Semantic Typology and Spatial Conceptualization

Abstract

This project collected linguistic data for spatial relations across a typologically and genetically varied set of languages.In the linguistic analysis, we focus on the ways in which propositions may be functionally equivalent across the linguistic communities while nonetheless representing semantically quite distinctive frames of reference.Running nonlinguistic experiments on subjects from these language communities, we find that a population's cognitive frame of reference correlates with the linguistic frame of reference within the same referential domain.*INTRODUCTION.This study examines the relationship between language and cognition through a crosslinguistic and crosscultural study of spatial reference.Beginning with a crosslinguistic survey of spatial reference in language use, we find systematic variation that contradicts usual assumptions about what must be universal.However, the available number of general spatial systems for describing spatial arrays can be sorted into a few distinctive frames of reference.We focus on two frames of reference: the ABSOLUTE, based on fixed bearings such as north and south, and the RELATIVE, based on projections from the human body such as 'in front (of me)', 'to the left'.In assessing language use, it is not enough to rely on descriptions of languages that are based on conventional elicitation techniques as these may not fully reflect actual socially anchored conventions.We have developed and used director/matcher language games which facilitate interactive discourse between native speakers about spatial relations in tabletop space.The standardized nature of these games allows more exact comparison across languages than is usually possible with conventionally collected discourse.Having observed the variation of language use across communities, we further ask whether there is corresponding conceptual variation-the question of the linguistic relativity of thought.For this, we developed nonlinguistic experiments to determine the speaker's cognitive representations independently of the linguistic data collection.The findings from these experiments clearly demonstrate that a community's use of linguistic coding reliably correlates with the way the individual conceptualizes and memorizes spatial distinctions for nonlinguistic purposes.Because we find linguistic relativity effects in a domain that seems basic to human experience and is directly linked to universally shared perceptual mechanisms, it seems likely that similar correlations between language and thought will be found in other domains as well.1.A CROSSLINGUISTIC AND CROSSCULTURAL STUDY OF SPATIAL REFERENCE.The primary goal of our project is to test, refine, and reformulate hypotheses about language and human cognition drawing on in-depth information from a broad sample of non-* This article developed from a presentation entitled 'Cultural variation in spatial conceptualization'