Work on analogy has been done from a number of disciplinary perspectives throughout the history of Western thought. This work is a multidisciplinary guide to theorizing about analogy. It contains 1,406 references, primarily to journal articles and monographs, and primarily to English language material. classical through to contemporary sources are included. The work is classified into eight different sections (with a number of subsections). A brief introduction to each section is provided. Keywords and key expressions of importance to research on (...) analogy are discussed in the introductory material. Electronic resources for conducting research on analogy are listed as well. (shrink)

Two experiments investigated whether motion metaphors for time affected the perception of spatial motion. Participants read sentences either about literal motion through space or metaphorical motion through time written from either the ego‐moving or object‐moving perspective. Each sentence was followed by a cartoon clip. Smiley‐moving clips showed an iconic happy face moving toward a polygon, and shape‐moving clips showed a polygon moving toward a happy face. In Experiment 1, using an explicit judgment task, participants judged smiley‐moving cartoons as related to (...) ego‐moving sentences about space and about time, and shape‐moving cartoons as related to object‐moving sentences. In Experiment 2, participants viewed the same stimuli, but the cartoons were task‐irrelevant. Event‐related brain potentials revealed an early attentional effect of congruity on cartoons following sentences about space, and a later semantic effect on cartoons following sentences about time. Results are most consistent with accounts that posit differences in the processing of novel and conventional metaphors. (shrink)

Conceptual integration—“blending”—is a general cognitive operation on a par with analogy, recursion, mental modeling, conceptual categorization, and framing. It serves a variety of cognitive purposes. It is dynamic, supple, and active in the moment of thinking. It yields products that frequently become entrenched in conceptual structure and grammar, and it often performs new work on its previously entrenched products as inputs. Blending is easy to detect in spectacular cases but it is for the most part a routine, workaday process that (...) escapes detection except on technical analysis. It is not reserved for special purposes, and is not costly.In blending, structure from input mental spaces is projected to a separate, “blended” mental space. The projection is selective. Through completion and elaboration, the blend develops structure not provided by the inputs. Inferences, arguments, and ideas developed in the blend can have effect in cognition, leading us to modify the initial inputs and to change our view of the corresponding situations.Blending operates according to a set of uniform structural and dynamic principles. It additionally observes a set of optimality principles. (shrink)

Studies based on the Contemporary Theory of Metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999) usually identify conceptual metaphors by analysing linguistic expressions and creating a post hoc interpretation of the findings. This method has been questioned for a variety of reasons, including its circularity (Müller, 2008), lack of falsifiability (Vervaeke & Kennedy, 1996, 2004), and lack of predictive power (Ritchie, 2003). It has been argued that CTM requires additional constraints to improve its applicability for empirical research (Gibbs, 2011; Ritchie, 2003). This (...) paper sets out to propose additional methodological structure to CTM, a theory of conceptual metaphor in which much of abstract thought is generated by metaphorical mapping from embodied experience (Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez & Pérez Hernández, 2011). Introducing Objectification Theory defined by Szwedek (2002, 2007, 2011) ameliorates a number of methodological issues in CTM. First, the embodiment claim of CTM in its current form cannot be empirically proven incorrect (Vervaeke & Kennedy, 2004) as any mapping within it is possible (although only some actually happen). Objectification introduces pre-metaphorical structure of the kind suggested by Glucksberg (2001), constraining source and target domain selection, predicting which mappings are more likely to happen. Second, while many claim that metaphors trace back to a literal concept based on embodied physical experience (Gibbs, Costa Lima, & Francozo, 2004), it is unclear what criteria are used to define „physical”. Metaphorical domains are often described using the terms „abstract” and „concrete”, Objectification proposes objective criteria for deciding whether a concept is experientially grounded. Finally, Objectification provides grounds for introducing a hierarchical framework for metaphor typology, preventing post-hoc addition of metaphor types if and when suitable for the explanation of a phenomenon; thus increasing the consistency of the CTM framework, both internally and with other cognitive science disciplines. This thesis focuses on providing evidence for Objectification Theory and identifying its applications in metaphor and gesture research. (shrink)

Language understanding is one of the most important characteristics for human beings. As a pervasive phenomenon in natural language, metaphor is not only an essential thinking approach, but also an ingredient in human conceptual system. Many of our ways of thinking and experiences are virtually represented metaphorically. With the development of the cognitive research on metaphor, it is urgent to formulate a computational model for metaphor understanding based on the cognitive mechanism, especially with the view to promoting natural language understanding. (...) Many works have been done in pragmatics and cognitive linguistics, especially the discussions on metaphor understanding process in pragmatics and metaphor mapping representation in cognitive linguistics. In this paper, a theoretical framework for metaphor understanding based on the embodied mechanism of concept inquiry is proposed. Based on this framework, ontology is introduced as the knowledge representation method in metaphor understanding, and metaphor mapping is formulated as ontology mapping. In line with the conceptual blending theory, a revised conceptual blending framework is presented by adding a lexical ontology and context as the fifth mental space, and a metaphor mapping algorithm is proposed. (shrink)

Metaphor has a double life. It can be described as a directional process in which a stable, familiar base domain provides inferential structure to a less clearly specified target. But metaphor is also described as a process of finding commonalities, an inherently symmetric process. In this second view, both concepts may be altered by the metaphorical comparison. Whereas most theories of metaphor capture one of these aspects, we offer a model based on structure-mapping that captures both sides of metaphor processing. (...) This predicts (a) an initial processing stage of symmetric alignment; and (b) a later directional phase in which inferences are projected to the target. To test these claims, we collected comprehensibility judgments for forward (e.g., “A rumor is a virus”) and reversed (“A virus is a rumor”) metaphors at early and late stages of processing, using a deadline procedure. We found an advantage for the forward direction late in processing, but no directional preference early in processing. Implications for metaphor theory are discussed. (shrink)

Cognitive theories of metaphor understanding are typically described in terms of the mappings between different kinds of abstract, schematic, disembodied knowledge. My claim in this paper is that part of our ability to make sense of metaphorical language, both individual utterances and extended narratives, resides in the automatic construction of a simulation whereby we imagine performing the bodily actions referred to in the language. Thus, understanding metaphorical expressions like ‘grasp a concept’ or ‘get over’ an emotion involve simulating what it (...) must be like to engage in these specific activities, even though these actions are, strictly speaking, impossible to physically perform. This process of building a simulation, one that is fundamentally embodied in being constrained by past and present bodily experiences, has specific consequences for how verbal metaphors are understood, and how cognitive scientists, more generally, characterize the nature of metaphorical language and thought. (shrink)

In the first half of the paper I critically review some previous attempts to deal with metonymy. I focus in particular on the classical approach, the associationist approach and the Gricean approach. The main point of my criticisms is that the notion of empirical associations among objects is in itself inadequate for a complete descriptive and explanatory account of metonymy.

Traditional approaches tend to regard figuration (and by extension, deference in general) as an essentially marked or playful use of language, which is associated with a pronounced stylistic effect. For linguistic purposes, however, there is no reason for assigning a special place to deferred uses that are stylistically notable — the sorts of usages that people sometimes qualify with a phrase like "figuratively speaking." There is no important linguistic difference between using redcoat to refer to a British soldier and using (...) suit to refer to a corporate executive (as in "A couple of suits stopped by to talk about the new products"). What creates the stylistic effect of the latter is not the mechanism that generates it, but the marked background assumptions that license it — here, the playful presupposition that.. (shrink)

If we had a balance of reasons, where the arguments presented in favor and against the case were weighed precisely and the verdict could be pronounced in favor of the most inclined scale ... [we would have] a more valuable art than that miraculous science of producing gold.

Mental imagery (varieties of which are sometimes colloquially refered to as “visualizing,” “seeing in the mind's eye,” “hearing in the head,” “imagining the feel of,” etc.) is quasi-perceptual experience; it resembles perceptual experience, but occurs in the absence of the appropriate external stimuli. It is also generally understood to bear intentionality (i.e., mental images are always images of something or other), and thereby to function as a form of mental representation. Traditionally, visual mental imagery, the most discussed variety, was thought (...) to be caused by the presence of picturelike representations (mental images) in the mind, soul, or brain, but this is no longer universally accepted. (shrink)

Prior to the twentieth century, theories of knowledge were inherently perceptual. Since then, developments in logic, statis- tics, and programming languages have inspired amodal theories that rest on principles fundamentally different from those underlying perception. In addition, perceptual approaches have become widely viewed as untenable because they are assumed to implement record- ing systems, not conceptual systems. A perceptual theory of knowledge is developed here in the context of current cognitive science and neuroscience. During perceptual experience, association areas in the (...) brain capture bottom-up patterns of activation in sensory-motor areas. Later, in a top-down manner, association areas partially reactivate sensory-motor areas to implement perceptual symbols. The stor- age and reactivation of perceptual symbols operates at the level of perceptual components – not at the level of holistic perceptual expe- riences. Through the use of selective attention, schematic representations of perceptual components are extracted from experience and stored in memory (e.g., individual memories of green, purr, hot). As memories of the same component become organized around a com- mon frame, they implement a simulator that produces limitless simulations of the component (e.g., simulations of purr). Not only do such simulators develop for aspects of sensory experience, they also develop for aspects of proprioception (e.g., lift, run) and introspec- tion (e.g., compare, memory, happy, hungry). Once established, these simulators implement a basic conceptual system that represents types, supports categorization, and produces categorical inferences. These simulators further support productivity, propositions, and ab- stract concepts, thereby implementing a fully functional conceptual system. Productivity results from integrating simulators combinato- rially and recursively to produce complex simulations. Propositions result from binding simulators to perceived individuals to represent type-token relations. Abstract concepts are grounded in complex simulations of combined physical and introspective events. Thus, a per- ceptual theory of knowledge can implement a fully functional conceptual system while avoiding problems associated with amodal sym- bol systems. Implications for cognition, neuroscience, evolution, development, and artificial intelligence are explored. (shrink)

...Editions Revue Brochures Educatives مجلة كراسات تربوية .منشورات مجلة كراسات تربوية، (سلسلة ''كتب جماعية'' رقم 01)... ...... تقديم: شهد قطاع التعليم المغربي عدة تغييرات شملت مجالات متنوعة إن على مستوى المنهاج أو إصلاح الفضاءات التعليمية أو تكوين المدرسين. ولعل مردّ ذلك هو الانفجار المعرفيّ المتزايد، والمكانة المتميّزة للتّربية والتّعليم، واهتمامات الدولة التي أصبحت مركزة على الظواهر المدرسية وفي علاقتها بتغيير المجتمع وارتباطها بالأسرة والمحيط، وتأثرها بالمرجعية الثقافية والدينية، وتفاعلها مع الظروف السياسية والاقتصادية انطلاقا من التيمات الكبرى التي أُنتِجت حول المدرسة (...) من قبيل تصرفات المتعلم وسلوكياته داخل المدرسة، وعلاقات المدرسة بالآباء، وظاهرة العنف، والهدر المدرسي، ودراسة العلاقات التربوية، والأدوار التربوية، والجماعات التربوية. وتأسيسا على ذلك، أصبح الاهتمام بالتّربية والتّعليم من الأولويات في المملكة المغربية، كما انصب الاهتمام بالمدرسة والتنشئة الاجتماعية، و تم التركيز على دراسة الأنظمة التربوية والظواهر المدرسية ودورها في تغيير المجتمع من خلال علاقتها مع الأسرة والمحيط، وتأثرها بالمرجعية الثقافية والدينية، وتفاعلها مع الظروف السياسية والاقتصادية إذ أُضيفت إلى المدرسة رسائل جديدة ومهمّات متجدّدة؛ لضمان المتعة الثّقافيّة والحضاريّة والمعرفيّة والقيميّة في عالم أضحى يعيش على إيقاع مفاهيم جديدة ليس أقلّها شأنا... مفهوم المواطنة الكونيّة أو العالميّة. وأضحت وظائفها تلامس مختلف جوانب الإنسان لتأهيله وجعله ذلك الكائن الذي يعرف ذاته أولا ثم يكتشف الآخر ثانيا. وإذا ما نظرنا إلى هذه الوظائف نجدها متعددة، نظرا لتعدد أغراض وأهداف الإنسان، فمنها ما هو تربوي وتعليمي ثم إداري، واجتماعي وأمني، وتكويني، ومنها ما هو إيديولوجي، وإرشادي وتوجيهي، وتواصلي، واقتصادي... وبذلك تؤثر على سلوك الأفراد تأثيرا منظما. والمدرسة من حيث هي كذلك، وباعتبارها الوجه الحقيقي للنظام التربوي ككل، تنصب وظيفتها الرئيسة على سلوك الناشئة، ويقاس مدى تحقيقها لوظائفها بمدى التغيير الذي تنجح في تحقيقه في سلوك أبنائها ومن ثم كان ضروريا أن ينظر إليها نظرة شمولية كنظرتنا نحو المجتمع برمته، وأن تكون في مقدمة وطليعة كل سياسة إصلاحية للمجتمع، وأن ينظر إليها كمرجعية لكل تغيير أو تغير قد تعرفه باقي القطاعات والجوانب الأخرى لحياة الفرد لأنها تستهدف تأهيله والرفع من قدرة فاعليته، بما يتوافق مع التغيرات والتطورات على المستويين المحلي والإقليمي والخارجي. فلا يمكن الحديث عن نظام تربوي ناجح في المستقبل، ما لم يتم استحضار التطور الحاصل في أدوار ووظائف وآليات اشتغال المدرسة، من خلال التعرف على سيرورات التحولات التي عرفتها المؤسسة التعليمية في الماضي والحاضر. ففي الوقت الراهن تحولت هذه الوظائف من التلقين والحشو بالمعارف، إلى وظائف أكثر حيوية وتنوعا ودينامية، تتجه صوب إيجاد حلول لتحديات إكساب مناهج وتقنيات تحصيل المعرفة والبحث، وتعزيز القدرات والمهارات الحياتية، وتوسيع الخبرات، إضافة إلى سعيها لتطوير الجاهزية للشغل وتحقيق الذات والعيش المشترك مع الأفراد داخل المجتمع، من أجل القدرة على مواجهة الصعاب والمشكلات التي يمكن أن يواجهها المتعلم في ممارسته اليومية سواء داخل المدرسة أو خارجها. وقد بدأ الرهان منذ بداية الإصلاح، مع الميثاق الوطني للتربية والتكوين (2000) إلى حدود القانون الإطار (2019)، على العنصر البشري الذي يعتبر المشعل الذي ينير درب التنمية في المستقبل، فمتعلم اليوم هو مواطن الغد، وبذلك ركزت المدرسة المغربية كل أنشطتها واهتماماتها على هذا المتعلم وجعلته في قلب الاهتمام والتفكير والفعل، وجعلت كل الهياكل والبرامج والمشاريع في خدمته. فالطاقة البشرية المبنية على أساس الكفاءة والقدرة على مواجهة التحديات والصعاب المجتمعية من شأنها أن تتكيف مع الظروف والإمكانات المحلية والإقليمية والدولية بل والتمكن من بلورة إمكانات جديدة، وفق نهج قوامه الاندماج الاجتماعي. والتنمية الشاملة تحتاج إلى العديد من المقومات البشرية وغير البشرية، والعنصر البشري هو أهم هذه المقومات، حيث يعد هذا الأخير العنصر الأساسي والركيزة التي تقوم عليها التنمية في أي بلد، ولا سبيل إلى بناء هذا الإنسان إلا عن طريق التربية التي تقوم على تطوير الشخصية الإنسانية وإعادة بنائها، كما تعمل التربية على إيجاد أنماط من السلوك تناسب التنظيمات الاجتماعية الناشئة مع الأخذ بالأساليب العلمية والتكنولوجية، كما تعيد التربية بناء الآراء والمعتقدات لتواكب التغيرات الاجتماعية الناشئة عن عملية التنمية، ومن هنا يتضح أن الإنسان هو أساس التنمية وأداتها، وهو أيضا غايتها، وهو في الوقت نفسه محور العملية التربوية. لذلك يجب أن يكون الإنسان هو محور كل إصلاح كل نظام تربوي، بل يأخذ بعين الاعتبار كل خصوصياته ومتطلباته الاجتماعية صوب التنمية. ولعل أهم خاصية من خصائص التنمية هي تأهيل القوى البشرية وإعدادها للعمل في القطاعات المختلفة، وعلى كل المستويات، وذلك بتزويدها بالمعارف والكفايات والمهارات والقيم اللازمة للعمل المستهدف، والتهيئة للتعايش مع العصر التقني والتكنولوجي، والتوازن في تأهيل القوى العاملة حسب الاحتياجات المتغيرة، وكذلك تعزيز قيمة العمل والإنتاج، ودعم الاستقلالية في التفكير، ونبذ الاتكالية والنزعة الاستهلاكية. ولا شك أن الذي زاد من علاقة التربية بالتنمية وخاصة في منتصف هذا القرن هو الاقتصاد كمحور مهم، حيث ظهرت بعض النظريات المهمة مثل نظرية "رأس المال البشري"، والتي تعتبر بمثابة الإطار النظري المسؤول عن التبني الكامل للعلاقة الجدلية بين التعليم وسياسات التنمية، حيث أصبح التعليم بمقتضاه الحاسم الأول في النمو الاقتصادي للدول. ومع ظهور هذه النظرية زاد الاقتناع بدور القدرة الإنتاجية للموارد البشرية في العملية التنموية واعتبارها رأس مال مستثمرة. و يبقى التخطيط أهم آلية لبلورة وتجسيد الرؤى على أرض الواقع. ذلك التنمية تستلزم التوفر على ميكانيزمات التفكير الاستراتيجي، والتخطيط الاستراتيجي الذي ينبني على مجموعة من العناصر المساهمة في نجاح التخطيط ومنها: الرؤية الواضحة، والقيم المرشدة، والصلاحيات، وتشخيص الاحتياجات، والأهداف المركزية، وتدقيق الغايات، ورسم خطط العمل، ثم التنفيذ والمراقبة مع اعتماد أسس وآليات التتبع والمواكبة. إذ لا يكفي التوفر على تصور وبناء خطط لإنجاح التنمية رغم أهميتهما القصوى، بل لابد أيضا من التوفر على قدرات وموارد بشرية مبدعة وخلاقة قادرة على تجسيد هذا التصور وبلورة وتطبيق المخططات التنموية. من هنا تبرز أهمية تقوية قدرات الفرد في عملية التنمية مع استحضار أن هذا الفرد هو الأداة والهدف في المسلسل التنموي في نفس الوقت. ولتحقيق أهداف وغايات التنمية المأمولة، عملت المدرسة المغربية الجديدة في الآونة الأخيرة على تبني اختيارات تربوية وبيداغوجية حداثية وحديثة، أثبتت فعاليتها في دول أخرى، وخاصة اعتماد مدخل الكفايات لتحديث وتفعيل المنظومة التربوية والتكوينية المغربية، وفي علاقة مع المشروع التنموي المستدام وآمال النهضة المجتمعية الشاملة. لكن هل تمت ترجمة هذه التصورات النظرية المبرمجة مركزيا كما تم وضعها؟ أم هناك عمليات تكييف وملائمة مستمرة حسب الوسائل والتقنيات والمتطلبات المحلية المتاحة؟ وهل يمكن للمدرسة المغربية أن تكون وسيلة من وسائل تحقيق عملية التنمية؟ وما هي العوائق التي تقف حاجزا أمام تحقيق هذه التنمية؟ استنادا إلى ما سبق حاولنا تقديم رؤية واضحة من خلال بحوث متنوعة استقرت على تأليف كتاب جماعي تكون مقالاته منسجمة مع الإصلاح الذي طال المدرسة المغربية، سواء من حيث المناهج والبرامج التي تحوي مفاهيم راسخة وثابتة من قبيل القيم والمضامين والقدرات والمعارف...، أو من حيث البنية والفضاءات ومستلزمات الدراسة... حاولنا وضع خطة اقتراحية لبعض جهود الباحثين كل حسب رؤيته لاستكمال الخط المنهجي الذي رسمته الوزارة باعتماد مقاربات بيداغوجية، فكان اقتحام المناويل التّعليميّة والتّجارب العالميّة في إعداد المتعلم وتعليمه حتّى تصبح المؤسّسة التعليمية الحديثة في المغرب نموذجا للمدرسة الحديثة في العالم. يهدف مشروع تأليف هذا الكتاب إلى ما يلي: - الإسهام في تطوير المدرسة وجعلها بوابة كل تنمية؛ - الطموح في تحقيق الجودة في نظامنا التعليمي ومعه الجودة في شتى مناحي الحياة الاجتماعية والثقافية والاقتصادية والتكنولوجية وغيرها؛ - ربط التعلم بحياة المتعلمين اليومية بما يسهم في تطبيق المعرفة وتوظيفها بطرائق ابتكارية تحقق المتعة في التعلم؛ - تمكين المتعلمين من حذق كفايات التعلم الميسّرة المنفتحة على التكنولوجيا الحديثة وعلى الحياة، وختاما يمكن القول إن كتاب ″النظام التربوي المغربي في أفق تجديد الممارسات المهنية″، جاء من أجل فتح نقاش علمي حول أهم المقومات الأساسية التي بني عليها إصلاح نظام التربية والتكوين في المغرب منذ عهد الميثاق الوطني للتربية والتكوين(2000) إلى الآن في مختلف المجالات، ومن أجل المساهمة في تقييم مرحلة من مراحل الإصلاح التربوي في المغرب التي عرفت نوعا من الجدية ورفع شعارات التنمية البشرية، والعدالة الاجتماعية، والتأهيل الاقتصادي، وانفتاح المؤسسة التعليمية على المحيط السوسيو-اقتصادي وغيرها، وفي حقبة تم فيها تجاوز الوظائف التقليدية للمدرسة من قبيل الحفاظ على الثقافة وإعادة إنتاجها أو التأكيد على الجانب الإيديولوجي لهذه المؤسسة، بل تطوير فعل التفكير من أجل تأهيل العنصر البشري لتطوير المجتمع اقتصاديا وقيميا. الصديق الصادقي العماري سعاد اليوسفي . 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Despite the wide range of studies on how students’ past knowledge influences their understanding of scientific terminology, few studies were conducted to compare non-scientific language with scientific language, or rather everyday language with scientific language, from a cognitive linguistic perspective. The present paper aims to determine the cognitive mechanisms, i.e., image schemas, conceptual metaphor, and conceptual metonymy, which underpin the conceptualisation of the Arabic term سرعة (speed), using a conceptual metaphor theory framework. Thus, the research question guiding this study is: (...) What cognitive mechanisms underlie the concept of سرعة (speed) in Arabic? The findings of this study will shed light on how Arab speakers conceptualise this term, demonstrating their background knowledge of the term compared to its scientific meaning. The article adds to the growing body of cognitive linguistics research on the conceptual processes behind physics terms. The data was collected from the Arabic Web Corpus (arTenTen) using the Sketch Engine. The findings demonstrated that VERTICATLITY and SCALE schemas are the most dominant image schemas that anchor the conceptual meaning in Arab speakers’ perceptions of the term under investigation and the discourse in which it is employed, as well as offer the concrete basis for conceptual metaphors. The conceptual metaphor CHANGE IS MOTION (LOCATION) was also shown to be active in motivating the conception of SPEED in Arabic. (shrink)

In this paper we suggest that Duffley’s sign-based semantics rests on two main claims: a methodological one and an ontological one. The methodological one is the analysis of corpora and the ontological one is the postulate of mental content. By adopting a linguistic enactivist perspective with a Wittgensteinian twist, we endorse Duffley’s methodological claim and suggest that a sign-based semantics doesn’t have to rely on mental content if it takes into account the conception of meaningful material engagement in cognitive archeology (...) and its development into sign-using as an enactive capacity. (shrink)

Exocentric compounding is a creative morphological process that contributes to the English lexicon. However, because it lacks a syntactic or semantic head, it was deemed an exceptional case in most word-formation literature and hence neglected. Previous work has only been limited to syntax-based grammar and the notion of headedness and thus failed to address the other linguistic rules that constrain exocentric compounds. The current paper aims to identify the frequency of exocentric compounds and thus to determine their viability. The research (...) will also look into how conceptual metaphor and/or conceptual metonymy motivate exocentric compound formation. The results demonstrate that exocentric compounds are viable lexical units, generating content words (e.g., adjectives and adverbs) through productive word-formation processes, and extending word senses. The results also suggest that conceptual metonymy is more active than conceptual metaphor in the formation of exocentric compounds. The present findings have several implications for research on exocentric compounds, conceptual metonymy and conceptual metaphor. (shrink)

This book offers substantial insight into students’ conceptualization of scientific terminology. The current book explores the commonalities and distinctions between Arabic and French physics terms, and the impact of the language disparities on students’ understanding of physics terms. This book adopts a novel approach to the problem of scientific terminology by exploring physics terms’ polysemy, prototypical meanings, and conceptual metaphor and metonymy, which motivates their extension of meaning. The book also investigates how the linguistic discrepancies and other variables affect the (...) learning of physics by Arab students (Moroccan students, in this book). Concepts in Physics: A Comparative Cognitive Analysis of Arabic and French Terminologies, whether you are a student of science, a science teacher or lecturer, a translator, or a linguist, is what you need. The book will help you comprehend the linguistic and cultural differences between western and non-western physics terminologies (in this book, French and Arabic physics terminologies) and the factors influencing the learning of physics concepts, and thus address the multiple challenges in learning scientific terms and concepts. (shrink)

Conceptual metaphors have received much attention in research on discourse about infectious diseases in recent years. Most studies found that conceptual metaphors of war dominate media discourse about disease. Similarly, a great deal of research has been undertaken on the new coronavirus, i.e., COVID-19, especially in the English news discourse as opposed to other languages. The present study, in contrast, analyses the conceptual metaphors used in COVID-19 discourse in French-language newspapers. The study explored the linguistic metaphors used in COVID-19 discourse (...) in these newspapers and conceptual metaphors that underlie and motivate them, using a conceptual metaphor theory framework (CMT). Therefore, two North African French-language newspapers, namely Libération, published in Morocco, and La Presse de Tunisie, published in Tunisia, formed the corpus of the current study. The results showed that the most frequent framing of COVID-19 was in terms of WAR, followed by DISASTER and KILLER, respectively. (shrink)

Poetry is the most complex and intricate of human language used across all languages and cultures. Its relation to the worlds of human experience has perplexed writers and readers for centuries, as has the question of evaluation and judgment: what makes a poem "work" and endure. The Poem as Icon focuses on the art of poetry to explore its nature and function: not interpretation but experience; not what poetry means but what it does. Using both historic and contemporary approaches of (...) embodied cognition from various disciplines, Margaret Freeman argues that a poem's success lies in its ability to become an icon of the felt "being" of reality. Freeman explains how the features of semblance, metaphor, schema, and affect work to make a poem an icon, with detailed examples from various poets. By analyzing the ways poetry provides insights into the workings of human cognition, Freeman claims that taste, beauty, and pleasure in the arts are simply products of the aesthetic faculty, and not the aesthetic faculty itself. The aesthetic faculty, she argues, should be understood as the science of human perception, and therefore constitutive of the cognitive processes of attention, imagination, memory, discrimination, expertise, and judgment. (shrink)

The iconic revolution changing the routine of everyday communication is gradually leading to the creation of a linguistic structure that combines visual and verbal tools in both formal and semantic aspects. Computer and mobile applications today enable high-tech imaging that ensures the spread of iconic communication in mundane interactions and the possibility of a creative combination of verbal and iconic codes for language users who navigate in a world of images in an increasingly confident manner. The iconic revolution that accompanies (...) this expansion of new communication technologies thus leads to serious changes in language use, thereby enhancing the transmission of verbal and iconic language to become a key element of mundane communication. This article argues that this turn in communication technology guided the attention of Kristóf Nyíri, an eminent figure in contemporary Hungarian philosophy, to the problem of the relationship between icon, language, and tradition. The aim of the present essay is twofold: to shed light on the relevance of Nyíri’s analysis and thoughts on the relationship between tradition and language in the history of communication, and to identify, using Nyíri’s model of pictorial meaning as a starting point, the relevant aspects of the conception of technological determinism in answering questions from the philosophy of language and mind. (shrink)

This article seeks to provide a theoretical exploration of Prandi's model of conceptual conflicts in metaphors (2017) and to highlight the advantages such model presents in its applications to translation and the text analysis preceding and preparing translation. Such advantages are mainly identified in the model aptness to meet the pragmatic requirements of translation, seen as a practice-based, goal-oriented and context-driven activity. These advantages also distinctly emerge from a comparison with the main tenets of the cognitive tradition. The theoretical basis (...) for an understanding of conceptual conflict and its applications to translation are illustrated through the analysis of three brief excerpts from literary texts in English and their Italian translation. (shrink)

Most prior research on figurative language has looked at the cognitive aspects of metaphoricity. The present research attempts at going beyond metaphor's cognitive impact and aims to view the social and discoursal aspects of metaphorical constructions in relation to people's identities and social realities. This article reports an analysis and discussion of figurative language used by Pakistani women while talking about their literacies and selfhood. The article makes two claims about figurative language: first, metaphorical constructions are cultural and therefore rooted (...) in social practices and discourses; second, figurative expressions are common to everyday talk, constrain and enable thinking processes and construct social reality. Methodologically too, the article offers an interesting departure from the traditional studies of metaphor as the data cited are `incidental' and natural, rather than elicited or experimental; the researcher `s aim was not to study figurative language but it turned out to be ubiquitous in women's everyday talk. Hence, the present data strengthen Tannen's and Carter's work that creativity and figurative language are not exclusive to literary discourse but are part of everyday discourses. (shrink)

This article illustrates how metaphor is used as a stance-taking resource and strategy to indirectly index enduring and changing representations of organizational identity through an analysis of speeches delivered by consecutive Secretary Generals of an agency of the United Nations. Drawing on Bucholtz and Hall’s framework of identity, and recent research on stance, it illustrates how metaphor marks attitudes and orientations to context, propositions and social and political structures/relationships. The analysis highlights similarities in the depiction of the organization over two (...) terms of office, but also reveals differences in identity positioning and inter-subjective framing. Particular metaphorical scenarios and mappings are used rhetorically to strengthen subject positions and alignments, and mark evaluations, supporting Du Bois’s theory of stance as a ‘triune’ act. It is argued that a combined analysis of stance and metaphor provides an important framework and instrument for further research on identity construction, especially in organizational and political discourse. Moreover, the theory of stance can be further enhanced through an investigation of metaphorical mappings. (shrink)

This article examines the representation of the United Nations in speeches delivered by its Secretary-General. It focuses on the role of metaphor in constructing a common ‘imagining’ of international diplomacy and legitimizing an international organizational identity. The SG legitimizes the organization, in part, through the delegitimization of agents/actions/events constructed as threatening to the international community and to the well-being of mankind. It is a desire to combat the forces of menace or evil which are argued to motivate and determine the (...) organizational agenda. This is predicated upon an international ideology of humanity in which difference is silenced and ‘working towards the common good’ is emphasized. This is exploited to rouse emotions and legitimize institutional power. Polarization and antithesis are achieved through the employment of metaphors designed to enhance positive and negative evaluations. The article further points to the constitutive, persuasive and edifying1 power of topic and situationally motivated metaphors in speech-making. (shrink)

As algorithms pervade numerous facets of daily life, they are incorporated into systems for increasingly diverse purposes. These systems’ results are often interpreted differently by the designers who created them than by the lay persons who interact with them. This paper offers a proposal for human-centered algorithm design, which incorporates human and social interpretations into the design process for algorithmically based systems. It articulates three specific strategies for doing so: theoretical, participatory, and speculative. Drawing on the author’s work designing and (...) deploying multiple related systems, the paper provides a detailed example of using a theoretical approach. It also discusses findings pertinent to participatory and speculative design approaches. The paper addresses both strengths and challenges for each strategy in helping to center the process of designing algorithmically based systems around humans. (shrink)

By applying diverse approaches to study the Aztec gods, light can be shed on different aspects of their personalities. In this article the cognitive theory of conceptual blending, developed by Fauconnier and Turner, is applied. In this perspective the functioning of the human mind is viewed as being grounded on the constant blending of mental spaces, a process that, in turn, makes new mental spaces emerge. After briefly reviewing the attempts to apply this theory to the ritual domain in general, (...) I consider two types of Aztec rituals, one dedicated to the rain god Tlaloc, and the other to Xochiquetzal, the goddess of seduction. I show the importance of the compression of time in the blending process that condenses three moments: mythical time, ritual time and the immediate future. The capability of the gods to subvert the lineal passage of time and to compress past, present and future stands out as a one of the chief characteristics highlighting the advantages found by applying Blending-Theory. (shrink)

It has been shown that counterintuitive ideas from mythological and religious texts are more acceptable than other world knowledge violations. In the present experiment we explored whether this relates to the way they are interpreted. Participants were presented with verification questions that referred to either the literal or a metaphorical meaning of the sentence previously read, in a block-wise design. Both behavioral and electrophysiological results converged. At variance to the literal interpretation of the sentences, the induced metaphorical interpretation specifically facilitated (...) the integration of religious counterintuitions, whereas the semantic processing of non-religious counterintuitions was not affected by the interpretation mode. We suggest that religious ideas tend to operate like other instances of figurative language, such as metaphors, facilitating their acceptability despite their counterintuitive nature. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Cognitive Linguistics Jahrgang: 27 Heft: 2 Seiten: 147-180.

There has been a longstanding interest in discovering or uncovering resemblances among what are ostensibly diverse religious schemas by employing a range of methodological approaches and tools. However, it is generally considered a problematic undertaking. Jonathan Z. Smith has produced a large body of work aimed at explicating this and has tacitly based his model of comparison on metaphor, which is traditionally understood to connote similarity between two or more things, as based on a linguistic or pragmatic assessment. However, another (...) possible approach is cognitive. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson have championed the view of “conceptual metaphor,” which regards metaphor as being pervasive not only in language, but also in thought and action. Indeed, according to them, it basically structures our conceptual operations and hence views of the world through partially mapping knowledge across ontological domains, generally from the concrete to the abstract. I shall argue that a similar mechanism can fruitfully be applied to comparing religious schemas, as based on the postulated relationship between the domains of human and divine, physical and abstract, and as realized through expressions of journeying and reflection. (shrink)

This paper examines the contemporary philosophical and cognitive relevance of Charles Peirce's diagrammatic logic of existential graphs (EGs), the ‘moving pictures of thought’. The first part brings to the fore some hitherto unknown details about the reception of EGs in the early 1900s that took place amidst the emergence of modern conceptions of symbolic logic. In the second part, philosophical aspects of EGs and their contributions to contemporary logical theory are pointed out, including the relationship between iconic logic and images, (...) the problem of the meaning of logical constants, the cognitive economy of iconic logic, the failure of the Frege–Russell thesis, and the failure of the Language of Thought hypothesis. (shrink)

There is ample research on how metaphors of life vary both cross-culturally and within culture, with age emerging as possibly the most significant variable with regard to the latter dimension. However, no representative research has yet been carried on whether variation can also occur across time. Our paper attempts to fill this gap in the literature by exploring whether a major crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, can induce variation in how life is metaphorically conceptualized throughout society. By drawing on (...) the results of a nationwide, representative survey on the metaphorical preferences for life among Hungarian adults carried out during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we hypothesized that the pandemic would induce a revolutionary change (in the sense of the change being swift, as opposed to gradual) in how Hungarian adults metaphorically conceptualize life, as compared to the metaphorical preferences of the pre-COVID-19 era. We expected this variation to manifest itself in the emergence of novel metaphorical source domains and a realignment in metaphorical preferences. Our results, however, indicate that novel conceptualizations emerged only as one-off metaphors; Hungarians mostly rely on a stock collection of life metaphors even in times of crises, with changes happening mostly in the form of shifts in metaphorical preferences. Our study also found that the choice of preference of the source domains showed less alterations among older adults – implying that the older we get, the more resistant to change our metaphorical conceptualizations become, even under extreme conditions such as COVID-19. (shrink)

This article discusses some of the claims of the earlier and later versions of the Contemporary Theory of Metaphor (CTM) and addresses some of the criticism that has been leveled against it. It is argued that much of this criticism arises from common misconceptions as to the real claims made by the theory. However, CTM is still in need of further exploration and empirical support. In this connection, we identify some areas where research is still needed and supply our own (...) developments. We argue for a more complex classification of metaphor types, which takes into account various complementary taxonomic perspectives, including the nature of source and target and the genericity and complexity of the metaphoric operation. We also explore metaphor in relation to cognitive prominence and conceptual interaction issues. Finally, we deal with the problem of constraints on metaphor and make a proposal for three complementary kinds of constraint. (shrink)

Personification, one of major types of metaphors often employed to express an attitude, is also an argumentative tool, especially in media texts on politically contested events. The present investigation aims at disclosing the attitudinal stance in personifying Ukraine, Russia, the Western countries and Lithuania in a corpus of texts collected from Lithuanian media in 2015–2018. The study relies on the three-step Critical Metaphor Analysis (CMA, Charteris-Black 2004), involving three levels: linguistic, cognitive and rhetorical. More specifically, they include (1) identifying personification (...) cases, (2) interpreting personification through cognitive metaphorical scenarios (Musolff 2016), and (3) explaining ideological implications encoded in the scenarios. The findings indicate that in the scenario of COMMUNICATION, Ukraine is mostly presented positively: active defender and in need of support, with occasional scepticism whether it is capable to change. The West, Lithuania including, is presented as a supporter, whereas Russia is viewed as a negatively evaluated antagonist. (shrink)

This study seeks to clarify the nature of linguistic synesthesia using a lexical-conceptual account. Based on a lexical analysis of Mandarin synesthetic usages, we find that linguistic synesthesia maps the metaphorical meaning between two domains; and linguistic synesthetic mappings and conceptual metaphoric mappings have similar behaviors when sense modalities are treated as conceptual domains that contain a set of mappings constrained by Mapping Principles. This lexical-conceptual account is designed to capture the fact that linguistic synesthesia involves mapping between lexicalized concepts (...) of sensory properties, instead of the real-time sensory input that is processed in neurological synesthesia. The incorporation of a lexical semantic view with the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory not only offers a coherent and comprehensive account for the nature of linguistic synesthesia, but also handles aspects of linguistic synesthesia previously only accounted for by non-metaphorical accounts. These design features make this proposal the most comprehensive account to fit the current data. Furthermore, by showing linguistic synesthesia as a type of metaphor, our study strengthens the role of conceptual metaphors as the link between the perceived world and our conceptualization of that world. (shrink)

Frame Semantics includes context as a central aspect of the theory. Frames themselves can be regarded as a representation of the immediate context against which meaning is to be construed. Moreover, the notion of frame invocation includes context as one possible source of information comprehenders use to construe meaning. As the original implementation of Frame Semantics, Berkeley FrameNet is capable of providing computational representations of some aspects of context, but not all of them. In this article, we present FrameNet Brasil: (...) a framenet enriched with qualia relations and capable of taking other semiotic modes as input data, namely pictures and videos. We claim that such an enriched model is capable of addressing other types of contextual information in a framenet, namely sentence-level cotext and commonsense knowledge. We demonstrate how the FrameNet Brasil software infrastructure addresses contextual information in both database construction and corpora annotation. We present the guidelines for the construction of two multimodal datasets whose annotations represent contextual information and also report on two experiments: the identification of frame-evoking lexical units in sentences and a methodology for domain adaptation in Neural Machine Translation that leverages frames and qualia for representing sentence-level context. Experimental results emphasize the importance of computationally representing contextual information in a principled structured fashion as opposed to trying to derive it from the manipulation of linguistic form alone. (shrink)

Metaphor has been considered as a cognitive process, independent of the verbal versus visual mode, through which an unknown conceptual domain is understood in terms of another known conceptual domain. Metaphor might instead be viewed as a cognitive process, dependent on the mode, which leads to genuinely new knowledge via ignorance. First, I argue that there are two main senses of ignorance at stake when we understand a metaphor: we ignore some existing properties of the known domain in the sense (...) that we disregard or neglect them; we ignore some “non-existing” properties of the known domain in the sense that they are not a piece of information belonging to the known domain, but emerge in metaphor interpretation. Secondly, I consider a metaphor as a reasoning device, guiding the interpreters along a path of inferences to a conclusion, which attributes to the target some properties of the source. In this path, interpreters might discover the ignored existing properties of the known domain and/or recover the “non-existing” properties, inferring or imagining the missing piece of information. Finally, I argue that, especially in visual metaphors, this process is guided by a “sentiment of rationality”, tracking a disruption of existing familiar conceptualisations of objects and/or actions and a recovery of ignored properties. (shrink)

The Pātañjalayogaśāstra concludes with a description of the pinnacle of yoga practice: a state of samādhi called dharmamegha, cloud of dharma. Yet despite the structural importance of dharmamegha in the soteriology of Pātañjala yoga, the śāstra itself does not say much about this term. Where we do find dharmamegha discussed, however, is in Buddhist yogācāra, and more broadly in early Mahāyāna soteriology, where it represents the apex of attainment and the superlative statehood of a bodhisattva. Given the relative paucity of (...) Brahmanical mentions of dharmamegha in the early common era, Patañjali appears to adopt this key metaphor from a Mahāyāna context—and to revise its primary meaning from fullness to emptiness. This article traces the early elaborations of dharmamegha in Buddhist texts, and, drawing on conceptual metaphor theory, lays out four arguments that each, in part, accounts for the stark contrast in how classical yoga and yogācāra employ the superlative metaphor of dharmamegha. (shrink)

Synthetic biology represents a relatively young field of research which has developed into an important scientific endeavour. Characterised by a high degree of interdisciplinary work crossing disciplinary boundaries, such as biology, mathematics and engineering, SynBio has been, since its beginning, devoted to creating new biological functions, metabolic pathways or even minimal organisms. Although its often-articulated aim of developing new forms of life has so far not been archived, SynBio nowadays represents a well-established biotechnological approach and it has also attracted public (...) concern, especially since Craig Venter’s work on Mycoplasma Mycoides JCVI-syn1.0. Taking these developments as a starting point, the paper empirically investigates the metaphorical representations of SynBio in two leading German media publications, the daily newspaper Die Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and the weekly magazine Der Spiegel between 2000 and 2010. Using a novel combination of metaphor and co-occurrence analysis, the paper engages in a systematic examination of implicit moral implications inherent in linguistic images permeating this news coverage. It demonstrates a method of how media-metaphorical representations and their moral implications of SynBio could analytically be revealed and analysed. In doing so, it aims at contributing to empirical ethical analyses of the news coverage on SynBio in particular and offers an approach that methodologically adds to literature on responsible language use, which is emerging in science and technology studies and ethical analyses of new technologies. (shrink)

It would not be an exaggeration to assume that the Begriffsgeschichte studies are now spreading through practically all fields of the Humanities. Its initial proposal was to explore the sociopolitical lexicon as a tool for creating history. It paid attention to the idea of untranslatable concepts in particular languages, despite the fact that they often have the same Latin or Greek roots. But the cases where one word is supposed to convey the meaning of the Latin root by using a (...) root original to this given language are still relatively unexplored. Such is the case of the Russian language where the concept of “society” was expressed initially by the word “obshchestvo,” derived from the Slavic root “obshch-,” meaning “common.” From the linguistic point of view, we suggest that the traditional question “When did the word ‘obshchestvo’ obtain its sociopolitical meaning?” should be replaced by the following: “What meaning of this Russian word has become a political one?” To answer this question, we should explore the proper linguistic conditions of this transition. This means finding out how it is possible to linguistically/politically arrive from the constructions like “the community of the wellness” to the patterns of “the thoughts of the society,” “the soul of the society,” or “the suffering society.”. (shrink)

Organization emerges as reality only through language. Transformation is such an emergence and it must get over the present context. A descriptive or implicative language fails to transcend the context. Linguistic suggestion of imageries and linguistic communion through imagination take departure from the present context and emerge as the new pleasurable transformed reality of organization. Linguistic holds the key to organizational transformation.

The theory of metaphor proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980a, 1980b) and Lakoff (1993) involves a mapping of conceptual structure from one semantic domain to another. We investigate properties of these conceptual domain mappings by comparing them to morphological derivational relations. Schematicity and productivity are properties that Bybee (1985) and Langacker (1987) propose for characterizing morphological derivational relations, which we apply to our analysis of metaphor. Metaphors are argued to vary in their degree of semantic schematicity: Domain relations function as (...) generalizations over specific metaphorical expressions. We also demonstrate three points on a continuum of productivity: Conventional metaphors are highly productive, metaphorically motivated transparent idioms are semiproductive, and opaque idioms are unproductive. Each point is compared with an example of morphological productivity having a corresponding conceptual organization. The results demonstrate that semantic productivity can be characterized in the same way as morphological productivity, suggesting that form and meaning are organized by the same principles. (shrink)