the dogs, and how we are going to survive our next visit with our family, we need to know something about locations, keys, cooking, dogs, survival, families, and so on. This book examines how our brains can store and access such general knowledge about the world and our place in it. More specifically, it investigates the neurocognitive mechanisms responsible for encoding our concepts. Sorting objects, events, and experiences into categories enables us to recall and use information that we have gathered over time. Stored information about these categories helps us make decisions, communicate, and respond in an intelligent way to changing circumstances. Our concepts serve as the building blocks for many forms of thinking. We use them to recognize patterns, draw inferences, make decisions, and understand word meanings. Concepts are bodies of knowledge that are quickly accessed in various situations (Machery, 2009; Margolis & Laurence, 1999; Murphy, 2002)"--