The Metaphorical Cognitive Mechanism of Spatial Dimensional Term “High”

DOI

10.2991/iaw-sc.2013.149How to use a DOI?

Keywords

high; schema; cognition; metaphor; space; construct

Abstract

The paper, based on the usage of “high”, makes a systematic analysis on the English word, a word for spatial dimension. In cognitive field, the linguistic research on metaphor reveals that space is the most basic concept in human cognition, and that it is extremely significant in the process of perception of the world. Spatial concepts are the results of human direct physical experiences. In cognition, space is stored as a schema to be the basis in the cognition of the environment and other domain. On the basis of spatial schema, human beings have constructed the concepts of other fields. It is discovered that the word “high” is so powerful and vivid in the construction of concepts that many abstract ideas have been easily perceived through “high”, such as, time, human qualities and morality, degree, mood and attitude, and amount, etc, which can form the cognitive structure and knowledge structure so that it is much efficient for human beings to perceive the nature.

Copyright

© 2013, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Jinying Li
PY  - 2013/10
DA  - 2013/10
TI  - The Metaphorical Cognitive Mechanism of Spatial Dimensional Term “High”
BT  - Proceedings of the 2013 International Academic Workshop on Social Science
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 675
EP  - 678
SN  - 1951-6851
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/iaw-sc.2013.149
DO  - 10.2991/iaw-sc.2013.149
ID  - Li2013/10
ER  -