Abstract
In accordance with the proposal that the images of nature in folksongs unfold primarily in the dimension of space, this chapter sums up the principals of spatial representation that apply to the analysis of texts. The first part of the chapter discusses how perceptions regarding the environment affect spatial cognition and how it serves as a basis for cultural conceptualizations in terms of categorization and schematization. The issue of space and spatial cognition is approached from a linguistic perspective, based on the argument that while many concepts are widely recognized as pertaining to space (including location and placement, trajectory, landmark, direction, motion, etc.), other basic cognitive schemas should also be considered. A broader and more complex view is thus proposed, which includes, among others, construal operations such as perspectivisation, spatial grounding, reference point constructions, and subjective motion. Apart from acknowledging that spatial experience is per se universal, it is viewed as being grounded in culture partly due to language-specific features of spatial expressions, and due to the way in which metaphorical values are attached to spatial conditions, which are based on an agreement within a specific cultural group. It is argued that metaphorical meaning does not only emerge in the dimensional aspects of representation but also in the conceptualizer’s mental access to the referential scene.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
To talk about space and spatial relations […] languages make use of a relatively small number of elements […] I will refer to all these grammatical forms of language which express primarily spatial relations as spatial grams” (Svorou 1994: 31).
- 2.
Cultural metaphors are also printed with small capitals, similarly to conceptual metaphors, however, the standard formulation is the use of as instead of is in metaphorical mappings (Sharifian 2017). This standard is consequently followed throughout the book in forming cultural metaphors.
- 3.
The explanation of why a forest is ‘round’ in many folksongs is rather interesting. The adjective kerek ‘round’ originally referred to a specific type of forest: ‘small round-shaped forest’ or ‘a forest that fills the horizon’ (Bárczi 1951: 29–30). After losing its specific meaning, it became a common word for ‘forest,’ which was gradually replaced by another word, erdő ‘forest.’ The conventional compound in folk poetry, kerek erdő ‘round forest,’ is hence a tautological compound. Later, however, it changed its meaning to a specific shape of forest, transporting the semantic property ‘round’ and ‘full’ to forests, which had not been conceptualized as ‘round’ before (Horváth 1997: 300, see also Chap. 4).
References
Baranyiné Kóczy, J. (2014a). The metaphorical potential of space in Hungarian folksongs. Studia Linguistica Hungarica, 29, 51–68.
Bárczi, G. (1951). A tihanyi apátság alapítólevele mint nyelvi emlék [The deed of foundation of the Abbey of Tihany as a linguistic record]. Nyelvészeti Tanulmányok 1. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.
Cuyckens, H. (1991). The semantics of spatial prepositions in Dutch: A cognitive linguistic exercise. Doctoral dissertation. Antwerpen: University of Antwerpen.
D’Andrade, R. (1995). The development of cognitive anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Evans, G. W. (1980). Environmental cognition. Psychological Bulletin, 88(2), 259–287.
Evans, V. (2004). The structure of time. Language, meaning and temporal cognition. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Foley, W. A. (1997). Anthropological linguistics: An introduction. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Horváth, K. (1997). Kereki, Csipkerek, Méhkerek és társai [‘Kereki,’ ‘Csipkerek,’ ‘Méhkerek’ and their likes]. A Magyar Nyelvtudományi Társaság Kiadványai, 209, 296–301.
Johnson, M. (1987). The body in the mind. The bodily basis of meaning, imagination and reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Kövecses, Z. (2005). Metaphor in culture: Universality and variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kreitzer, A. (1997). Multiple levels of schematiziation: A study in the Conceptualization of space. Cognitive Linguistics, 8, 291–325.
Lakoff, G. (1987). Image metaphors. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 2(3), 219–222.
Lakoff, G. (1993). The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and thought (2nd ed., pp. 202–251). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Landau, B., & Jackendoff, R. (1993). ‘‘What’’ and ‘‘where’’ in spatial language and spatial cognition. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 16, 217–265.
Langacker, R. W. (1991). Foundations of cognitive grammar. Volume II: Descriptive application. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Langacker, R. W. (1993). Reference-point constructions. Cognitive Linguistics, 4(1), 1–38.
Langacker, R. W. (1994). Culture, cognition and grammar. In M. Putz (Ed.), Language contact and language conflict (pp. 25–53). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Langacker, R. W. (1999). Grammar and conceptualization. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Langacker, R. W. (2002). Deixis and subjectivity. In F. Brisard (Ed.), Grounding: The epistemic footing of deixis and reference (pp. 1–28). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Lükő, G. (1942/2001). A magyar lélek formái [The shapes of the Hungarian soul]. Budapest: Táton.
Malcolm, I. G., & Sharifian, F. (2002). Aspects of aboriginal English oral discourse: An application of cultural schema theory. Discourse Studies, 4(2), 169–181.
Palmer, G. B. (1996). Toward a theory of cultural linguistics. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press.
Paradis, C. (1997). Degree modifiers of adjectives in spoken British English. Lund Studies in English (92). Lund: Lund University Press.
Paradis, C. (2001). Adjectives and boundedness. Cognitive Linguistics, 12(1), 47–65.
Pütz, M., & Dirven, R. (Eds.). (1996). The construal of ppace in language and thought. Berlin, New York: Mouton DeGruyter.
Regier, T. (1996). The human semantic potential: Spatial language and constrained connectionism. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Rice, G. E. (1980). On cultural schemata. American Ethnologist, 7, 152–171.
Rosch, E. (1975). Cognitive reference points. Cognitive Psychology, 7, 532–547.
Rosch, E. (1978). Principles of categorization. In E. Rosch & B. B. Lloyd (Eds.), Cognition and categorization (pp. 27–48). Hillsdale, New York: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Sharifian, F. (2003). On cultural conceptualizations. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 3, (187–207).
Sharifian, F. (2011). Cultural Conceptualizations and language: Theoretical framework and applications. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Sharifian, F. (2017). Cultural Linguistics. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Shore, B. (1996). Culture in mind: Cognition, culture, and the problem of meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sinha, C., & Bernárdez, E. (2015). Space, time and space-time: Metaphors, maps and fusions. In F. Sharifian (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and culture (pp. 309–324). New York: Routledge.
Sinha, C., & Gärdenfors, P. (2014). Time, space, and events in language and cognition: a comparative view. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1326, 72–81.
Sinha, C., & de Lopez, K. J. (2000). Language, culture and the embodiment of spatial cognition. Cognitive Linguistics, 11 (pp. 17–42).
Strauss, C., & Quinn, N. (1987). Cultural models in language and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Svorou, S. (1994). The grammar of space. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Szilágyi N., S. (1996). Hogyan teremtsünk világot? Rávezetés a nyelvi világ vizsgálatára [How to create a world? A guide to the study of the linguistic world]. Kolozsvár: Erdélyi Tankönyvtanács.
Talmy, L. (1983). How language structures space. In H. L. Pick, Jr. & L. Acredolo. (Eds.), Spatial orientation: Theory, research, and application (pp. 225–282). New York: Plenum Press.
Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics. Vol. 1. Concept structuring systems. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Tolcsvai Nagy, G. (1999). Térjelölés a magyar nyelvben [Space marking in the Hungarian language]. Magyar Nyelv, 95 (pp. 154–165).
Tribushinina, E. (2008). Cognitive reference points: Semantics beyond the prototypes in adjectives of space and colour. Doctoral Thesis. LOT, Utrecht: Leiden University.
Tversky, B. (1993). Cognitive maps, cognitive collages and spatial mental models. In A. U. Frank. & I. Campari (Eds.), Spatial information theory: Theoretical basis for GIS. Proceedings COSIT ’93. Lecture notes in computer science 716 (pp. 14–24). Berlin, New York: Springer-Verlag.
Tversky, B. (2003). Structures of mental spaces: How people think about space. Environment and Behavior, 35(1), 66–80.
Van Hoek, K. (2007). Pronominal anaphora. In D. Geeraerts & H. Cuyckens (Eds.), Handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 890–915). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Verhagen, A. (2007). Construal and perspectivisation. In D. Geeraerts & H. Cuyckens (Eds.), Handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 48–81). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Whorf, B. L. (1956). Science and linguistics. In J. B. Carrol (Ed.), Language, thought, and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (pp. 212–214). Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Zlatev, J. (2007). Spatial semantics. In D. Geeraerts & H. Cuyckens (Eds.), Handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 318–350). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Baranyiné Kóczy, J. (2018). Spatial Metaphors in Nature Imagery. In: Nature, Metaphor, Culture. Cultural Linguistics. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5753-3_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-5753-3_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-10-5752-6
Online ISBN: 978-981-10-5753-3
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)