The Embodiment of Language

2018 ◽  
pp. 622-640
Author(s):  
Mark Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Body Part ◽  
The Body ◽  
Natural Languages ◽  
Image Schemas ◽  
Affective Processes ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics

Analytic philosophy of language was originally based on a fundamentally disembodied view of meaning and language. In contrast, research in cognitive linguistics and neuroscience emphasizes the central role of the body and brain in shaping meaning, concepts, and thought. Meaning is not, in the first instance, linguistic. Instead, language depends on and recruits prior sensory, motor, and affective processes. This article surveys some of the more important embodied structures and processes of meaning-making that give rise to the syntax, semantics, and pragmatics of natural languages. This includes body-part projections, perceptual concepts, image schemas, emotions, body-based grammatical constructions, and conceptual metaphors, as those are understood from the perspective of simulation semantics, embodied construction grammar, and the neural theory of language. In addition to the four Es of cognition—embodied, embedded, enactive, extended—we need to add three more Es—emotional, evolutionary, and exaptative.

scholarly journals Going places with bodies that can seek and find, eyes that can see, and ears that can hear: Some remarks on the body and understanding in the Gospel of Thomas

2002 ◽  
Vol 58 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Liebenberg
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Gospel Of Thomas

This article discusses the role which “the body” plays in the Gospel of Thomas. Despite the fact that Thomas has often been regarded as “Gnostic, it is interesting to note that significant sayings within the Gospel (referring to “revelation”) involve the body, while there are also a number of sayings which are distinctly anti-material – most notably GTh 17. The article uses the insights of second generation Cognitive Linguistics and the role of primary metaphors to explain this anomaly.

Kommunikative Vernunft

2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Habermas ◽  
Christoph Demmerling ◽  
Hans-Peter Krüger
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Speech Acts ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Communicative Action ◽  
The Body ◽  
Negative Experiences ◽  
Validity Claims ◽  
Communicative Reason ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Jürgen Habermas explicates the concept of communicative reason. He explains the key assumptions of the philosophy of language and social theory associated with this concept. Also discussed is the category of life-world and the role of the body-mind difference for the consciousness of exclusivity in our access to subjective experience. as well as the role of emotions and perceptions in the context of a theory of communicative action. The question of the redemption of the various validity claims as they are associated with the performance of speech acts is related to processes of social learning and to the role of negative experiences. Finally the interview deals with the relationship between religion and reason and the importance of religion in modern, post-secular societies. Questions about the philosophical culture of our present times are discussed at the end of the conversation.

Colourful psi’s sleep furiously: Depicting emotional states in some African languages

2002 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 57-83
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Social World ◽  
The Body ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Language Structure ◽  
The Social ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Figurative Speech

This study sets out to investigate the “poetry of grammar”, more specifically the role of the body in figurative speech, in African languages mainly belonging to Nilotic and Bantu. Apprehending the semantics and pragmatics of metaphorical and metonymic expressions in these languages presupposes an interaction between a number of cognitive processes, as argued below. Interestingly, these languages seem to use these strategies involving figurative speech in tandem with alternative strategies involving on-record statements. This multivocality only makes sense if we place language and language structure more in the social world in which it is used.

scholarly journals Bridging Heterodox Views on Language and Symbols: Gilbert Durand’s Imaginaire and Mark Johnson’s Image Schemata

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-230
Author(s):  
Benito García-Valero
Keyword(s):  
Internal Structure ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
The Body ◽  
Cognitive Value ◽  
Image Schemata ◽  
Mark Johnson

Summary This paper aims to bridge anthropological and cognitivist research undertaken by Gilbert Durand and Mark Johnson, who studied the phenomenon of meaning making in a similar way, although they had to use different terminology as their disciplines demanded. Durand established systematization for analyzing symbolism by taking into account the position of the body and the perceptions determining the underlying schemata of symbols. Two decades later, Mark Johnson described image schemata as gestalts having an internal structure derived from bodily perceptions. Owing to these similarities, a comparison between Durand and Johnson’s theories is offered first. In the second place, I reviewed the cognitive value of the anthropological regimes of imaginaire described by Durand. During the analysis, the terminology used by these theorists (like ‘image schemata’ or ‘axiomatic schemata’) was comparatively analyzed to find common ground between their positions. In conclusion, the need for recovering theories of imagination proposed by heterodox scholars like Durand is highlighted, since they anticipate the role of images and imagination not only in language, as Johnson demonstrated, but also in the formation of anthropologically relevant symbols, which are of interest for the analysis of literature and other arts.

scholarly journals Towards an embodied poetics of cinema

2012 ◽  
pp. 50-67
Author(s):  
Maarten Coëgnarts ◽  
Peter Kravanja
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Meaning Construction ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Cinema Studies ◽  
Image Schemas ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Aesthetic

Central to Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) is the notion of embodied mind, which states that cognition is shaped by aspects of the body. Human beings make metaphoric use of recurring dynamic patterns of perceptual interactions and motor programmes (image schemas) for abstract conceptualisation and reasoning. According to film scholar David Bordwell the poetics of cinema studies the film as a result of a process of construction. He presents the following key question: how do film-makers use the aesthetic dynamics of the film medium to elicit particular effects from spectators? In this article we want to address an abbreviated case of meaning construction in film, namely the construction of abstract meaning in film. By combining insights from Bordwell as well as CMT, we will demonstrate how the poetics of abstract meaning-making in film is embodied. What does it mean to say that the construction of higher meaning in film is rooted in bodily experience and how can this be grasped without resorting to the confinement of words and sentences? By analysing the stylistics and the visual patterning of particular film scenes we will demonstrate how film-makers often resort to image schemas to come to terms with abstract notions such as time, love and psychological content.

scholarly journals SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS OF VERBAL ASPECTUALITY IN ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN DISCOURSES

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 59-64
Author(s):  
E. V. Limarova ◽  
E. E. Sokolova
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Contextual Analysis ◽  
Symbolic Logic ◽  
Scientific Interest ◽  
Gone With The Wind ◽  
Tense And Aspect ◽  
Conceptual Organization ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics

The relevance of the proposed article stems from the scientific interest in investigation of different means of conceptual organization of knowledge in the process of production and interpretation of English and Russian utterances. Thus, it aims at establishing the role of aspect in English and Russian discourse through interpreting aspectual situations which are analyzed at the level of sentences and textual fragments borrowed from two translation versions of M. Mitchell’ s novel “Gone with the Wind”.The theoretical framework for the research is provided by Relevance theory as developed in recent works on procedural meaning to handle H. Reichenbach’s symbolic logic for tense and aspect and Relevance theory proposed by D. Sperber and D. Wilson. We suggest that the following means are involved in expressing the type of action: a combination of lexical and grammatical properties of the verb; grammatical forms of the verb; meanings of time adverbs. These means are capable of characterizing R, a conceptual notion, which can be inferred by contextual assumptions.Systematization of referential relations among the above mentioned components taking into account the influence of pragmatic interpretive component and contextual analysis of informational organization of discourse proves the hypothesis that referential characteristics being combined contribute to the description of a discourse situation as stative, habitual, inchoative or punctual.The article will be interesting for researchers in contrastive and cognitive linguistics.

THE COGNITIVE POTENTIAL OF METAPHOR IN SCIENTIFIC DISCOURSE

2021 ◽  
pp. 120-129
Author(s):  
Anastasiya A. Pyatunina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Spiritual Growth ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Efficient Communication ◽  
Science And Culture

The article is devoted to metaphor: its definition, classification, and various approaches to its study. The author attempts to analyze metaphor outside the research field of rhetoric (which traditionally interprets it as a tool of efficient communication) and uses a linguo-cognitive approach to consider it. Within the framework of this approach, metaphor is equated with the cat- egory of thinking and is interpreted as a way of exploring the world and one of the most important cognitive mechanisms used by an individual in the process of his spiritual growth. Since the role of metaphor was completely re-estimated from the point of view of cognitive linguistics, metaphor was no longer considered as a factor inhibiting the formation of scientific knowledge. It was discovered as a unify- ing principle, a semantic potential, which eventually revealed in it the signs of anthropometry that, in turn, served as an impetus for the development of cognitive science. Re-estimation of the role and place of metaphor in the post-nonclassical epistemological field presupposes the evolution of its status: from a common linguistic technique to a meaning-making center, a bridge between being and knowing, subject and object, language and world, science and culture.

Embodied meaning-making in the experiences and behaviours of persons with dementia

Dementia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 147130122110429
Author(s):  
Tor-Arne Isene ◽  
Hilde Thygesen ◽  
Lars J Danbolt ◽  
Hans Stifoss-Hanssen
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
The Body ◽  
Vulnerable Groups ◽  
Severe Dementia ◽  
The People ◽  
Embodied Meaning ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Psychiatric Department

Background The aim of the study was to explore and articulate how meaning-making appears and how meaningfulness is experienced in persons with severe dementia. Although there is little knowledge about meaning-making and experience of meaningfulness for this group, this article assumes that persons with dementia are as much in need of meaningfulness in life as any others, and hence, that they are involved in the process of meaning-making. Methods The study was conducted using a qualitative method with exploratory design. Ten patients with severe dementia at a specialized dementia ward at an old age psychiatric department in hospital were observed through participant observation performed over four months. The field-notes from the observation contained narratives carrying with them a dimension of meaning played out in an everyday setting and thus named Meaning-making dramas. The narratives were analyzed looking for expressions where experiences of meaning-making and meaningfulness could be identified. Results The narratives demonstrate that persons with severe dementia are involved in processes of meaning-making. The narratives include expressions of meaning-making, and of interactions that include apparent crises of meaning, but also transitions into what may be interpreted as meaningfulness based on experiences of significance, orientation and belonging. The role of the body and the senses has proved significant in these processes. The findings also suggest that experiences of meaning contribute to experience of personhood. Conclusions The relevance to clinical practice indicates that working from a person-centred approach in dementia care also includes paying attention to the dimension of meaning. This dimension is important both for the person living with dementia and for the people caring for them. Acknowledging meaning as a central human concern, it is crucial to seek understanding and knowledge about the significance of meaning in vulnerable groups such as persons with dementia.

A Reading of Ehud and Jael through the Lens 
of Affect Theory

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 430-449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy C. Cottrill
Keyword(s):  
Meaning Making ◽  
Physical Violence ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
Exposure To Violence ◽  
The Body ◽  
Valuable Insight ◽  
Textual Interpretation ◽  
Violent Images ◽  
Insight Into

This paper uses affect theory as a tool to interpret the violent images of two stories found in Judges 3–5, those of Ehud and Eglon and that of Jael and Sisera. Affect theory affords biblical exegetes a means to examine the role of the reader’s embodiment as a tool for textual interpretation. I use the work of affect theorists to discuss the way violent images work on readers and create the emotional, physical, and sensory context in which later violent images will be received and interpreted. The sensation created by exposure to violence is embodied in readers before the readers judge the images according to their moral, ideological, and ethical value. In fact, the embodied affect of exposure to violence is the context in which that judgment occurs. In Judges, the violated body anchors an experience of vulnerability and fear in the reader. The visceral affect of anxiety and the intensity of bodily violence position the reader to feel the need for security and relief in the figure of the king. This paper focuses on Ehud and Jael as two of the significant early exposures to the violated body in the book of Judges and explores their different contributions to the theme of physical violence. The physical experiences of modern readers may give us valuable insight into how the physical experiences of readers contribute to the persuasiveness of textual arguments. Affect theory brings into focus the body in the text and the body of the reader as part of meaning-making.


Language, Interpretation and Worship—II

1992 ◽  
Vol 31 ◽  
pp. 109-122
Author(s):  
Peter Lamarque
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
Philosophical Theology ◽  
Language Interpretation ◽  
Semantics And Pragmatics ◽  
Biblical Translation ◽  
Theology And Philosophy

Martin Warner's subtle and far-reaching synthesis of philosophical theology and philosophy of language belongs in a cluster of papers he has written on related topics (Warner 1985, 1990a, Introduction to 1990b) so it would be helpful to begin by setting out this wider context. His concerns overall cover three interlocking subjects: biblical interpretation, biblical translation, and reform of the liturgy. All pose a central conundrum, which in its briefest formulation is just this: what kind of meaning is involved in each case? Warner's particular focus is on the role of distinctions like content and style, truth and connotation, literal and figurative, ultimately semantics and pragmatics.

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