Conceptual transfer
Roots, assumptions, and current scope
This article provides updated perspectives on research related
to conceptual transfer, which is defined as crosslinguistic influence arising
from language-specific concepts and patterns of conceptualization. I discuss the
historical roots of conceptual transfer, its relationship to linguistic
relativity and thinking for speaking, its core assumptions, and its current
scope of inquiry. While discussing its scope of inquiry, I review some of the
key findings in this area of research as well as some of the recent studies that
have expanded its scope. I conclude with a summary of five important points that
can be drawn from the existing research on conceptual transfer, and I offer
suggestions for future directions.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Historical roots and overlapping frameworks
- 3.Conceptual transfer and its core assumptions
- 3.1Assumption 1: Individuals and groups of individuals often conceptualize the
same experiences differently
- 3.2Assumption 2: Differing verbal expressions of experience can be used as
evidence of differences in conceptualization
- 3.3Assumption 3: The ways other people describe experiences affect how we
conceptualize those experiences
- 3.4Assumption 4: The more we hear/read experiences being described in a certain
way, the stronger the schemas we develop
- 3.5Assumption 5: Those schemas then affect how we conceptualize similar future
experiences
- 3.6Assumption 6: Each discourse community has conventional/habitual ways of
referring to common experiences
- 3.7Assumption 7: Each person belongs to one or more discourse
communities
- 3.8Assumption 8: The discourse practices we adopt from our communities affect
how we conceptualize common experiences
- 4.The conceptual transfer continuum
- 5.The current scope of conceptual transfer
- 6.Summary and future directions
- Notes
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References