Exploring Linguistic Meaning: Unraveling Semantics and Neurocognition in Language with Professor Maria Piñango

Meaning is far from being a stable and uncomplicated element of language. Human beings exist in the world through language and the possibilities of conveying and deciphering meaning. Through the study of semantics from a neurolinguistic and psycholinguistic approach, Dr. Maria Piñango seeks to better understand language as a system through which the human can be studied both as a social and as an individual being. 

Maria Piñango is an Associate Professor of Linguistics and Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program at Yale University. She mainly focuses on the neuroscience language and its relation to meaning: she conducts research in experimental semantics, focusing on linguistic meaning

structure and how it interacts with non-linguistic cognitive processes. Her interest in neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics developed “from an interest to understand the language capacity as a biological system through which we can study the human as an individual and as a social being”.  

Dr. Piñango is interested “in how the process of integration of different linguistic information during comprehension in real-time occurs, and whether differences in the process of integration find parallels in cortical realization and distribution”. Moreover, she studies language deficits that result from brain damage, and the interaction between linguistic processes and other cognitive capacities such as memory. 

Her interests have expanded throughout her career. She started working on the structure of linguistic meaning from the perspective of real-time sentence comprehension, and over the years she has added other dynamics of meaning such as development (acquisition of meaning) and diachrony (meaning change over centuries).  In 2008, she became the first person of color and the first woman to be granted tenure in the Linguistics department.

“Dr. Piñango’s Language and Brain Lab investigates the structure of the neurocognitive system, the system of linguistic meaning and of linguistic meaning comprehension including the conceptual and memory systems that support it in neurotypical adults and children”.

Language and Brain Lab at Yale

After completing her Ph.D at Brandeis University in 1999, she arrived at Yale University, where she created the Language and Brain Lab: “I started it when I first arrived at Yale. It is the space for training students as experimental researchers and supporting them as they go through their graduate and undergraduate work. It is also the space for development and implementation of new research lines”. The lab not only supports the research of its members but it also hosts Meaning in Flux, a conference on the variation of connections between meanings and the pronunciations through which they are linguistically conveyed.

Dr. Piñango’s Language and Brain Lab investigates the structure of the neurocognitive system, the system of linguistic meaning and of linguistic meaning comprehension “including the conceptual and memory systems that support it in neurotypical adults and children”. Some of the approaches that are conducted in the lab are questionnaires, self-paced reading or eye-tracking (this is, behavioral). Other methods are electrophysiological (ERP), and neuroimaging (fMRI).

Through the establishment of the Language and Brain Lab at Yale University, Dr. Piñango has not only conducted pioneering research herself but has also fostered an environment for training and supporting students as experimental researchers. 

English and Spanish

María Piñango works on English and Spanish semantics, a comparative work that allows her to investigate the distinct aspects of the underlying meaning system that are revealed by each: 

That is the case for example of the copula meaning space which in English is accessed through one verb to be (Ana is tall) and in Spanish is accessed by two ser and estar (Ana es/está alta) which can express basically the same proposition (‘Ana is tall’), yet can be used in contrasting contexts. Here, looking at the historical record of the language is useful in understanding why a language would have two copular verbs when one copula verb could do the job. Ser is the original copula in the language. Estar (from Latin stare  meaning “stand up stiffly”) entered the language during the 13th Century. Turns out that since entering the language, estar has been conquering, as it were, the meaning space that ser  used to express, a process that continues until this day across all the dialects of the language that we have investigated. The reasons for why this is the case have to do with the greater informativity capacity of estar (vs. ser) the origins of which involve the meaning of stare. This bias towards greater informativity indicates that speakers of a language are operating under an unconscious and rather nuanced understanding of the potential of any given word of their language to express a meaning space and throughout their patterns of use support the “advancement” of the one that appears to have greater chances of expression in a more “compact” manner. That is the case of estar. This process of advancement (or “encroachment” as it is normally known) happens incrementally, and unconsciously across the given speech community, one individual speaker at a time, across generations of speakers. In this way, carrying out the comparative work allows us to uncover the neurocognitive “tool set” that supports the meaning system not only for Spanish and English but for all human languages. 

“The aim of my work is to uncover the structure of the meaning system that subserves language both at the linguistic, cognitive and neurological levels. All the projects of my lab target one or another aspect of this overarching aim”

Ongoing projects

When asked about her current ongoing projects and research interests Dr Piñango states: “The aim of my work is to uncover the structure of the meaning system that subserves language both at the linguistic, cognitive and neurological levels. All the projects of my lab target one or another aspect of this overarching aim”. She highlights the importance of the Lab and the work with students in the Linguistics department, a “very diverse department where we investigate the language system from almost all perspectives. This makes for an intellectually dynamic place. Our plans for the future are to continue in this enterprise”.

Dr. Maria Piñango’s achievements serve as an inspiration and testament to the importance of diversity and representation in academia. Her contributions have left a lasting mark on the study of semantics, and her dedication to training the next generation of researchers ensures that her legacy will continue to shape the understanding of language for years to come.

Katherina Frangi, Graduate Student Assistant, katherina.frangi@yale.edu