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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
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