Showing posts with label space. Show all posts
Showing posts with label space. Show all posts

Thursday, February 11, 2010

I found an interesting article today on JSTOR titled, Language and Space, which considers language as an "'everyday' spatial concept" and its relation to cognition. I found it interesting because it relates the way our mind works and how we frame "our" world through the everyday use of language and frames of references in our culture. The following paragraph further describes the concept:
It was suggested...that cognition is the intermediate variable between
language and other aspects of culture. Thus we would expect specializations in cognitive style-correlated with spatial language to surface in other cultural manifestations (Levinson 376).

One's use of language is the result of the prominent frame of references our language makes prominent. I think that it is safe to say that when learning a new language, adapting to a different frame of reference can be a bit difficult. Maybe this is where native speakers have a cultural advantage? I hope this makes sense!