Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Casasanto, Daniel
• Bottini, Roberto

Titel

Spatial language and abstract concepts

Ist Teil von

• Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. Cognitive science, 2014-03, Vol.5 (2), p.139-149

Ort / Verlag

Hoboken, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2014

Quelle

Wiley-Blackwell Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• What is the relationship between spatial language and concepts? When people talk about things that they can never see or touch, they often use spatial metaphors (e.g., a long vacation, a high price, a close friendship). According to theories of metaphorical mental representation, linguistic metaphors reflect underlying mental metaphors. Yet, behavioral experiments show that this is only one of the possible relationships between spatial metaphors in language and our spatial conceptualizations of domains. In some cases, linguistic metaphors not only reflect speakers' thoughts, they also change those thoughts, such that people who use different linguistic metaphors rely on correspondingly different mental metaphors. Alternatively, spatial metaphors in language may reflect the way people conceptualize an domain in some circumstances, but not in others. Finally, spatial language may reflect the way an domain is typically conceptualized by some people, but not by others. There is no single relationship between spatial language and concepts. Discovering whether (and under what conditions) a linguistic metaphor corresponds to a mental metaphor can illuminate the ways in which our interactions with the physical and social environment shape our mental lives. WIREs Cogn Sci 2014, 5:139–149. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1271 This article is categorized under: Linguistics > Language in Mind and Brain Psychology > Perception and Psychophysics Psychology > Language