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This book presents the first cross-linguistic experiment on how the abstract concepts of LIFE and DEATH are embodied in English, German, and Persian. Using two complementary approaches, it first identifies the prototypes color, form, vehicle, material, place, body parts, actions, direction and position, smell, and taste that ground these concepts in bodily experiences. It then reports and explains the cultural reasoning behind prototype choices in abstract and metaphoric language. Statistical analyses, including regression modeling, reveal how education, religion, nationality, age, gender, and handedness predict prototype selection across the three languages. Early chapters trace the shift from formal linguistics to cognitive semantics and embodiment, discussing metaphor theories and prototypicality, while later chapters present detailed language-specific findings. Clear and engaging, this interdisciplinary study advances research on embodied language across cultures, offering essential insights for linguistics, psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science, accessible to both specialists and general readers.
List of contents
Chapter One: Introduction.- Chapter Two: Embodiment.- Chapter Three: Metaphoric Language.- Chapter Four: Body and Embodiment.- Chapter Five: Embodied Language in Persian.- Chapter Six: Embodied Language in German.- Chapter Seven: Embodied Language in English.- Chapter Eight: Prototypes and Language.- Chapter Nine: Perceptual and sensory norms and Embodied Language.
About the author
Hassan Banaruee
researches cognitive and educational psychology and psycholinguistics, with interests in humor, metaphor, embodied language, motion events, and co-speech gestures. He contributes to the emerging field of social cognition in education by integrating insights from cognition, social psychology, and teaching.
Omid Khatin-Zadeh
studies psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology, focusing on embodied cognition, metaphor processing, concepts, gesture, and motion-based language. His research explores how bodily experience and movement shape conceptualization and language use, offering insights into the cognitive foundations of communication.
Summary
This book presents the first cross-linguistic experiment on how the abstract concepts of
LIFE
and
DEATH
are embodied in English, German, and Persian. Using two complementary approaches, it first identifies the prototypes—color, form, vehicle, material, place, body parts, actions, direction and position, smell, and taste—that ground these concepts in bodily experiences. It then reports and explains the cultural reasoning behind prototype choices in abstract and metaphoric language. Statistical analyses, including regression modeling, reveal how education, religion, nationality, age, gender, and handedness predict prototype selection across the three languages. Early chapters trace the shift from formal linguistics to cognitive semantics and embodiment, discussing metaphor theories and prototypicality, while later chapters present detailed language-specific findings. Clear and engaging, this interdisciplinary study advances research on embodied language across cultures, offering essential insights for linguistics, psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science, accessible to both specialists and general readers.
