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Book: Language, Cognition and Space

Chapter: 17 Space for thinking

DOI: 10.1558/equinox.22052

Blurb:

This chapter explores a potential solution: perhaps the mind recruits old structures for new uses. Perhaps sensory and motor representations that result from physical interactions with the world (e.g., representations of physical space) are recycled to support abstract thought. This hypothesis is motivated, in part, by patterns observed in language: in order to talk about abstract things, speakers oft en recruit metaphors from more concrete or perceptually rich domains.

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