Cover not available
Part of
Motion and Space across Languages: Theory and applications
Edited by Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano
[Human Cognitive Processing 59] 2017
► pp. 257–278

Chapter 9
Crossing the road or crossing the mind

How differently do we move across physical and metaphorical spaces in speech and in gesture?

| Georgia State University
| Georgia State University
| Georgia State University
Physical motion constitutes a key aspect of human sensorimotor experience; it also serves as an important experiential domain with which we structure abstract concepts. Moreover, speakers of different languages both talk and gesture about physical motion (e.g. Boy runs through park) in systematically different ways – a pattern of crosslinguistic variation that also applies to metaphorical extensions of motion (e.g. Idea runs through mind). Review of existing research – with methods ranging from more explicit verbal descriptions to more implicit indices of underlying mental processes, including gesture – suggests that sensorimotor experience (i.e. physical motion) and the linguistic expression of this experience in a particular language may play important roles in shaping our expression and conceptualization of more abstract concepts (i.e. metaphorical motion).
Keywords: crosslinguistic variation, gesture, metaphorical motion, physical motion, spatial language
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Moving across physical spaces in speech and in gesture
    • 2.1Expressing motion in speech
    • 2.2Expressing motion in gesture
    • 2.3Emergence of language-specific patterns in speech about motion
    • 2.4Emergence of language-specific patterns in gesture about motion
  • 3.Moving across metaphorical spaces in speech and gesture
    • 3.1Cognitive evidence for metaphorical motion as mental simulation of physical motion
    • 3.2Crosslinguistic evidence for metaphorical motion as mental simulation of physical motion
    • 3.3Gestural evidence for metaphorical motion as mental simulation of physical motion
  • 4.Future directions
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 14 August 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.59.11ozc
References (91)
References
Allen, S., Özyürek, A., Kita, S., Brown, A., Furman, R., Ishizuka, T., & Fujii, M. 2007. Language-specific and universal influences in children’s syntactic packaging of Manner and Path: A comparison of English, Japanese, and Turkish. Cognition, 102, 16–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ameka, F. K., & Essegbey, J. 2013. Serializing languages: Satellite-framed, verb-framed or neither?. Ghana Journal of Linguistics, 2(1), 19–38.Google Scholar
Aral, İ. 1999. İçimden kuslar göçüyor. Istanbul: Can Yayınları.Google Scholar
Auster, P. 1990. The music of chance. New York: Viking Press.Google Scholar
Birsel, M. 1997, July 16. [URL].
Boroditsky, L. 2008. Do English and Mandarin speakers think differently about time? In B. C. Love, K. McRae, & V. M. Sloutsky (Eds.), Proceedings of the 30th annual conference of the cognitive science society (64–70). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
Boroditsky, L., & Ramscar, M. 2002. The roles of body and mind in abstract thought. Psychological Science, 13(2), 185–189. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, A., & Chen, J. 2013. Construal of manner in speech and gesture in Mandarin, English, and Japanese. Cognitive Linguistics, 24(4), 605–631. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cacciari, C., Bolognini, N., Senna, I., Pellicciari, M. C., Miniussi, C., & Papagno, C. 2011. Literal, fictive, and metaphorical motion sentences preserve the motion component of the verb: A TMS study. Brain & Language, 119, 149–157. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cardini, F. E. 2008. Manner of motion saliency: An inquiry into Italian. Cognitive Linguistics, 19(4), 533–569. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Casasanto, D., & Jasmin, K. 2012. The hands of time: Temporal gestures in English speakers. Cognitive Linguistics, 23(4), 643–674. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Choi, S., & Bowerman, M. 1991. Learning to express motion events in English and Korean: The influence of language-specific lexicalization patterns. Cognition, 41(1–3), 83–121. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Choi, S., & Lantolf, J. P. 2008. Representation and embodiment of meaning in L2 communication: Motion events in the speech and gesture of advanced L2 Korean and L2 English speakers. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 30(2), 191–224. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chui, K. 2009. Linguistic and imagistic representations of motion events. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(9), 1767–1777. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cifuentes-Férez, P. 2014. A closer look at paths of visions, manner of vision and their translation from English into Spanish. Languages in Contrast, 14(2), 214–250. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Emerson, S. N., Özçalışkan, Ş., & Frishkoff, G. 2016. Effects of motion type and modality on word learning in English. Applied Psycholinguistics, 37(3), 643–67. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gennari, S. P., Sloman, S. A., Malt, B. C., & Fitch, W. 2002. Motion events in language and cognition. Cognition, 83(1), 49–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gibbs, R. W. 1994. The poetics of mind: Figurative thought, language, and understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gu, Y., Mol, L., Hoetjes, M., & Swerts, M. 2017. Conceptual and lexical effects on gestures: the case of vertical spatial metaphors for time in Chinese. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. Advanced online publication. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gullberg, M., Hendriks, H., & Hickmann, M. 2008. Learning to talk and gesture about motion in French. First Language, 28(2), 200–236. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hickmann, M., Taranne, P., & Bonnet, P. 2009. Motion in first language acquisition: Manner and path in French and English child language. Journal of Child Language, 36(4), 705–741. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hohenstein, J. 2013. Parent-child talk about motion: Links to children’s development of motion event language. First Language, 33(4), 411–425. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hrabic, M., Williamson, R., & Özçalışkan, Ş. 2015. Do young children show sensitivity to language-specific gesture patterns in gesture comprehension? Poster presented at the Society for research in child development biennial meeting. Pittsburg, PA, 19–21 March 2015.Google Scholar
Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I. 2004. Language typologies in our language use: The case of Basque motion events in adult oral narratives. Cognitive Linguistics, 15(3), 317–349. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Iverson, J. M., & Goldin-Meadow, S. 2005. Gesture paves the way for language development. Psychological science, 16(5), 367–371. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Katis, D., & Selimis, S. 2005. The development of metaphoric motion: Evidence from Greek children's narratives. Proceedings of the Thirty-first Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 31(1), 205–216.Google Scholar
Kita, S., & Özyürek, A. 2003. What does crosslinguistic variation in semantic coordination of speech and gesture reveal?: Evidence for an interface representation of spatial thinking and speaking. Journal of Memory and Language, 48, 16–32. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kövecses, Z. 2005. Metaphor in culture: Universality and variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
1999. Philosophy in the flesh. The embodied mind and its challenge to western thought. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Lauro, L. J. R., Mattavelli, G., Papagno, C., & Tettamanti, M. 2013. She runs, the road runs, my mind runs, bad blood runs between us: Literal and figurative motion verbs: An fMRI study. NeuroImage, 83, 361–371. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maguire, M. J., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R., Imai, M., Haryu, E., Vanegas, S., & Sanchez-Davis, B. 2010. A developmental shift from similar to language-specific strategies in verb acquisition: A comparison of English, Spanish, and Japanese. Cognition, 114(3), 299–319. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mandler, J. M. 1991. Prelinguistic primitives. Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 17, 414–425. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1992. How to build a baby II: Conceptual primitives. Psychological Review, 99, 587–604. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matlock, T. 2004. Fictive motion as cognitive simulation. Memory and Cognition. 32(8), 1389–1400. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006. Depicting fictive motion in drawings. In J. Luchjenbroers (Ed.), Cognitive Linguistics: Investigations across languages, fields, and philosophical boundaries, (67–85). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matlock, T., Ramscar, M., & Boroditsky, L. 2005. On the experimental link between spatial and temporal language. Cognitive Science, 29, 655–664 DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matlock, T., & Richardson, D. C. 2004. Do eye movements go with fictive motion. In K. D. Forbus, D. Gentner, & T. Reiger (Eds.), Proceedings of the annual conference of the cognitive science society, 26, 909–914. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Y. 1996. Subjective motion and English and Japanese verbs. Cognitive Linguistics, 7(2), 183–226. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McNeill, D. 2000. Analogic/analytic representations and crosslinguistic differences in thinking for speaking. Cognitive Linguistics, 11(1–2), 43–60.Google Scholar
Mishra, R. K., & Singh, N. 2010. Online fictive motion understanding: An eye-movement study with Hindi. Metaphor and Symbol, 25, 144–161. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Murdoch, I. 1976. A severed head. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Núñez, R. E., Motz, B. A., & Teuscher, U. 2006. Time after time: The psychological reality of the ego-and time-reference-point distinction in metaphorical construals of time. Metaphor and symbol, 21(3), 133–146. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Núñez, R. E., & Sweetser, E. 2006. With the future behind them: Convergent evidence from Aymara language and gesture in the crosslinguistic comparison of spatial construals of time. Cognitive Science, 30, 401–449. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ochsenbauer, A., & Hickmann, M. 2010. Children’s verbalizations of motion events in German. Cognitive Linguistics, 21(2), 217–238. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Oh, K.-J. 2003. Language, cognition and development: Motion events in English and Korean. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Özçalışkan, Ş. 2003. ‘In a caravanserai with two doors, I am walking day and night’: Metaphors of death and life in Turkish. Cognitive Linguistics, 14(4), 281–320. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004. Encoding the manner, path and ground components of a metaphorical motion event. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 2, 73–102. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005a. Metaphor meets typology: Ways of moving metaphorically in English and Turkish. Cognitive Linguistics, 16(1), 207–246. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005b. On learning to draw the distinction between physical and metaphorical motion: Is metaphor an early emerging cognitive and linguistic capacity? Journal of Child Language, 32(2), 291–318. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007. Metaphors we ‘move by’: Children’s developing understanding of metaphorical motion in typologically distinct languages. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(2), 147–168. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009. Learning to talk about spatial motion in language-specific ways. In J. Guo, E. Lieven, S. Ervin-Tripp, N. Budwig, K. Nakamura, & Ş. Özçalışkan (Eds.), Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin (263–276). New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
2015. Ways of crossing a spatial boundary in typologically distinct languages. Applied Psycholinguistics, 36(2), 485–508. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016. Do gestures follow speech in bilinguals’ description of motion? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19(3), 644–653. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Özçalışkan, Ş., Gentner, D., & Goldin-Meadow, S. 2014. Do iconic gestures pave the way for children’s early verbs? Applied Psycholinguistics, 35, 1143–1162. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Özçalışkan, Ş., & Goldin-Meadow, S. 2005. Gesture is at the cutting edge of early language development. Cognition, 96(3), B101–B113. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009. When gesture-speech combinations do and do not index linguistic change. Language and Cognitive Processes, 28(24), 190–217. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2011. Is there an iconic gesture spurt at 26 months?. In G. Stam, & M. Ishino (Eds.), Integrating gestures: The interdisciplinary nature of gesture (163–174). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010. Sex differences in language first appear in gesture. Developmental Science, 13(5), 752–760. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Özçalışkan, Ş., Goldin-Meadow, S., Gentner, D., & Mylander, C. 2009. Does language about similarity foster similarity comparisons in children? Cognition, 112(2), 217–228. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Özçalışkan Ş., Lucero, C., & Goldin-Meadow, S. 2016a. Is seeing gesture necessary to gesture like a native speaker? Psychological Science, 27(5), 737–747. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016b. Does language shape silent gesture? Cognition, 148, 10–18. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017. Blind speakers show language-specific patterns in co-speech gesture but not silent gesture. Cognitive Science. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Özçalışkan, Ş., & Slobin, D. I. 1999. Learning how to search for the frog: Expression of manner of motion in English, Spanish, and Turkish. In A. Greenhill, H. Littlefield, & C. Tano (Eds.), Proceedings of the 23rd annual Boston University conference on language development. Vol. 2 (163–174). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Özçalışkan, Ş., & Slobin. D. I. 2000. ‘Climb up’ vs. ‘ascend climbing’: Lexicalization choices in expressing motion events with manner and path components. In S. Catherine-Howell, S. A. Fish, & T. K. Lucas (Eds.), Proceedings of the 24th annual Boston University conference on language development. Vol. 2 (558–570). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Özçalışkan, Ş., & Slobin, D. I. 2003. Codability effects on the expression of manner of motion in English and Turkish. In A. S. Özsoy, M. Nakipoglu-Demiralp, E. Erguvanlı-Taylan, & A. Aksu-Koç, Studies in Turkish linguistics (259–270). Istanbul: Bogaziçi University Press.Google Scholar
Özyürek, A., & Kita, S. 1999. Expressing manner and path in English and Turkish: Differences in speech, gesture, and conceptualization. In M. Hahn, & S. Stoness (Ed.), The twenty first annual conference of the cognitive Science Society (507–512). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Özyürek, A., Kita, S., Allen, S., Brown, A., Furman, R., & Ishizuka, T. 2008. Development of crosslinguistic variation in speech and gesture: Motion events in English and Turkish. Developmental Psychology, 44(4), 1040–1054. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Papafragou, A., Hulbert, J., & Trueswell, J. 2008. Does language guide event perception? Evidence from eye movements. Cognition, 108(1), 155–184. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Papafragou, A., Massey, C., & Gleitman, L. 2002. Shake, rattle, ’n’ roll: The representation of motion in language and cognition. Cognition, 84(2), 189–219. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2006. When English proposes what Greek presupposes: The crosslinguistic encoding of motion events. Cognition, 98(3), B75–B87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pruden, S. M., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Maguire, M. J., & Meyer, M. A. 2004. Foundations of verb learning: Infants form categories of path and manner in motion events. In A. Brugos, L. Micciulla, & C. E. Smith (Eds.), Proceedings of the 28th annual Boston University conference on language development (461–472). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press.Google Scholar
Richardson, D., & Matlock, T. 2007. The integration of figurative language and static depictions: An eye movement study of fictive motion. Cognition, 102, 129–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rojo, A., & Valenzuela, J. 2003. Fictive motion in English and Spanish. International Journal of English Studies, 3(2), 123–149.Google Scholar
Selimis, S. 2005. The encoding of physical motion in child and adult narratives: A comparison of Greek and English. Studies in Greek Linguistics, 25, 534–545.Google Scholar
Saygın, A. P., McCullough, S., Alac, M., & Emmorey, K. 2009. Modulation of BOLD response in motion-sensitive lateral temporal cortex by real and fictive motion sentences. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22 (11), 2480–2490. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scott, A. 1989. The vertical dimension and time in Mandarin. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 9, 295–314.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I. 2004. The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In S. Strömqvist, & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Relating events in narrative: Typological contextual perspectives (219–257). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Slobin, D. I., Bowerman, M., Brown, P., Eisenbeiss, S., & Narasimhan, B. 2011. Putting things in places: Developmental consequences of linguistic typology. In J. Bohnemeyer, & E. Pederson (Eds.), Event representation in language and cognition (134–165). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Stites, L. J., & Özçalışkan, Ş. 2013a. Developmental changes in children’s comprehension and explanation of spatial metaphors for time. Journal of Child Language, 40(5), 1123–1137. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stites, L. J., & Özçalışkan, Ş. 2013b. Teasing apart the role of cognitive and linguistic factors in children’s metaphorical abilities. Metaphor and Symbol, 28(2), 1–14. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stites, L. J., & Özçalışkan, Ş. 2015. Children’s early comprehension and expression of metaphors for time are shaped by bodily experience. Poster presented at the Society for research in child development biennial meeting. Pittsburg, PA. 19–21 March 2015.Google Scholar
Talmy, L. 1985. Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In T. Shopen (Ed.), Language typology and lexical description. Vol. 3: Grammatical categories and the lexicon (57–149). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
2000. Toward a cognitive semantics. Vol. II: Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Tsai, P. W. L., & Hsieh, S. C. Y. 2013. Fictive motion in Chinese and English tourist guidebooks. Canadian Social Science, 9(2), 1–6.Google Scholar
White, S. October 14, 1999. [URL].
Wieselman Schulman, B. 2004. A crosslinguistic investigation of the speech-gesture relationship in motion event descriptions. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Wilson, N. L. 2005. Conceptualizing motion events and metaphorical motion: Evidence from Spanish/English bilinguals. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Santa Cruz.Google Scholar
Zheng, M., & Goldin-Meadow, S. 2002. Thought before language: How deaf and hearing children express motion events across cultures. Cognition, 85(2), 145–175. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zlatev, J., & Yangklang, P. 2004. A third way to travel: The place of Thai in motion-event typology. In S. Strömqvist, & L. Verhoeven (Eds.), Relating events in narrative: Typological and contextual perspectives (159–190). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Lewandowski, Wojciech & Şeyda Özçalışkan
2023.  Running across the mind or across the park: does speech about physical and metaphorical motion go hand in hand?. Cognitive Linguistics 34:3-4 ► pp. 411 ff. DOI logo
Cappelle, Bert
2020. Chapter 8. Looking into visual motion expressions in Dutch, English, and French. In Broader Perspectives on Motion Event Descriptions [Human Cognitive Processing, 69], ► pp. 235 ff. DOI logo
Knop, Sabine De
2020. Expressions of motion events in German: an integrative constructionist approach for FLT1. CogniTextes 20:Volume 20 DOI logo
Moore, Kevin Ezra
2020. Moving Time vs. Frame-relative motion. Constructions and Frames 12:2 ► pp. 272 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 october 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.