scholarly journals Grounding Social Embodiment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Lakens

Social embodiment research examines how thoughts, affect, and behavior is influenced by sensory, motor, and perceptual cues in the environment. It has repeatedly received criticism due to a focus on demonstration studies. Here, I aim to identify some of the possible reasons underlying the lack of theoretical progress. First, I warn against relying too strongly on inductive inferences due to the weak empirical support for social embodiment findings. Second, I will discuss two dominant theoretical frameworks in social embodiment research (conceptual metaphor theory and perceptual symbol systems theory) in light of their potential to inspire empirically testable hypotheses. Finally, I propose that one way to turn social embodiment research into a progressive research line is to integrate it more firmly with past theoretical work in social cognition, and focus on understanding the contexts in which concrete cues in the environment are salient and accessible enough to influence social inferences.

Author(s):  
Somogy Varga

A particular branch of the embodied cognition (EC) research program explicates abstract concepts and metaphors as grounded in particular domains of bodily experience. This chapter explores conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) and some recent behavioral and neuroscientific research that appears to offer some support for it. While this research indicates that bodily states exert non-negligible influence on cognition and behavior, the influences appear to occur in a way that is insensitive to reflectively endorsed norms. Assuming that the experimental findings extend to real-life situations, the findings raise a number of questions. The chapter offers reflections on particular questions and concerns in the legal realm and explores whether the findings present potential challenges to juridical legitimacy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-150
Author(s):  
Oana-Maria Păstae ◽  

The purpose of this paper is to study how ‘joy’, an emotional concept, is metaphorised in English from a cognitive perspective. It introduces the theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics, then briefly touches upon the definition of metaphor, the different types of conceptual metaphors and, finally, the conceptual metaphors of ‘joy’. We think in metaphors, which we learn very early. Our conceptual system, in terms of what we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature (Lakoff, & Johnson 2003: 8). Lakoff and Johnson’s book Metaphors we live by changed the way linguists thought about metaphor. Conceptual Metaphor Theory was one of the earliest theoretical frameworks identified as part of the cognitive semantics enterprise and provided much of the early theoretical impetus for the cognitive approach. The basic premise of Conceptual Metaphor Theory is that metaphor is not simply a stylistic feature of language, but that thought itself is fundamentally metaphorical in nature. The cognitive model of joy can be described using the example of Lakoff for anger: JOY IS A FLUID IN A CONTAINER: She was bursting with joy; JOY IS HEAT/FIRE: Fires of joy were kindled by the birth of her son; joy is a natural force: I was overwhelmed by joy; JOY IS A SOCIAL SUPERIOR: If I ruled the world by joy; JOY IS AN OPPONENT: She was seized by joy; joy is a captive animal: All joy broke loose as the kids opened their presents; JOY IS INSANITY: The crowd went crazy with joy; JOY IS A FORCE DISLOCATING THE SELF: He was beside himself with joy.


2015 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 167-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Gilead ◽  
Orian Gal ◽  
Marin Polak ◽  
Yael Cholow

It is unclear whether embodied-cognition effects are caused by the activation of cultural-linguistic metaphors, or whether these metaphors stem from preverbal mechanisms that directly affect both language and behavior. Therefore, we conducted a study wherein 62 Israeli participants ate sweet or spicy snacks and performed a social judgment task. Preverbal mechanisms assign positive hedonic value to sweetness and negative value to spiciness. However, in Israeli culture, “sweetness” is used as a metaphor for inauthenticity, whereas “spiciness” stands for intellectual competence. In accordance with the predictions of a culturally-mediated variant of conceptual-metaphor theory, the results showed that priming participants with spicy (vs. sweet) tastes increased judgments of intellectual competence, decreased judgments of inauthenticity, and increased overall evaluation of a social target.


2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 175-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam K. Fetterman ◽  
Brian P. Meier ◽  
Michael D. Robinson

Abstract. Metaphors often characterize prosocial actions and people as sweet. Three studies sought to explore whether conceptual metaphors of this type can provide insights into the prosocial trait of agreeableness and into daily life prosociality. Study 1 (n = 698) examined relationships between agreeableness and food taste preferences. Studies 2 (n = 66) and 3 (n = 132) utilized daily diary protocols. In Study 1, more agreeable people liked sweet foods to a greater extent. In Study 2, greater sweet food preferences predicted a stronger positive relationship between daily prosocial behaviors and positive affect, a pattern consistent with prosocial motivation. Finally, Study 3 found that daily prosocial feelings and behaviors varied positively with sweet food consumption in a manner that could not be ascribed to positive affect or self-control. Altogether, the findings encourage further efforts to extend conceptual metaphor theory to the domain of personality processes, in part by building on balance-related ideas.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-21
Author(s):  
Muhammad Adam

Indonesian health insurance (BPJS Kesehatan) has been facing financial deficit and during the coverage of its deficit, media frequently use many medical terms metaphor to describe the financial condition of BPJS Kesehatan. This study aims to examine the medical terms metaphor used to describe the financial deficit of BPJS Kesehatan to further identify the entailments and to pin point what is the cause of sickness and what could cure the sickness. Qualitative method is used in this study with conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) as the conceptual framework. There 10 headlines from various online media outlet that are collected as the source of the data. The study examines the particular terms which described BPJS Kesehatan as a sick patient and further analysis is conducted to identify the closest entailments of metaphor, which are to identify who will be the doctor and what cause its sickness. The results shows that the particular conditions  as  metaphor used to describe the financial condition of BPJS Kesehatan is dying (sekarat), critical (kritis), swell (bengkak), and wound (luka).  From the analysis of entailments, the doctor is the government equipped with medical supplies and procedures to cure the patient which is the financial subsidy and the second entailment is the cause of the sickness which is the lack of awareness from the member to pay the premium regularly on time.


Author(s):  
Zoltán Kövecses

The chapter reports on work concerned with the issue of how conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) functions as a link between culture and cognition. Three large areas are investigated to this effect. First, work on the interaction between conceptual metaphors, on the one hand, and folk and expert theories of emotion, on the other, is surveyed. Second, the issue of metaphorical universality and variation is addressed, together with that of the function of embodiment in metaphor. Third, a contextualist view of conceptual metaphors is proposed. The discussion of these issues leads to a new and integrated understanding of the role of metaphor and metonymy in creating cultural reality and that of metaphorical variation across and within cultures, as well as individuals.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Omar Bani Mofarrej ◽  
Ghaleb Rabab'ah

The present paper examines the metaphorical and metonymical conceptualizations of the heart in Jordanian Arabic (JA) within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory developed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The main aim is to explore how the human heart is conceptualized in JA, and to test the applicability of the different general cognitive mechanisms proposed by Niemeier (2003 and 2008) to those found in JA. The data were extracted from Idioms and Idiomatic Expressions in Levantine Arabic: Jordanian Dialect (Alzoubi, 2020), and other resources including articles, dissertations and books of Arabic proverbs. The findings revealed that all the four general cognitive mechanisms suggested by Niemeier (2003 and 2008) are applicable to JA. The findings also showed that the similarity derives from the universal aspects of the human body, which lends tremendous support to the embodiment hypothesis proposed by cognitive linguists. 


1999 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 635-636
Author(s):  
Katja Wiemer-Hastings ◽  
Arthur C. Graesser

The meanings of abstract concepts depend on context. Perceptual symbol systems (PSS) provide a powerful framework for representing such context. Whereas a few expected difficulties for simulations are consistent with empirical findings, the theory does not clearly predict simulations of specific abstract concepts in a testable way and does not appear to distinguish abstract noun concepts (like truth) from their stem concepts (such as true).


2021 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Salvador Alarcón-Hermosilla

Abstract The aim of this paper is to take a close look at John McGahern’s mind style through the language of the heroine Elizabeth Reegan and other characters, in his 1963 novel The Barracks. Specifically, attention will be drawn to how the linguistic choices shape the figurative language to cast the author’s controversial views on the religion-pervaded puritan Irish society that he knew so well. This will be done from two different perspectives. One perspective is through the breast cancer afflicted heroine, who asserts herself as a free thinker and a woman of science, in a society where priests have a strong influence at all social levels, and most women settle for housekeeping. The other is also through Elizabeth, together with other minor characters, who dare question some of the basic well-established ideological assumptions, in a series of examples where the author skilfully raises two parallel dichotomies, namely, FAITH versus REASON, and DARKNESS versus LIGHT. At a linguistic level, the present analysis relies on precepts from Frame Semantics, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and Cognitive Grammar. These insights prove a most useful method of approach to a narrative text while unearthing the author’s ideological world view.


2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-285
Author(s):  
Mason D. Lancaster

This article provides an overview of metaphor theories and research on their own terms, as well as their use in Hebrew Bible (HB) studies. Though metaphor studies in the HB have become increasingly popular, they often draw upon a limited or dated subset of metaphor scholarship. The first half of this article surveys a wide variety of metaphor scholarship from the humanities (philosophical, poetic, rhetorical) and the sciences (e.g., conceptual metaphor theory), beginning with Aristotle but focusing on more recent developments. The second half overviews studies of metaphor in the HB since 1980, surveying works focused on theory and method; works focused on specific biblical books or metaphor domains; and finally noting current trends and suggesting areas for future research.


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