This study investigates metaphoric gestures in face-to-face conversation. It is found that gestures of this kind are mainly performed in the central gesture space with noticeable and discernable configurations, providing visible evidence for cross-domain cognitive mappings and the grounding of conceptual metaphors in people's recurrent bodily experiences and in what people habitually do in social and cultural practices. Moreover, whether metaphorical thinking is conveyed by gesture exclusively or along with metaphoric speech, the manual enactment of even conventional metaphors manifests dynamism (...) in communicating metaphors. Metaphoric gestures can provide salient, additional information about the aspect of the conceptualization which is the speaker's focus of attention in real-time multimodal communication. (shrink)

Metaphors and other tropes are commonly thought to reflect asymmetries in concreteness, with concrete sources being used to talk about relatively more abstract targets. Similarly, originating sense...

Embodied approaches to cognition see abstract thought and language as grounded in interactions between mind, body, and world. A particularly important challenge for embodied approaches to cognition is mathematics, perhaps the most abstract domain of human knowledge. Conceptual metaphor theory, a branch of cognitive linguistics, describes how abstract mathematical concepts are grounded in concrete physical representations. In this paper, we consider the implications of this research for the metaphysics and epistemology of mathematics. In the case of metaphysics, we argue that (...) embodied mathematics is neutral in the sense of being compatible with all existing accounts of what mathematical entities really are. However, embodied mathematics may be able to revive an older position known as psychologism and overcome the difficulties it faces. In the case of epistemology, we argue that the evidence collected in the embodied mathematics literature is inconclusive: It does not show that abstract mathematical thinking is constituted by metaphor; it may simply show that abstract thinking is facilitated by metaphor. Our arguments suggest that closer interaction between the philosophy and cognitive science of mathematics could yield a more precise, empirically informed account of what mathematics is and how we come to have knowledge of it. (shrink)

Flexibility in conceptual projection constitutes one of the most challenging issues in the embodiment and conceptual metaphor literatures. We sketch a theoretical proposal that places the burden of the explanation on attentional dynamics in interaction with mental models in working memory that are constrained to be maximally coherent. A test of this theory is provided in the context of the conceptual projection of time onto the domain of space. Participants categorized words presented at different spatial locations (back–front, left–right) as referring (...) to the past or to the future. Responses were faster when the irrelevant word location was congruent with the back–past, front–future metaphoric mapping. Moreover, when a new highly task-relevant spatial frame of reference was introduced, it changed the projection of past and future onto space in a way that was congruent with the new frame (past was now projected to left space and future to right space), as predicted by the theory. This study shows that there is substantial flexibility in conceptual projection and opens a venue to study metaphoric variation across tasks, individuals, and cultures as the result of attentional dynamics. (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)

Current research findings on metaphor in language and thought may be interpreted as producing a paradox of metaphor; that is, most metaphor is not processed metaphorically by a cross-domain mapping involving some form of comparison. This paradox can be resolved by attending to one crucial aspect of metaphor in communication: the question whether metaphor is used as deliberately metaphorical or not. It is likely that most deliberate metaphor is processed metaphorically (by comparison), as opposed to most nondeliberate metaphor, which may (...) be assumed to be typically not processed metaphorically (that is, by categorization). This resolves the paradox of metaphor because it suggests that all “metaphor in communication” (all deliberate metaphor) is processed metaphorically. Detailed comments are offered on the notion of metaphor deliberateness and on the nature of a three-dimensional model of metaphor in discourse involving metaphor in language, thought, and communication. (shrink)

Conceptual congruency effects are biases induced by an irrelevant conceptual dimension of a task (e.g., location in vertical space) on the processing of another, relevant dimension (e.g., judging words’ emotional evaluation). Such effects are a central empirical pillar for recent views about how the mind/brain represents concepts. In the present paper, we show how attentional cueing (both exogenous and endogenous) to each conceptual dimension succeeds in modifying both the manifestation and the symmetry of the effect. The theoretical implications of this (...) finding are discussed. (shrink)

This article explores the correlations between linguistic figurative features and their corresponding conceptual representations, by considering their respective continuities and discontinuities in language shift. I compare the figurative encoding of emotions in Kriol, a creole of northern Australia, with those of Dalabon, one of the languages replaced by this creole, with a particular focus on evidence from metaphorical gestures. The conclusions are three-fold. Firstly, the prominent figurative association between the body and the emotions observed in Dalabon is, overall, not matched (...) in Kriol. Secondly, although this association is not prominent in Kriol, it is not entirely absent. It surfaces where speakers are less constrained by linguistic conventions: in non-conventionalized tropes, and gestures in particular. Indeed, some of the verbal emotion metaphors that have disappeared with language shift are preserved as gestural metaphors. Thus, Kriol speakers endorse the conceptual association between emotions and the body, in spite of the lower linguistic incidence of this association. The third conclusion is that therefore, in language shift, conceptual figurative representations and linguistic figurative representations are independent of each other. The former can persist when the latter largely disappear. Conversely, the fact that speakers endorse a certain type of conceptual representation does not entail that they will use corresponding linguistic forms in the new language. The transfer of linguistic figurative representations seems to depend, instead, upon purely linguistic parameters. (shrink)

A recent perspective proposed by cognitive linguistics allows overcoming the traditional trend by confronting the special rhetorical strength of metaphor with its evident argumentative nature. In such a direction the psycho-semiotic approach frames each human event of sense making within the notion of diatext, underlining the dialogical tension between “text” and “context” of enunciation. Metaphor is a relevant resource of diatextual analysis since it opens unexpected views on the mysterious procedures that translate claims of meaning into discursive modes suitable to (...) specific situations. A corpus of empirical evidences, collected within the organizational context through narrative interviews, allows better understanding of the creative power of metaphors. (shrink)

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)

Although much ink has been spilled on different aspects of legal concepts, the approach based on the developments of cognitive science is a still neglected area of study. The “mental” and cognitive aspect of these concepts, i.e., their features as mental constructs and cognitive tools, especially in the light of the developments of the cognitive sciences, is discussed quite rarely. The argument made by this paper is that legal concepts are best understood as mental representations. The piece explains what mental (...) representations are and why this view matters. The explanation of legal concepts, understood as mental representations is one of three levels of explanation within legal philosophy, but—as will be argued—it is the most fundamental level. This paper analyzes the consequences of such understanding of concepts used in the field of legal philosophy. Special emphasis is put on the current debate on the analogical or amodal nature of concepts. (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)

Recent evidence from cognitive neuroscience suggests that certain cognitive processes employ perceptual representations. Inspired by this evidence, a few researchers have proposed that cognition is inherently perceptual. They have developed an innovative theoretical approach that rests on the notion of perceptual simulation and marshaled several general arguments supporting the centrality of perceptual representations to concepts. In this article, I identify a number of weaknesses in these arguments and defend a multiple semantic code approach that posits both perceptual and non-perceptual representations.

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)

A growing body of evidence suggests that cognition is embodied and grounded. Abstract concepts, though, remain a significant theoretical chal- lenge. A number of researchers have proposed that language makes an important contribution to our capacity to acquire and employ concepts, particularly abstract ones. In this essay, I critically examine this suggestion and ultimately defend a version of it. I argue that a successful account of how language augments cognition should emphasize its symbolic properties and incorporate a view of embodiment (...) that recognizes the flexible, multi- modal and task-related nature of action, emotion and perception systems. On this view, language is an ontogenetically disruptive cognitive technology that expands our conceptual reach. (shrink)

Music is often described in anthropomorphic terms. This paper suggests that if we think about music in certain ways we could think of it as conscious. Motional characteristics give music the impression of being alive, but musical motion is conventionally taken as metaphorical. The first part of this paper argues that metaphor may not be the exclusive means of understanding musical motion – there could also be literal ways. Discussing kinds of consciousness, particularly “access consciousness” (Block 1995), the second part (...) proposes ways in which music could (hypothetically) be conscious. The conclusion states that a greater understanding of the interactions of “phenomenal consciousness” and “access consciousness” is important in conceptualizing non-human consciousnesses, such as music might be conceived to be. (shrink)