Cognitive Linguistics 6

• Is the mind part of the body, or the body part of
the mind?
• If they are distinct, then how do they interact?
Mind Body Debate • And which of the two is in charge?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmNHLlQzdCw
TAKING A STEP BACK –
DISEMBODIED
COMPUTATIONALISM
DISEMBODIED
COMPUTATIONALISM
(FUNCTIONALISM,
RATIONALISM)
• Language is governed by a separate mental

module (the linguistic black box)
• Meaning is created through syntactic
operations on abstract symbols (a language of
thought, mentalese, proposed by Fodor 1975);
• Based on Cartesian materialism (an off-shoot
of substance mind-body dualism, the mind is
wholly separate from the body);
Embodiment
Guiding Do you remember?
principles Conceptual structure is embodied.
of Semantic structure is conceptual structure.
cognitive Meaning representation is encyclopaedic.
semantics Meaning construction is conceptualization.

Conceptual https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDw_1UyNTKI
structure is What does it mean that the brain is embodied?
embodied. How can the brain „talk” to the environment?
What is embodied cognition about?

Conceptual structure is embodied
EXPERIENCE
Embodied cognition thesis assumes that our

CONCEPTUAL understanding of the world is shaped and limited by
STRUCTURE the morphology of our bodies and the type of
interactions they allow.
Our cognitive processes are largely

SEMANTIC constituted by physical experiences (or
STRUCTURE neural recreations thereof).
Embodied
cognition thesis
Conceptual structure
derives from
embodiment
A hummingbird can stop its motion
almost instantaneously…
… humans need some time
before they can come to a full
stop.
Wheels are a constitutive part of a car.
The body is a constitutive part of cognition.
EVIDENCE FOR
EMBODIMENT
• Philosophical evidence (experiential realism)

• - Spherical beings thought experiment
• Empirical evidence
• - Color perception (Varela-Thompson-
Rosch)
• - Neural deficits and excesses
• - the mirror neuron system
SPHERICAL BEINGS
What would concepts such as
UP/DOWN or FRONT/BACK mean
to a spherical being?
Experiential
realism
The body as a lens through which we
perceive external, objective reality.
• Originates in Plato’s idealism (Allegory

of the Cave).
• Takes an intermediary position between
complete subjectivism (e.g., solipsism,
radical constructivism) and absolute
objectivism.
• Does not deny the existence of an
external objective reality.
• Our knowledge of the world is based on
our experiences, which are embodied.
COLOR
PERCEPTION
• Varela, Thompson and Rosch (VTR) – an
analysis of color perception.
• Color perception is not pre-given and
does not arise through representation of
the external world.
• Colors are a result of the interaction of
our vision organs with the physical
elements of the world (light waves in this
case).
A simplified model of the
photoreceptors found in the
retina: rods and cones. Three types
of cones are responsible for color
vision, each type is sensitive to
light of a different wavelength (of
a different color).
The mantis shrimp has sixteen
different photoreceptors for color
perception!
COGNITIVE DEFICITS AND LANGUAGE
• Congenital blindness – brain regions normally responsible for vision (V1-V5 in the
occipital lobe) are adapted for linguistic functions; congenitally blind people were
found to process linguistic information more rapidly (Bedny, M. et. al., 2011).
• Hemispatial Neglect – people suffering from hemispatial neglect not only seem to
be unaware of one side of their bodies and their visual fields, but also exhibit
difficulties in comprehending expressions related to the RIGHT/LEFT concept.
• Apraxia – patients with damage to the frontal premotor areas or MND (motor
neuron disease) showed significant difficulties in processing action-related
linguistic expressions (Bak and Hodges, 1999).
• Visual amnesia – a patient with visual amnesia/agnosia; utter loss of vision and all
visual concepts (Oliver Sacks, 1980, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat)
COGNITIVE EXCESSES – SYNESTHESIA
Synesthesia = „perceive together” – it is e.g. when you hear music, but you see shapes. Or you hear a word or a
name and instantly see a color. Synesthesia is a fancy name for when you experience one of your senses
through another. For example, you might hear the name "Alex" and see green. Or you might read the word
"street" and taste citrus fruit.
THE MIRROR NEURON SYSTEM (MNS)
Mirror neurons have been first

discovered in primate brains (di
Pellegrino, Fadiga, Fogassi, Mirror neurons fire
Gallese, & Rizzolatti, when the subject executes a
1992; Gallese, Fadiga, Fogassi, & voluntary action and when he
Rizzolatti, 1996; Rizzolatti &
perceives the same action
Arbib, 1998)
being performed by another
subject.
MONKEY SEE,
MONKEY DO
An experiment conducted on
macaque monkeys has shown
that there is a cluster of
neurons that fires not only
when the monkey grasps a
banana, but also when it saw
the researcher perform the
same action.
Mirror neurons
and language
MRI studies point to the

existence of a mirror
neuron system in the
vicinity of the Broca’s
region, which is deemed to
be crucial in the process of
speech production.
Grasping the pen

EMBODIMENT OF LANGUAGE
Conceptual
Conceptual integration theory
Image schemas
metaphor theory (conceptual
blending)
Image schema
• Developed by Johnson in 1987

• Definition: image schemas are relatively abstract conceptual representations that arise
directly from our everyday interaction with and observation of the world around us = they
are concepts arising from embodied experience.
• Connected with a question: Where does the complexity associated with our conceptual
representation come from? (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, a book: Metaphors We Live By)
• In psychology = sensory experience = image here does not refer to eyes and the sense of
sight only
PRECONCEPTUAL
CONCEPTS
VERTICAL ASYMMETRY OF THE

HUMAN BODY
UP-DOWN SCHEMA
Schemas are not innate. They

arise through embodied
experience (BUT: the mind is not a
blank slate)
Answer: embodiment
• Mark Johnson => embodied

experience gives rise to image
schemas within the
conceptual system.
• Image schemas come from
sensory and perceptual
experience as we interact with
the world.
• Example: UP-DOWN schema
• Example:
image schema: CONTAINER
• You wake out of a deep sleep and peer out from beneath the covers into your room.
You gradually emerge out of your stupor, pull yourself out from under the covers,
climb into your robe, stretch out your limbs, and walk in a daze out of the bedroom
and into the bathroom. You look in the mirror and see your face staring out at you.
You reach into the medicine cabinet, take out the toothpaste, squeeze out some
toothpaste, put the toothbrush into your mouth, brush your teeth in a hurry, and rinse
out your mouth. (Johnson 1987: 331)
A lot of everyday objects and experiences are categorised as specific examples of the
schematic concept CONTAINER: bathroom cabinets and toothpaste tubes, bed-covers,
clothing and rooms, states like sleep, stupor and daze.
CONTAINER SCHEMA
INSIDE
OUTSIDE
CONTAINER SCHEMA - OUT
LM – Landmark (i.e.
background)
LM TR
TR – trajector (object
undergoing
movement/transformation)
John went out of the room.

Properties of image schemas
• Image schemas are pre-conceptual in origin => they are directly grounded in embodied experience:
they relate to and come from sensory experience.
• Image schemas are concepts => the first concepts to emerge in the human mind.
• Image schemas are fundamental to our way of thinking and we are not consciously aware of them.
• An image schema can give rise to more specific concepts => lexical concepts.
• Image schemas derive from interaction with and observation of the world.
• Image schemas are inherently meaningful => Embodied experience is inherently meaningful in the
sense it has predictable consequences.
• Image schemas are analogue representations deriving from experience => image schemas are not
stored in our mind in the form of words but in the form of memory or physical experience, they are
recorded in memory.
• Image schemas can be internally complex =>
the CONTAINER schema consists of interior, boundary and exterior elements
SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema consists of a starting point or SOURCE, a destination or GOAL and
a series of contiguous locations in between which relate the source and goal.
Consequences? Different components can be referred to.
• Image schemas are not the same as mental images.
Mental image is what you see when you close your eyes and imagine something. Mental images are very
detailed and involve visual memory.
Image schemas are schematic and more abstract; you can’t close your eyes and see them.
• Image schemas are multi-modal => they derive from different sensory experience, they are not
specific to one sense.
• Image schemas are subject to transformations.
Imagine a herd of cows up close – close enough to pick out the individual cows. Now imagine yourself
moving back until you can no longer pick out individual cows. What you perceive is a mass. There is a
point at which you cease making out individuals and start perceiving a mass. (Lakoff 1987: 428) =>
COUNT and MASS schema reflected in grammar as count and mass nouns.
• Image schemas can occur in clusters or networks of related image schemas.
IMAGE SCHEMAS ARE
PRECEPTUAL (ANALOG)and
MULTIMODAL
Not represented in symbolic form.
Learning to drive a car

vs.
Learning the driving manual
Image schemas are not mental images.

Driving experience combines different sensory and
motor experience: visual, auditory, haptic,
vestibular and proprioceptive.
To sum up:
Task
Watch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuUnMCq-ARQ
Conceptual
structure
Semantic structure is
conceptual structure
Why are they important?
• We know now that embodied experience determines and delimits the range and nature of concepts that can
be represented. As a next step, we can examine how these concepts are encoded and externalized in
language.
• Leonard Talmy – „one of the ways that language reflects conceptual representation is by providing
structural meaning, also known as schematic meaning. This kind of meaning relates to structural
properties of referents (the entities that language describes) and scenes (the situations that these entities
are involved in). Talmy also argues that this schematic meaning is directly related to fundamental aspects
of embodiment.”
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZFUEO45WnE
Semantic structure
• Linguistic expressions refer to entities or describe situations or scenes, which can

be concrete or more subjective and abstract.
• According to Talmy, the way language conveys entities and scenes is by
reflecting the language user’s Cognitive Representation (CR) or conceptual
system.
• Talmy suggests that the CR is made up of two systems: the conceptual
• structuring system (provides a structure to the given scene) and the
conceptual content system (provides detail).
Semantic structure
• Is divided into: open-class semantic system and closed-class
semantic system
• Open-class elements: nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.
• Closed-class elements: idioms, grammatical patterns, grammatical
words (in, the, a), bound morphemes (-er in writer). LEXICON-
GRAMMAR CONTINUUM!
• While open-class semantics provides rich content, closed-class semantics contributes primarily to the
structural content.
Schematic systems
(Talmy Toward a Cognitive Semantics (2000))
• According to Talmy the conceptual structuring system is based upon a limited number of large-scale schematic
systems.
• Various schematic systems collaborate to structure a scene that is expressed via language.
• There are four key schematic systems identified by Talmy: (1) the ‘Configurational System’; (2) the ‘Perspectival
System’; (3) the ‘Attentional System’; and (d) the ‘Force-Dynamics System’.
The Configurational System
• Structures the temporal and spatial properties associated with a scene, such as the division of a scene into parts and
participants.
• Can be further divided into schematic categories, e.g. degree of extension.

Degree of extension related to action
1) Point at + NPpoint-of-time
The train passed through at [noon].
2) Bounded extent in + NPextent-of-time

She went through the training circuit in [five minutes flat].
3) Unbounded extent ‘keep -ing’ + ‘-er and -er’

The plane kept going higher and higher.
EXERCISE
Identify the sentences that relate to point, bounded extent and unbounded extent. Some of the sentences relate to
matter (SPACE) and action (TIME). Identify which is which.
a) When the sheep all died, we e) I read that book twenty years ago.
moved out of the farm. f) The house is 10 meters wide.
b) The house is (exactly) 10 meters g) The sheep all died in six weeks.
away from the farm.
h) She read the book in two days.
c) The sheep kept dying.
i) She kept reading the book.
d) The house seems to go on and on.
The Perspectival System
• Specifies the perspective from which one ‘views’ a scene.
• Includes schematic categories that relate to the spatial or temporal perspective point
from which a scene is viewed, the distance of the perspective point from the entity
viewed, the change of perspective point over time and so on.
• Example: Perspectival location (deixis): position from

which a scene is viewed.
• Change of grammatical structure! => iconicity (how
grammar mirrors experience)
PERSPECTIVAL
SYSTEM
Specifies the perspective from which one views a scene.

Schematic category: perspectival location (deixis)
1) Interior perspective point: The door slowly opened and

two men walked in.
2) Exterior perspective point: Two men slowly opened the
door and walked in.
(Talmy 2000: 69)
The Attentional System
• specifies how the speaker intends the hearer to direct his or her attention towards the entities that participate in a
particular scene (window of attention)
• Path windowing: allows language users to window (focus attention on) subparts
• of the trajectory associated with the motion of an object.
SOURCE-PATH-GOAL
The Force-Dynamics System
• Relates to the way in which objects are conceived relative to the exertion of force.
• kinaesthesia (our bodily experience of muscular effort or motion)

• somesthesia (our bodily experience of sensations such as pressure and pain)
• neutral vs external force

Watch
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kl42b9B9yA

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• Is the mind part of the body, or the body part of

Mind Body Debate • And which of the two is in charge?

• Language is governed by a separate mental

principles Conceptual structure is embodied.

of Semantic structure is conceptual structure.

cognitive Meaning representation is encyclopaedic.

semantics Meaning construction is conceptualization.

structure is What does it mean that the brain is embodied?

embodied. How can the brain „talk” to the environment?

What is embodied cognition about?

Embodied cognition thesis assumes that our

Our cognitive processes are largely

• Philosophical evidence (experiential realism)

• Originates in Plato’s idealism (Allegory

Mirror neurons have been first

MRI studies point to the

Grasping the pen

• Developed by Johnson in 1987

VERTICAL ASYMMETRY OF THE

Schemas are not innate. They

• Mark Johnson => embodied

John went out of the room.

Not represented in symbolic form.

Learning to drive a car

Image schemas are not mental images.

• Linguistic expressions refer to entities or describe situations or scenes, which can

• Can be further divided into schematic categories, e.g. degree of extension.

2) Bounded extent in + NPextent-of-time

3) Unbounded extent ‘keep -ing’ + ‘-er and -er’

• Example: Perspectival location (deixis): position from

Specifies the perspective from which one views a scene.

1) Interior perspective point: The door slowly opened and

• kinaesthesia (our bodily experience of muscular effort or motion)

• neutral vs external force

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