From the late 1950s until 1975, cognition was understood mainly as disembodied symbol manipulation in cognitive psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and the nascent field of Cognitive Science. The idea of embodied cognition entered the field of Cognitive Linguistics at its beginning in 1975. Since then, cognitive linguists, working with neuroscientists, computer scientists, and experimental psychologists, have been developing a neural theory of thought and language (NTTL). Central to NTTL are the following ideas: (a) we think with our brains, that is, (...) thought is physical and is carried out by functional neural circuitry; (b) what makes thought meaningful are the ways those neural circuits are connected to the body and characterize embodied experience; (c) so-called abstract ideas are embodied in this way as well, as is language. Experimental results in embodied cognition are seen not only as confirming NTTL but also explained via NTTL, mostly via the neural theory of conceptual metaphor. Left behind more than three decades ago is the old idea that cognition uses the abstract manipulation of disembodied symbols that are meaningless in themselves but that somehow constitute internal “representations of external reality” without serious mediation by the body and brain. This article uniquely explains the connections between embodied cognition results since that time and results from cognitive linguistics, experimental psychology, computational modeling, and neuroscience. (shrink)

This paper addresses two issues: what it is for a metaphor to be either alive or dead and what a metaphor must be in order to be either alive or dead. Both issues, in turn, bear on the contemporary debate whether metaphor is a pragmatic or semantic phenomenon and on the dispute between Contextualists and Literalists. In the first part of the paper, I survey examples of what I take to be live metaphors and dead metaphors in order to establish (...) that there is a phenomenon here to be explained. I then propose an explanation of metaphorical vitality in terms of the dependence of the interpretation of a metaphor on a family or network of expressions specific to its context of utterance. I then argue that only a Literalist account of metaphor — one that posits metaphorical expressions )—and not Contextualist and Gricean approaches can accommodate this explanation. Finally, I discuss some objections to my Literalist account and sketch an explanation of types to counter Platonistic objections to my metaphorical expression types. (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)

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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The paper argues that metaphorical expressions do more than just instantiate conceptual metaphors. The main aim is to emphasize the role source and target words’ meanings play in construing generic-level metaphors. The latter are taken to act as superordinate categories for other metaphors, occurring at various levels of schematicity. Identification of lower-level metaphors takes into account source words’ metaphorical senses, not the central meanings of the categories they represent. This method brings the issue of source words’ polysemy into play, and (...) hence helps explain why metaphorical expressions relating to the same generic-level metaphor may activate different lower-level metaphors, which carry different metaphorical meanings. (shrink)

The object-oriented ontology group of philosophies, and certain strands of posthumanism, overlook important ethical and biological differences, which make a difference. These allied intellectual movements, which have at times found broad popular appeal, attempt to weird life as a rebellion to the forced melting of lifeforms through the artefacts of capitalist realism. They truck, however, in a recursive solipsism resulting in ontological flattening, overlooking that things only show up to us according to our attunement to them. Ecology and biology tend (...) to get lost in the celebration of “thingness,” which puts on par artifacts, trash, and living beings. Such abstractions fail to understand the political, ethical, and ontological implications of eliding the animate/nonanimate distinction, which from the opposite direction (of flattening) reproduce the same violences of historical colonialism (hierarchical humanism). I argue that ontological flattening entails epistemological narcissism, fails to take into account plural (interspecies) perspectives, and propose biosemiotics can address these shortcomings through becoming-with nonhuman knowledge. (shrink)

This article explores the way in which death metaphors written in the urban mural for David Bowie in London contribute to creatively reframing the artist’s death. While research on death metaphors has focussed on traditional written genres such as obituaries and epitaphs, studies of urban memorials and shrines have focussed on the creation of fandom identities, downplaying the role played by figurativity, creativity and emotional connotation. The present article aims to bridge the gap between these two areas of study by (...) presenting a corpus-based study of 585 items written on the mural for David Bowie. The research questions are: How is Bowie’s death conceptualised? To what extent are death metaphors in Bowie’s mural creative? and What is the relationship between the metaphorical framing of Bowie’s death and the projection of emotional connotations? The findings of our study reveal that Bowie’s songs emerge as a highly productive metaphorical source domain to understand the artist’s death, in which fans recontextualise lines from Bowie’s lyrics in creative and positive ways. (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: (i) the identification of frame-evoking lexical units in sentences and (ii) 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)

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)

According to conceptual metaphor theory, there are two basic metaphorical models for conceptualising time in terms of space: the ego-moving model maps our movement through space onto our imagined movement through time, while the time-moving model represents time as an entity moving through spatial locations, the ego being just a passive observer. The aim of this article is to investigate how time is conceptualized in film where ego, movement, time and space also play basic roles. I compare the two linguistic (...) models to Gilles Deleuze’s conceptualization of filmic time: the movement-image and the time-image. While the movement-image and the moving-ego metaphor directly map spatial structures onto the domain of time, the time-image and the moving-time metaphor correlate only in their basic structures and involve different levels of conceptual integrations and conversions. Due to film techniques such as a mobile camera, montage and image manipulation, the time-image seems to transcend the constraints of natural perception and maps onto mental rather than external space, thus giving rise to a new reverse metaphor where space acquires characteristics of the time domain. (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)

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)

The growing influence of the visual media in contemporary society is quite alarming; hence, learning to explicate them is inevitable. This is a paradigm shift from verbal argumentation to visual argumentation. The aim of this article is to contribute to the understanding of visual analysis and visual literacy, a part of discourse analysis. Visuals employ a number of rhetorical devices; however, understanding the effectiveness of these devices is still a challenge. Adopting Visual Argumentation Theory, the article analyzes argumentation in cartoons (...) on the post-election violence that rocked Kenya in 2007/2008. From the analyses, it is concluded that visuals can argue as simply and forcefully as their verbal counterparts. The blending of caricature and portraiture makes them even more explicit as portraiture denotes the characters so that we can recognize who they are; caricature ridicules them, analogy attributes actions to them in a satirical or sarcastic way, and cultural memory is needed to access the reference to the analogies. Visuals are designed to make the reader think not only about the event or the people being portrayed but also about the message being communicated. This means visuals have the ability to stretch the truth beyond caricature or mere amusement. (shrink)

We report a study examining the role of linguistic context in modulating the influences of individual differences in fluid and crystalized intelligence on comprehension of literary metaphors. Three conditions were compared: no context, metaphor-congruent context, and literal-congruent context. Relative to the baseline no-context condition, the metaphor-congruent context facilitated comprehension of the metaphorical meaning whereas the literal-congruent context impaired it. Measures of fluid and crystalized intelligence both made separable contributions to predicting metaphor comprehension. The metaphor-congruent context selectively increased the contribution of (...) crystalized verbal intelligence. These findings support the hypothesis that a supportive linguistic context encourages use of semantic integration in interpreting metaphors. (shrink)

This paper discusses the problem of inconsistencies in the metaphorical conceptualizations of time that involve motion within the framework of conceptual metaphor theory (CMT). It demonstrates that the TIME AS A PURSUER metaphor contrasts with the reverse variant TIME AS AN OBJECT OF PURSUIT, just as the MOVING TIME metaphor contrasts with the MOVING OBSERVER variant. Such metaphorical conceptualizations of time functioning as pairs of minimally differing variants based on Figure-Ground reversal are, strictly speaking, inconsistent with one another. Looking at (...) these inconsistencies from a wider perspective suggests that time may belong to a separate category of conceptual phenomena. This paper puts forward a proposal to approach time from the perspective of “phenomena of the third kind”, which according to Keller’s thesis include conceptual establishments resulting from human cognition, but not of human design. (shrink)

In many papers dealing with the stylistic features of legal texts, metaphor is highlighted as a stylistic figure often used in the language of law. On a daily basis we can witness the frequent use of metaphoric collocations like soft laws, hard laws, silent partner, hedge funds, etc. In this paper, the author analyses the use of denotations for colours as constituent parts of metaphoric collocations in the language of law. The analysis is conducted by using a comparative approach to (...) examples extracted by means of computer technology from international bills and conventions available online. In the main part of the paper, examples are classified by using a colour denotation as the main criterion for the classification. After that, the examples are compared with corresponding expressions used in German and Croatian. Taking into account the main principle of the Skopos translation theory that differences between cultures strongly influence the translation process, the hypothesis of this research is that in many cases there will be no lexical equivalence between collocations with colour denotation in three languages. Due to the fact that international bills and conventions build the corpus of the research, and that the English language has become the lingua franca of international communication, it can be expected that some metaphoric terms and collocations would be literally translated from English. Conclusions drawn from the comparative analysis of legal collocations containing denotations for colours can be interesting to lawyers and LSP teachers in the field of law. In this sense, results of the research can contribute to motivational aspects of teaching Legal English and Legal German. (shrink)

Understanding evil spiritual forces is essential for Christian theology. Evil has typically been studied either from a philosophical perspective or through the lens of ‘spiritual warfare’. The first seldom considers demonology; the second is flawed by poor methodology. Furthermore, warfare language is problematic, being very dualistic, associated with violence and poorly applicable to ministry. This study addresses these issues by developing a new model for conceptualizing and counteracting evil using ‘non-warfare’ biblical metaphors, and relying on contemporary metaphor theory, which claims (...) that metaphors are cognitive and can depict reality. In developing this model, I examine four biblical themes with respect to alternate metaphors for evil: Creation, Cult, Christ and Church. Insights from anthropology, theology and science contribute to the construction of the model, and the concepts of profane space, sacred space and sacred actions guide the investigation. The role of the Holy Spirit in maintaining the boundaries of divine reality is emphasized, and the ontology of evil minimized. This model incorporates concentric circles, evil being considered peripheral to godly reality. I suggest metaphors of cleansing, ordering, separating and limiting evil and discuss potential applications of this model. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis response to Analogical Investigations concentrates on the legacy of Lloyd's polarity and analogy, other theories of metaphor, and relations between theories of metaphor and theories of nature.

I argue for the possibility of the thesis that metaphors are indispensable for grasping and expressing certain propositions. I defend this possibility against the objection that, if metaphors express propositions, once these propositions are identified they should be specifiable by non‐metaphorical means. I argue that this objection loses its strength if one adopts a Wittgensteinian, particularist view of thought, according to which grasping a propositional thought requires the ongoing exercise of a suitable skill often not characterizable by algorithmic rules. Within (...) this particularist framework, thus, it becomes possible that metaphorical skills have an indispensable role in cognition and communication. (shrink)

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

The valence–space metaphor research area investigates the metaphorical mapping of valenced concepts onto space. Research findings from this area indicate that positive, neutral, and negative concepts are associated with upward, midward, and downward locations, respectively, in the vertical plane. The same research area has also indicated that such concepts seem to have no preferential location on the horizontal plane. The approach–avoidance effect consists in decreasing the distance between positive stimuli and the body and increasing the distance between negative stimuli and (...) the body. Thus, the valence–space metaphor accounts for the mapping of valenced concepts onto the vertical and horizontal planes, and the approach–avoidance effect accounts for the mapping of valenced concepts onto the “depth” plane. By using a cube conceived for the study of allocation of valenced concepts onto 3D space, we show in three studies that positive concepts are placed in upward locations and near the participants’ body, negative concepts are placed in downward locations and far from the participants’ body, and neutral concepts are placed in between these concepts in both planes. (shrink)

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

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)

Farmers' relationship with nature isdetermined by the significance of agriculturefor human beings. When agriculture is definedas human activity that uses renewable naturalresources and aims to produce usable food andfiber products, agriculture is explicitlydefined as production. Farmers' relationshipwith nature is based on the principle ofproduction. This article discusses thecontradiction between the peasant values ofprotection of nature that many farmers inFinland still have and the environmental harmtheir production-oriented farming style causes.When farmers interpret their farming practicesas harmonious co-operation with nature, it isdifficult for (...) them to see the polluting effectsof their work. Paul B. Thompson's suggestionthat three religious–philosophical doctrines(hard work, the doctrine of grace, and the mythof garden) have made it easy for farmers toadopt productionist farming strategy is used asa framework to interpret farmers' narrativesconcerning their relationship with nature. Theresearch is qualitative and biographical. Thedata include life stories and biographicaltexts farmers wrote for a competition in1997. (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)

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)

The purpose here is to explore metaphorical conceptions of the self in a fourth century B.C.E. Chinese text, the Zhuangzi, from the perspective of cognitive linguistics and the contemporary theory of metaphor. It is argued that the contemporary theory of metaphor provides scholars with an exciting new theoretical grounding for the study of comparative thought, as well as a concrete methodology for undertaking the comparative project. What is seen when the Zhuangzi is examined from the perspective of metaphor theory is (...) that conceptions of the self portrayed in this text are based on a relatively small set of interrelated conceptual metaphors, and that the metaphysics built into the Zhuangzi's classical Chinese metaphors resonates strongly with the (mostly unconscious) metaphysical assumptions built into the metaphors of modern American English. This should not be surprising, considering the claims of contemporary cognitive linguists that the metaphoric schemas making up the foundation of human abstract conceptual life are not arbitrarily created ex nihilo, but rather emerge from common embodied experience and are conceptual, rather than merely linguistic, in nature. (shrink)

This paper examines some of the most important metaphors and analogies that epistemologists have used to discuss the structure and validity of knowledge. After reviewing foundational, coherentist, and other metaphors for knowledge, we discuss the metaphilosophical significance of the prevalence of such metaphors. We argue that they support a view of philosophy as akin to science rather than poetry or rhetoric. Keywords: epistemology, metaphor, analogy, metaphilosophy, foundations, coherence.

Barnes, A. and P. Thagard Empathy and analogy. Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review, 36: 705-720. HTML Croft, D., & Thagard, P.. Dynamic imagery: A computational model of motion and visual analogy. In L. Magnani and N. Nersessian, Model-based reasoning: Science, technology, values. New York: Kluwer/Plenum, 259-274. PDF only. HTML description of program and code for DIVA.

The aim of this paper is to reconsider certain assumptions about conceptual structure which have become influential in recent Cognitive Science and which are associated in particular with the Cognitive Linguistics research agenda. I will outline three areas within the Cognitive Linguistics theory of concepts which seem to create some difficulties in their present formulation: the 'embodied cognition' idea, the function of imagery and the role of metaphor in the structure of concepts.

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.

Computational philosophy is the use of mechanized computational techniques to instantiate, extend, and amplify philosophical research. Computational philosophy is not philosophy of computers or computational techniques; it is rather philosophy using computers and computational techniques. The idea is simply to apply advances in computer technology and techniques to advance discovery, exploration and argument within any philosophical area. -/- After touching on historical precursors, this article discusses contemporary computational philosophy across a variety of fields: epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, ethics and (...) social philosophy, philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, often with examples of operating software. Far short of any attempt at an exhaustive treatment, the intention is to introduce the spirit of each application by using some representative examples. (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)

We introduce a novel experimental paradigm for eliciting metaphoric expressions in spontaneous speech, under controlled conditions. Participants were presented with a pair of words on a PC monitor and were asked to provide a verbal response describing a conceptual relation between the stimuli. The proportion of metaphoric responses depended on the stimuli in a predictable manner. A large proportion of metaphoric responses was obtained for stimuli that were derived from existing metaphors. The chronometric study of metaphor production in this paradigm (...) produced 3 major findings: (a) a figurative-literal difference: responses that included metaphorical expressions showed greater reaction times (RTs) than responses with only literal expressions; (b) familiarity effect: responses that included more-familiar metaphorical expressions showed smaller RTs than responses that included less-familiar metaphorical expressions; (c) degree of metaphoricity effect: responses that included highly metaphorical expressions showed greater RTs than responses that included less metaphorical expressions. We discuss the processing implications of these results. (shrink)

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)