Language and Conceptualization

To what extent is conceptualization based on linguistic representation? And to what extent is it variable across cultures, communities, or even individuals? Of crucial importance in the attempt to develop a comprehensive theory of human cognition, these remain amongst the most difficult of questions in the cognitive sciences. This volume brings together ten new contributions from leading scholars working in a wide cross-section of disciplines, including linguistics, anthropology, psychology, and philosophy, with an introduction by the editors which surveys current work in the field. It is one of the first attempts to tackle explicitly the issue of the relationship between linguistic and conceptual representation from a truly interdisciplinary perspective.

• Relationship between language and thought a hot topic • Strong line-up of contributors • Interdisciplinary interest (as much anthropology and psychology as linguistics)

1. Overview: on the relationship between language and conceptualization Eric Pederson and Jan Nuyts; 2. From outer to inner space: linguistic categories and non-linguistic thinking Stephen C. Levinson; 3. Spatial operations in deixis, cognition and culture: where to orient oneself in Behlare Balthasar Bickel; 4. Remote worlds: the conceptual representation of linguistic world Paul Werth; 5. Role and individual interpretations of change predicates Eve Sweetser; 6. Changing place in English and German: language-specific preferences in the conceptualisation of spatial relations Mary Carroll; 7. Mapping conceptual representations into linguistic representations: the role of attention in grammar Russell S. Tomlin; 8. Growth points cross-linguistically David McNeill; 9. On the modularity of sentence processing: semantical generality and the language of thought Jay David Atlas; 10. The contextual basis of cognitive semantics Ronald W. Langacker; 11. The cognitive foundations of pragmatic principles: implications for theories of linguistic and cognitive representation Edward A. Robinson.