To what extent is there really a universal structure, whether innate or
not, of language for learning? Or conversely, is language learning
mainly context-based? And, in the end, does the very nature of language
delimit our mental world-such that the limits of my language mean the
limits of my world or, in a different parlance, constitute the prison
house of language? Contrary to the conventional wisdom held by many in
history, all these seemingly plausible views are highly misleading, to
the extent that something vital is missing in the conventional debate,
such that the nature of learning has yet to be more comprehensively and
systematically understood. This is not to say, however, that the
literature in the study of language (and other related fields) hitherto
existing in history has been much ado about nothing. In fact, much can
be learned from different theoretical approaches in the literature. The
virtue of this book is to provide an alternative (better) way to
understand the nature of learning, especially (though not exclusively)
in relation to language-which, while incorporating the different views
in the literature, transcends them all in the end, with the use of
language and also beyond it. This inquiry may sound academic, but it has
enormous implications not just for the narrow concern with the nature of
language, but also, more importantly, for the larger concern with the
nature of thinking, feeling, and doing in learning, both with the use of
language and beyond it. If true, this seminal work will fundamentally
change the way that we think, not only about the nature of language, in
a small sense- but also about the nature of learning, with the use of
language and also beyond it, from the combined perspectives of the mind,
nature, society, and culture, for the human future and what I originally
called its post-human fate, in a broad sense.
