To deepen the cultivation of interdisciplinary innovative thinking, the ninth "Humanities x Technology" Thinkers' Forum is to commence.

Theme：The Semantic Multiverse —— Embodiment and Linguistic Relativity in the Human Brain

Time: 14:30, July 2, 2025 (Wednesday)

Venue: Room B103, Pingxue Building, Qingshuihe Campus

Keynote Speaker:

Professor Guillaume Thierry studies the processing of meaning by the human brain and interactions between language and other cognitive processes such as attention, memory, emotion, and decision-making. Since he started his career at Bangor University in 2000, Prof. Thierry has investigated a range of themes, such as language development, visual object recognition, colour perception, functional cerebral asymmetry, and the neural bases of bilingualism. He has received funding from UK Research Councils, the European Research Council, the British Academy, and, more recently, the Polish Academic Exchange Program to investigate the integration of meaning in infants and adults at lexical, syntactic, and conceptual levels.

Main Content:

This talk examines neuroscientific evidence showing that language is deeply entangled with perception, emotion, and conceptual thought, challenging the modular view of language as an isolated cognitive system. Across diverse linguistic and cultural contexts, the brain constructs meaning in ways that reflect not a single universal model, but a semantic multiverse: a plurality of coexisting conceptual frameworks grounded in bodily experience and shaped by linguistic structure.