Fine Tuning the Brain for Language Acquisition

Abstract

The research on the role played by the RH in language (Winner and Gardner 1977, Brownell 1988, Danesi 1989, Bottini et al. 1994), coupled with the general research on discourse in psychology and linguistics, has made it obvious that metaphor is a fundamental cognitive force in the etiology of human conceptual systems. As we saw in the previous chapter, it constitutes a central strategy in the delivery of abstract concepts. This aspect of conceptualization was investigated seriously by psychologists and linguists starting in the late 1970s. Their work has since led to the establishment of two significant new trends: (1) Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 1999, Lakoff 1987, Johnson 1987), and (2) a branch of linguistics that now comes under the rubric of Cognitive Linguistics (Langacker 1987, 1990, 1999, Allwood and Gärdenfors 1998, Dirven and Verspoor 1998).

If an educational act is to be efficacious, it will be only that one which tends to help toward the complete unfolding of life.

Maria Montessori (1870-1952)