John Benjamins Publishing Company
Language happens
Abstract
This chapter provides a brief tour through the history of psycholinguistics with a running thread that follows the work of Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. and an evolution toward more ecologically valid approaches and interactive embodied perspectives on how language works. Rather than treating language as though it were a static object with parts that invite removing and analyzing, contemporary psycholinguists and cognitive scientists are treating language more like an event that happens over time. This shift in perspective requires different types of theory formation, different types of experimental methods and different types of statistical analyses. As this paradigm shift progresses, more of the field may begin to see language not as a set of rules that a human brain contains inside itself but instead as an activity that people engage in together. The Gibbsian research program has played an important role in this evolution of the field.
Abstract
This chapter provides a brief tour through the history of psycholinguistics with a running thread that follows the work of Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. and an evolution toward more ecologically valid approaches and interactive embodied perspectives on how language works. Rather than treating language as though it were a static object with parts that invite removing and analyzing, contemporary psycholinguists and cognitive scientists are treating language more like an event that happens over time. This shift in perspective requires different types of theory formation, different types of experimental methods and different types of statistical analyses. As this paradigm shift progresses, more of the field may begin to see language not as a set of rules that a human brain contains inside itself but instead as an activity that people engage in together. The Gibbsian research program has played an important role in this evolution of the field.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Art: My Dancing Mind vii
- Prologue 1
- Introduction 11
-
Part I. New windows into cognition and communication
- Metaphor in The Cancer Poetry Project 31
- Narrative experiences of metaphor 45
- Researching embodied metaphor production through improvisational dance practice 63
- Feeling for speaking 77
- Multimodal body, multimodal mind, multimodal communication 95
- Fictive motion in the wild 109
-
Part II. Account expansion, flexibility, or integration
- Extended CMT and the dynamic systems theory of metaphor 131
- Communication, comprehension, and interpretation 143
- Between embodiment and usage 157
- Metaphors and meaning-making in young people’s talk about climate change 191
- Experiential viewpoint, simile and dynamicity in discourse 205
- Metaphor and elaboration in context 223
-
Part III. Influencers and drivers
- Figurativity 243
- Conceptual blending and memes 265
- How to talk about motion without verbs 293
- Defaultness vs. constructionism 305
- Relevance theory perspectives on web-mediated communication 325
- Language happens 341
- Index 357
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Art: My Dancing Mind vii
- Prologue 1
- Introduction 11
-
Part I. New windows into cognition and communication
- Metaphor in The Cancer Poetry Project 31
- Narrative experiences of metaphor 45
- Researching embodied metaphor production through improvisational dance practice 63
- Feeling for speaking 77
- Multimodal body, multimodal mind, multimodal communication 95
- Fictive motion in the wild 109
-
Part II. Account expansion, flexibility, or integration
- Extended CMT and the dynamic systems theory of metaphor 131
- Communication, comprehension, and interpretation 143
- Between embodiment and usage 157
- Metaphors and meaning-making in young people’s talk about climate change 191
- Experiential viewpoint, simile and dynamicity in discourse 205
- Metaphor and elaboration in context 223
-
Part III. Influencers and drivers
- Figurativity 243
- Conceptual blending and memes 265
- How to talk about motion without verbs 293
- Defaultness vs. constructionism 305
- Relevance theory perspectives on web-mediated communication 325
- Language happens 341
- Index 357
