Abstract
This paper develops a tentative model of the cognitive mechanism underlying verbal direction-giving. It proposes the hypothesis that the cognitive map often assumed to be at the basis of that behavior, as well as the direction-giving discourse itself, are in fact generated by a common underlying mental model, which is itself structured by more primitive kinesthetic image-schemas and basic-level categories. Thus, theoretically, the paper synthesizes work on mental models from cognitive psychology with the perspective of experiential realism developed in cognitive linguistics. Empirically, it builds upon an analysis of transcripts from an informal experiment in direction-giving, rejoining similar studies by behavioral geographers and others. While distinct from image-based (in particular, cognitive-map based) as well as syntactic accounts of direction-giving, the proposed model offers an alternative that accommodates both these.
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Couclelis, H. (1996). Verbal Directions for Way-Finding: Space, Cognition, and Language. In: Portugali, J. (eds) The Construction of Cognitive Maps. GeoJournal Library, vol 32. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-33485-1_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-33485-1_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-0-7923-3949-6
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