Chapter published in:
Motion and Space across Languages: Theory and applications
Edited by Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano
[Human Cognitive Processing 59] 2017
► pp. 257–278

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
Published online: 14 August 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.59.11ozc
References

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. CrossrefGoogle 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. http://​www​.sabah​.com​.tr.
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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Brown, A., & Chen, J.
2013 Construal of manner in speech and gesture in Mandarin, English, and Japanese. Cognitive Linguistics, 24(4), 605–631. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cardini, F. E.
2008 Manner of motion saliency: An inquiry into Italian. Cognitive Linguistics, 19(4), 533–569. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Casasanto, D., & Jasmin, K.
2012 The hands of time: Temporal gestures in English speakers. Cognitive Linguistics, 23(4), 643–674. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Chui, K.
2009 Linguistic and imagistic representations of motion events. Journal of Pragmatics, 41(9), 1767–1777. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2012 Crosslinguistic comparison of representations of motion in language and gesture. Gesture, 12(1), 40–61. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gennari, S. P., Sloman, S. A., Malt, B. C., & Fitch, W.
2002 Motion events in language and cognition. Cognition, 83(1), 49–79. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gullberg, M., Hendriks, H., & Hickmann, M.
2008 Learning to talk and gesture about motion in French. First Language, 28(2), 200–236. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hohenstein, J.
2013 Parent-child talk about motion: Links to children’s development of motion event language. First Language, 33(4), 411–425. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Iverson, J. M., & Goldin-Meadow, S.
2005 Gesture paves the way for language development. Psychological science, 16(5), 367–371. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kövecses, Z.
2005 Metaphor in culture: Universality and variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mandler, J. M.
1991 Prelinguistic primitives. Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 17, 414–425. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1992 How to build a baby II: Conceptual primitives. Psychological Review, 99, 587–604. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Matlock, T.
2004 Fictive motion as cognitive simulation. Memory and Cognition. 32(8), 1389–1400. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Matlock, T., Ramscar, M., & Boroditsky, L.
2005 On the experimental link between spatial and temporal language. Cognitive Science, 29, 655–664 CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ochsenbauer, A., & Hickmann, M.
2010 Children’s verbalizations of motion events in German. Cognitive Linguistics, 21(2), 217–238. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2004 Encoding the manner, path and ground components of a metaphorical motion event. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 2, 73–102. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2005a Metaphor meets typology: Ways of moving metaphorically in English and Turkish. Cognitive Linguistics, 16(1), 207–246. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2007 Metaphors we ‘move by’: Children’s developing understanding of metaphorical motion in typologically distinct languages. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(2), 147–168. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2016 Do gestures follow speech in bilinguals’ description of motion? Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 19(3), 644–653. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Özçalışkan, Ş., & Goldin-Meadow, S.
2005 Gesture is at the cutting edge of early language development. Cognition, 96(3), B101–B113. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2009 When gesture-speech combinations do and do not index linguistic change. Language and Cognitive Processes, 28(24), 190–217. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2010 Sex differences in language first appear in gesture. Developmental Science, 13(5), 752–760. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2016b Does language shape silent gesture? Cognition, 148, 10–18. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2017 Blind speakers show language-specific patterns in co-speech gesture but not silent gesture. Cognitive Science. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Papafragou, A., Hulbert, J., & Trueswell, J.
2008 Does language guide event perception? Evidence from eye movements. Cognition, 108(1), 155–184. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2006 When English proposes what Greek presupposes: The crosslinguistic encoding of motion events. Cognition, 98(3), B75–B87. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle 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. CrossrefGoogle 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 http://​www​.bostonglobe​.com.
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. CrossrefGoogle 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

Cited by 2 other publications

Cappelle, Bert
2020.  In Broader Perspectives on Motion Event Descriptions [Human Cognitive Processing, 69], ► pp. 235 ff. Crossref logo
Moore, Kevin Ezra
2020. Moving Time vs. Frame-relative motion. Constructions and Frames 12:2 ► pp. 272 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 december 2021. 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.