Psychology
Profile
Background
Chris Sinha is Professor of Psychology of Language. He gained his BA in Developmental Psychology at the University of Sussex and his doctorate at the University of Utrecht. Before moving to Portsmouth in September 2002, Chris taught in departments of Education, Psychology, and Language and Communication, in Britain, the Netherlands, Denmark and India. He has published widely in many disciplines, including anthropology, linguistics, education, evolutionary biology, connection science, as well as developmental and cultural psychology. He is an experienced plenary lecturer at international conferences and has been a lecturer at many graduate and research schools. From September 2002, when he joined the Department of Psychology, until February 2005, Chris was Head of Department. He organized, together with Jörg Zinken, the International Conference on Language, Culture and Mind at the University of Portsmouth in July 2004, which was the first in a series of which the third will take place in 2007. He was First President (2005-2007) of the UK Cognitive Linguistics Association.
Teaching
Chris is unit coordinator for the Year 1 unit "Psychology of Communication" and the Year 3 option 'Language, Thought and Culture' in the BSc Psychology. He especially welcomes suggestions to supervise 3rd year student projects in the area of language, communication and cognition; and language and cognitive development. Chris is also Postgraduate Research Tutor.
Research
Chris's central research interest is in the relations between language, cognition and culture, and a main aim of his research is to integrate cognitive linguistic with semiotic and socio-cultural approaches to language and communication, including language development and the evolution of language. Chris is General Editor of the journal Language and Cognition.
Grants / Projects
Chris has held numerous research grants and was from 1997 to 2001 co-ordinator of the Language Acquisition and Cognition Network, funded by the Danish Research Council for the Humanities. He was Principal Investigator of the project "Cognition, Culture and Typology in Language Acquisition and Evolution: Zapotec", funded (2002-2004) by the Danish Research Council for the Humanities under the European Science Foundation EUROCORES research programme Origin of Man, Language and Languages, and is currently University of Portsmouth Partner Leader for the project 'Stages in the Development and Evolution of Sign Use' (SEDSU), funded by the European Union under the 6th Framework PATHFINDER initiative 'What it Means to Be Human'. This is a collaborative project between this Department and Goldsmith's College (London), the University of Lund (Sweden), CNRS-Marseilles (France), CNR-Rome (Italy) and the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig (Germany). The research group in Portsmouth currently includes Katja Liebal, Vasu Reddy, Chris Sinha and Jörg Zinken. Chris and Jörg, together with Vera da Silva Sinha, are researching the linguistic and metaphoric conceptualisation of motion/space events, in collaboration with Dr Wany Sampaio of the Federal University of Rondônia, Brazil. Our project involves analysis of language and cognition in the indigenous language and culture of the Amondawa, a community speaking one of the Tupi Kawahib languages of Amazonia.
Indicative/Representative Publications
Books
(NOTE: Most PDFs below link to pre-publication versions of the article in accordance with many publishers' self-archive policy. For PDFs of published versions, where available, or to report broken links, please e-mail me).
Sinha C. (2010) Languages, Culture and Mind. 10 lectures on development, evolution and cognitive linguistics. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. xxi+287 pp.
Zlatev, J., T. Racine, C. Sinha and E. Itkonen (eds.) (2008) The Shared Mind: Perspectives on intersubjectivity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins (http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=CELCR%2012)
Hiraga, M.K., Sinha, C. & Wilcox, S. (Eds.) (1999) Cultural, Psychological and Typological Issues in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Sinha, C. (1988) Language and Representation: A Socio-Naturalistic Approach to Human Development. Hemel Hempstead, Harvester-Wheatsheaf & New York, New York University Press, xix + 235 pp. 2nd edition in preparation.
Journal Articles
Sinha, C., Silva Sinha, V., Zinken, J., Sampaio, W. (2011). When Time is not Space: The social and linguisticconstruction of time intervals and temporal event relations in an Amazonian culture. Language and Cognition, 3(1), 137-169. (pdf)
Sinha, C. (2009). Objects in a storied world: materiality, narrativity and normativity. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 16: 167-190. (pdf)
Sinha, C. (2009) Language as a biocultural niche and social institution. In Vyvyan Evans and Stéphanie Pourcel (Eds.) New Directions in Cognitive Linguistics. Amstyerdam: John Benjamins, pp. 289-310.
Sinha, C. (2009) Review of Daniel D. Hutto Folk Psychological Narratives: The sociocultural basis of understanding reasons. Language and Cognition 1(1): 137-143. (pdf)
Sinha, C. (2007) Self, symbol and subject. A commentary on Lyra On abbreviation: dialogue in early life. International Journal of Dialogical Science. 2: 45-50. (Download From Journal Website)
Sinha, C. (2006) Epigenetics, semiotics and the mysteries of the organism. Biological Theory 1 (2): 112-115. (pdf)
Sampaio, W., Sinha, C. & Silva Sinha, V. da. (2009) Mixing and mapping: motion, path and manner in Amondawa. In Jiansheng Guo, Elena Lieven, Nancy Budwig, Susan Ervin-Tripp, Kei Nakamura, Şeyda Özçaliskan (eds.) Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Study of Language. Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin. London and New York: Psychology Press, pp. 427-439. (pdf)
Sinha, C. and Rodriguez, C. (2008) Language and the signifying object: from convention to imagination. In J. Zlatev, T. Racine, C. Sinha and E. Itkonen (eds.) The Shared Mind: Perspectives on intersubjectivity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 358-378. (pdf)
Sinha, C. (2007) Cognitive linguistics, psychology and cognitive science. In D. Geeraerts and H. Cuyckens (eds.) Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Oxford, Oxford University Press. pp. 1266-1294. (pdf)
Sinha, C. (2007) Entry on 'Relativism', Encyclopedia of Law and Society, Thousand Oaks, Sage. pp. 1287-1292. (pdf)
Sinha, C. (2006). Signifying subjects. In T. Haukioja (ed.) Papers on Language Theory. University of Turku Publications in General Linguistics 10, Åbo Akademis tryckeri, pp. 147-177. (pdf)
Sinha, C. (2005) Biology, culture and the emergence and elaboration of symbolization. In Anjum P. Saleemi, Ocke-Schwen Bohn and Albert Gjedde (eds.) In Search of a Language for the Mind-Brain: Can the Multiple Perspectives be Unified? Aarhus, Aarhus University Press, pp. 311-335. (pdf)
Jensen de Lopez, K., Hayashi, M. and Sinha, C. (2005) Early shaping of spatial meanings in three languages and cultures: linguistic or cultural relativity? In A. Makkai, W. J. Sullivan, & A. R. Lommel (eds.) Selected Papers from the LACUS Forum XXXI 2003: Interconnections. Houston, Texas: Linguistic Association of Canada and the Unites States, pp. 377-386. (pdf)
Sinha, C. (2004) The Evolution of Language: From Signals to Symbols to System. In D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel (eds.) Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach. Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 217-235. (pdf)
Sinha, C. (in press) Iconology and Imagination in Human Development. In Armin W. Geertz and Jeppe Sinding Jensen (Eds.) Religious Narrative, Cognition and Culture: Image and Word in the Mind of Narrative. London: Equinox Publishing. (pdf)
Chapters in Edited Volumes
Silva Sinha, Vera da, Chris Sinha, Wany Sampaio and Jörg Zinken (in press). Event-based time intervals in an Amazonian culture. In Filipović, Luna and Kasia M. Jaszczolt (eds.) Space and Time across Languages and Cultures Volume II: Language, Culture and Cognition. Amsterdam, John Benjamins. (pdf)
Sampaio, W., Sinha, C. & Silva Sinha, V. da. (2009) Mixing and mapping: motion, path and manner in Amondawa. In Jiansheng Guo, Elena Lieven, Nancy Budwig, Susan Ervin-Tripp, Kei Nakamura, Şeyda Özçaliskan (eds.) Crosslinguistic Approaches to the Study of Language. Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin. London and New York: Psychology Press, pp. 427-439. (pdf)
Sinha, C. and Rodriguez, C. (2008) Language and the signifying object: from convention to imagination. In J. Zlatev, T. Racine, C. Sinha and E. Itkonen (eds.) The Shared Mind: Perspectives on intersubjectivity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 358-378. (pdf)
Sinha, C. (2007) Cognitive linguistics, psychology and cognitive science. In D. Geeraerts and H. Cuyckens (eds.) Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Oxford, Oxford University Press. pp. 1266-1294. (pdf)
Sinha, C. (2007) Entry on 'Relativism', Encyclopedia of Law and Society, Thousand Oaks, Sage. pp. 1287-1292. (pdf)
Sinha, C. (2006). Signifying subjects. In T. Haukioja (ed.) Papers on Language Theory. University of Turku Publications in General Linguistics 10, Åbo Akademis tryckeri, pp. 147-177. (pdf)
Sinha, C. (2005) Biology, culture and the emergence and elaboration of symbolization. In Anjum P. Saleemi, Ocke-Schwen Bohn and Albert Gjedde (eds.) In Search of a Language for the Mind-Brain: Can the Multiple Perspectives be Unified? Aarhus, Aarhus University Press, pp. 311-335. (pdf)
Jensen de Lopez, K., Hayashi, M. and Sinha, C. (2005) Early shaping of spatial meanings in three languages and cultures: linguistic or cultural relativity? In A. Makkai, W. J. Sullivan, & A. R. Lommel (eds.) Selected Papers from the LACUS Forum XXXI 2003: Interconnections. Houston, Texas: Linguistic Association of Canada and the Unites States, pp. 377-386. (pdf)
Sinha, C. (2004) The Evolution of Language: From Signals to Symbols to System. In D. Kimbrough Oller and Ulrike Griebel (eds.) Evolution of Communication Systems: A Comparative Approach. Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 217-235. (pdf)
Silva Sinha, Vera da, Chris Sinha, Wany Sampaio and Jörg Zinken (in press).
Event-based time intervals in an Amazonian culture. In Filipović, Luna and Kasia M. Jaszczolt (eds.) Space and Time across Languages and Cultures Volume II: Language, Culture and Cognition. Amsterdam, John Benjamins. (pdf)