embodiment of language

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VNU Journal of Science, Foreign Languages 25 (2009) 250-256

250

Language and Embodiment

Nguyen Tat Thang*

Department of Foreign Languages, Dalat University,

01 Phu Dong Thien Vuong Street, Dalat, Vietnam

Received 4 February 2009

Abstract. This paper illustrates the relationship between language and embodiment throughevidence of the English and Vietnamese language. Evidence presented confirms that there is aclose correlation between language and embodiment, thus inferring the implication for the job ofteaching and learning languages, which requires the task takers to be equipped with knowledge ofthis relationship in order to provide a meaningful and productive work .

1. Introduction*

Cognitive Linguistics (CL) has emergedsince the early 1980s, and has been of greatinterest for linguists. It is not only that CL is anew theory of linguistics, but it also includeslatest notions that seek the explanation oflanguage structures and meanings with the

relationship with mind.One of the central theses of CL is theembodiment of language. The termembodiment has attracted a huge amount ofattention in the school of cognitive linguistics.The embodiment thesis is central to cognitivesemantics (Shina and Lopz,) [1] Andembodiment has been serving as one of themost important tenets in cognitive linguistics.Language is the major source ofcommunication, and according to CL, languagecannot be investigated in isolation from human

embodiment (Evan and Green, 2006) [2].

______*Tel.: 84-0633-812808.

E-mail: [email protected]

This paper aims at presenting anunderstanding of the notion of embodiment andits relationship with language analysis, thushopefully producing implication for the task oflanguage teaching and learning with a newperspective and methodology.

2. The embodiment thesis

Cognitive Linguistics or cognitivesemantics in particular, claims that themeanings of language are embodied, whichmeans that it is the speakers bodily experiencethat triggers the linguistic expressions that carrythe meaning(s) to the hearer(s). In other words,our construal of reality is likely to be mediatedin large measure by the nature of our bodies(Evan and Green, 2006) [2].

All experiences are filtered by perception

(Janda) [3]. We perceive things in the worlddifferently; each of us has different perceptionson even one event or situation. As a result,language used by us to describe the world mustundergo changes through speakers or writersperception, resulting in a fact that language is

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N.T. Thang / VNU Journal of Science, Foreign Languages 25 (2009) 250-256 251

not the description of the real word (nor anypossible world), but rather a description ofhuman perception of reality (Janda) [3].

We now go back to the beginning of

peoples development when babies experiencethe world around them through their bodies.Before babies start to have their so-calledconcepts, they have gone through experienceof the real world - the reality. Evan [2] statesthat the concepts we have access to and thenature of the reality we think and talk aboutare a function of embodiment: we can only talkabout what we can perceive and conceive, andthe things that we can perceive and conceivederive from embodied experience.

Johnson [4] developed a theory about imageschemas which are relatively abstractconceptual representations that arise directlyfrom our everyday interaction with andobservation of the world around us (Evan) [2].This means that the image schemas areconcepts which come from our embodiedexperience.

One of the classis examples of imageschema is CONTAINER. Babies experiencetheir own bodies as CONTAINERS (c.f. [4]:Chapter 2 [2]: Chapter 6). They put IN their

mouth something to eat, and split OUT of theirmouth the things they feel bitter, for instance.We have these image schemas from experienceof being physically located ourselves withinbounded locations like rooms, beds, etc.; andalso putting objects into containers (c.f. [5]: 308ff.) Therefore, we often see or hear thesephrases: wake outof a deep sleep; daze out ofthe bedroom; walk into the bathroom, etc. Orsometimes we may hear someone mention thathe or she is in love; the country is in a financialcrisis; we are outof trouble now; he fell into adepression (c.f [6]).

Regarding the relationship betweenembodiment and language, Zlatev [7] states thatthere are three major unresolved issues in thesciences of the mind. The first trend is that thereare many different meanings behind the term

embodiment. The second one, as its nature, isthat embodiment theories have a strongindividualist orientation. And the thirdmentions the underestimation of the role of

consciousness in many embodiment theories.Despite slightly different ideas aboutembodiment, there is a high scale of agreementof the central role of embodiment in cognitivelinguistics [1].

Also, one of the four central assumptions ofcognitive semantics is about the embodiedcognition thesis, i.e. conceptual structure isembodied, which means that the nature ofconceptual organization arises form bodilyexperience, so part of what makes conceptualmeaningful is the bodily experience with whichit is associated [2] We perceive the world fromour independent perspective(s). Each person hashis/her own way(s) of looking at the world,which is fundamentally based on his/her ownbodily experience. The perception thenbecomes our conceptions of the perceivedworld, which remains in our mind as concepts.As stated previously, we can only talk aboutwhat we can perceive and conceive, and thethings that we can perceive and conceive derivefrom embodied experience. This means that our

mind bears the imprint of embodiedexperience [2].

Cognitive semantics claims that meaning isembodied (c.f. [4] & [8]). Language is not anabstract cognitive faculty, independent fromother human cognitive processes; on thecontrary, our language is created from our dailyand real experience. We construct andunderstand our categories on the basis ofconcrete experiences, and under the constraintsimposed, first and foremost our bodies [9].

Human conceptual categories, the meaningof words and sentences, the meaning oflinguistic structures at any level, are not just aset of universal abstract features, or ofuninterpreted symbols (Barcelona: ibid); quitethe opposite: they are activated and motivateddirectly in the daily experience in our life: in



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our bodily, social, physical, or socialexperiences (c.f. [10] & [3]).

People experience the real world andexamine what they perceive; then it is their

perception that filters the experience. And it is afact that no-one is alike; thus, their perceptionabout the world differs, resulting in thedifference in their description of what theyexperience. Therefore, when we examinemeaning, our goal is not to find acorrespondence between utterances (real orotherwise), but rather to explore the ways inwhich meaning is motivated by humanperceptual and conceptual capacities [3].

Due to their unique ways of interpreting the

objective reality, people construe the worlddifferently. One situation or event can bereported in a number of ways depending onwho does the reporting, and even the sameperson can have more than one way of releasingthe report at different times of speaking.

Language comes not only from the directrelationship with the external world but alsofrom the nature of their bodily and socialexperience and from their capacity to projectfrom some aspects based on this experience tosome abstract conceptual structures [10].

3. Evidence from language

Evidence has been found to confirm the factthat language conveys meaning throughembodied objects and experiences [11]. Lakoff[8] states that thought is embodied, that is, thestructures used to put together our conceptualsystems grow out of bodily experience andmake sense in terms of it. He further indicatesthat the projection of in-out orientation onto

inanimate objects is already a first movebeyond the prototypical case of my bodilymovement.

In everyday language, we often see a directreflection of the embodied nature onto objectnames. In English, we speak of the hands of aclock, the mouth of a river, and the foot of a

hill. Especially, we use plenty of body-relatedconcepts in metaphors, e.g. swallow ones idea;sink their teeth into the theory; keep an eye onsomething.

In Vietnamese, people say,(1) ng y c tm lng vng

He / that -demonstrative / have / heart / gold

He has a golden heart.

This is definitely a metaphor, but in termsbodily experience, the heart is used as a symbolof a person of good will. The heart is perhapsone of the most important organs in our body,which influences the way we think or act. Or asin another situation, when someone is indanger, we say,

(2) Anh y ang nm trong tay kch

He / is / in / hand / enemy

He is the enemys hand.

Bodily experience plays a crucial role notonly in expressing peoples mind, but also inpeoples understanding of the language theyhear or read. Take an example of the followingsentence from the song Everybody is free towear Sunscreen by Baz Luhrman [12].

(3) Live in New York City once, but leave

before it makes you hard; livein Northern California once, but leave before itmakes you soft.

Listeners/readers of little or no knowledgeof the culture to which the sentence refers,would find the sentence hard enough tounderstand, even impossible to get what thesinger really means. New York is a busy andbustling city, which is supposed to be known bypeople, but only by living there, do weunderstand how hard it is to live in thiscosmopolitan city with competitions, expensive

living standard, etc.Similarly, how soft life is in Northern

America would pose a problem to thoselisteners of the song who have never witnessedor experienced life in a peaceful and vastcountry like Northern California. Therefore, in



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order to understand the metaphor (or theimplicit meaning) of the sentence, listenersmust at least possess a grasp of the literarymeaning of the sentence, which can only be

achieved by bodily experience.We now take an example in car driving.

Since driving laws/rules slightly vary indifferent countries, we do not alwaysunderstand the rules unless we are living in theculture of destination country or at leastequipped with a basic knowledge of it. Thefollowing example would illustrate the point.

(4) Tom: Would you like some wine orbeer?

John: Well, I am still on my Ps.

Or Well, Im still a P- plater.In Vietnam, as soon as one passes the

driving test, he/she can drive her/his car and befully respected as a driver. The matter differs inAustralia, for example, where first two yearlicense holding drivers are subject to somerules, of which the zero-alcohol rule is strictlyapplied. The P in Johns response stands forprobation. John refuses the offer since hewould break the law if he had even a little wineor beer. Another example one may find in a

newspaper might be P-plater clocked at120kmh.

Given that the readers/listeners live inAustralia where everyone is aware of thedriving rules, they would find no difficulties inunderstanding the conversation between Tomand John. This means that only by beingequipped by the knowledge of the rules can thereaders/listeners of the conversation catch themeaning of interlocutor in the languageexchange above. This could be, in contrast, acompletely incomprehensible chunk of

language if the listeners have little or noknowledge of the driving rules in Australia.

Nowadays, a great deal of Vietnameseschool children are brought up isolated frompaddy rice where their parents or grandparentsmade their livings. As a result, the term chn

tru - looking after the buffalos - seemsunfamiliar to them. Most farmers used to, somenow still do, keep the practice of using buffalosor oxen to pull the plough - an act to turn over

the upper layer of the soil, bringing freshernutrients to the surface. Most families owned atleast one buffalo or an ox. Often times thesebuffalos or oxen were taken out for feedingplaces such as a hill or the paths on paddy ricefarming land. And the most likely person totake the job would be little kids, a job oftenconsidered boring and uninteresting

Equipped with this experience, listeners ofthe phrase ai bo chn tru l kh - who saystaking care of buffalos is a hard job - mayvisualize the picture of the job, understandingboth the hardship and possible enjoyment of thetask. On the contrary, people being raised inwhite-collar families would struggle to graspthe meanings of the phrase literarily andfiguratively. This is due to listeners experiencewhich plays an essential part in theircomprehension of the language being exposedto them.

It would be a good idea to present anotherexample which may pose difficulties to not onlyVietnamese teenagers, but also to adult learners

of Vietnamese unless they are bodilyexperienced with the task. The followingexample will present the case:

(5) Con m khng hc hnh ng hong thch c i cuc t m sng.

You - if not - study well - then - onlydigging - soil - to earn your living

If you do not study hard, you have to earnyour living by working on farms.

Centuries of cultivating on small pieces offarming land with difficult lives has made

Vietnamese farmers struggle to escape fromtheir traditional ways of earning their lives,knowing for sure that life as a farmer wouldpose heaps of hardship and obstacles forthemselves and their offspring. The dream ofpossessing a better job comes into mostfarmers mind. And the most possible path to



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their hope is by studying hard, expecting toachieve good results at school, which wouldprobably secure them a place in organizationsor companies where they would have good jobs

and good salary.The term would possibly cause difficulties

for young teenagers to understand now sincelands currently become a rich source of wealth.Children would think of having a big fortune byselling the land given by their parents, unawarethat the land used to belong not to their parentsbut to the government. Their parents orgrandparent had to rent the land. And taxeswould cost half or more of the income madefrom those pieces of land.

We not only use words and phrases thatmight be already in dictionaries or in everybodys lexicon, but we also improvise ouropinions when we make a judgment orexpressing our view on a particular event orsituation, all of which are based on our bodilyexperience. Looking at a given event orsituation, different people have differentviewpoints. The difference results from thedifferences in their perception, which in turnyields different linguistic expressions. Theseexpressions actually display their perception on

the given event, not the description of the realworld. Take for example: Suppose two tourists,Nam and Bc, are in Lt, sharing one room.Nam may say that the room is too small, butBc may say the room is fine for two people totake shelter. Given a situation that Nam andBc may ring back to their family in H Ni,describing the room where they are staying, andthen we may imagine what reality isperceived by these two peoples familymembers: Nams family may visualize a tinyroom with a bunch of things scattered around

while Bcs family may think of a cozy room,big enough for their sons short stay.

One possibility of tracing the differencebetween the attitudes of these two speakers isfrom their experience. Nam, feeling the room issmall, may have been experiencing and living

in comfortable environment while Bc havebeen familiar with petite chambers.

In short, there is no doubt that languagecomprehension is ultimately embodied [11].

Embodiment plays a crucial role in ourunderstanding of the language to which we areexposed. Working with language, both aslearners and teachers, requires thoroughunderstanding of the embodiment thesis, whichis necessary for successes language learningand teaching. The next section presentsimplications for this work.

It could be worth reviewing the theory offrame semantics by Fillmore [13] since framesemantics has a close relationship with

embodiment. Frame Semantics presents atheory that relates linguistic semantics toencyclopedic knowledge. An undeniableassumption made by frame semantics is that inorder to understand the meanings of the word(s)of a language, one must have in mind theknowledge of conceptual structures, or semanticframes, that set the motivation and backgroundfor their (the words) existence and their use inthe context or discourse. According to Fillmore,a frame is a system of categories whosestructure is rooted in some motivating context.

Or rather, a frame is any system of conceptsthat relate and in order to understand any oneconcept, we must understand the whole systemin which that concept appears; and when weintroduce one concept, the system in which thatconcept takes place must become available[14].

4. Implications for language learning and

teaching

It is obvious that the task of learning andteaching languages requires much more thanjust grammar and dictionaries. Thecomprehension and the production of the targetlanguage lie in embodied processes whosegoal is the creation and extraction of embodiedmeanings [15]. Language teachers should be



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aware of the language they use when theyintroduce it to their learners. Language learnerswould not be able to comprehend the meaningsof the target language unless they possess a

frame, i.e. background knowledge, whichenables them to understand the target language.

To achieve the goal of providing languagelearners of a frame, language teachers shouldbe able to build a net work of the language intheir lesson planning so that there is a logicalcorrelation between the exposed language andtheir learners knowledge, i.e. learnersembodied experience, either by real lifeexperience or through careful explanation bythe teachers.

Language teachers should be able to clarifythe language, especially examples, in textbooks,which often cause difficulties for learners, notby the individual meanings of the words inisolation, but the frame semantics of thosewords as a whole. For example, in the book bySoars [16] entitled New Headway, which is apopular textbook in language centers inVietnam, we would find the sentence Howwould you like your tea?. It is no doubt that inorder to comprehend the sentence, one must beable to understand the practice of tea drinking

of English people, which is very much differentfrom that of Vietnamese, in terms of the ritualand the materials to make tea.

The knowledge of frame semantics andembodied experience is more seriously requiredwhen one is doing the job of translation;otherwise, a misleading interpretation of thelanguage will be likely to happen. It is nowobvious that the task of either learning,teaching, or translating language is much of thejob that requires the task takers lot of embodiedknowledge or experience which can onlyacquired through training and definitely real lifeexperience.

References

[1] Shina, Chris, Lopz , J. Kristine, Language, culture, andthe embodiment of spatial cognition, In Cognitive

Linguistics11 (2000) 17.

[2] V. Evans, M. Green, Cognitive linguistics an introduction,Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 2006.

[3] L. Janda, Cognitive Linguistics, University of Carolina,2006.

[4] M. Johnson, The Body in the Mind. The bodily basis ofmeaning, imagination, and reason, The University orChicago Press, Chicago, 1987.

[5] J.L. Saeed, Semantics, Blackwell Publishers Ltd,Massachusetts, 1997.

[6] G. Lakoff, M. Johnson, Metaphors We Live By,University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1980.

[7] J. Zlatev, Embodiment, language, and mimesis, In T.Ziemke, J. Zlatev, R.M. Frank, (Eds),Body, language, and

mind, Vol. 1: Embodiment. Germany: Walter de Gruyter,2007.[8] M. Lakoff, The body in the mind: The bodily basis of

meaning, imagination and reason, University of ChicagoPress, Chicago, 1987.

[9] A. Barcelona, Cognitive Linguistics: A usable approach,In A. Barcelona (Ed.) Cuadernos de Filologa Inglesa 6.2:7-32, 1997.

[10] I. Ibarretxe-Antunano, Whats cognitive Linguistics? Anew framework for the study of Basque, UCLA atBerkeley, Paper presented at conference, 1999.

[11] M.M. Louwerse, P. Jeuniaux, How fundamental isembodiment to language comprehension? Constrains onembodied cognition, Paper presented in Cognitive ScienceConference Proceedings

- 30

th

Annual meeting of theCognitive Science Society, Washington DC 2008.[12] B. Luhrman, Everybody is free to wear sunscreen. In

music albumSomething for Everybody, 1998.[13] C.J. Fillmore, Frame Semantics, In Linguistics in the

Morning Calm, ed. by The Linguistic Society of Korea,Hanshin, Soeul, 1982.

[14] M..R.L. Petruck, Frame Semantics, UniversityProceedings, University of California, Berkeley,California, 1996.

[15] B. McWhinney, The emergence of language fromembodiment, In B. McWhinney (Editor), The emergenceof language, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, ISBN:0805830111, 9780805830118, 1999.

[16] J.L. Soars, New Headway Elementary, (3rd Edition)Student's Book, Oxford University Press, 2007.



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Ngn ng v tnh hin thn

Nguyn Tt ThngKhoa Ngoi ng, Trngi hc Lt,

01 Phng Thin Vng, Lt, Vit Nam

Bi bo trnh by dn chng v mi quan h mt thit gia ngn ng v tnh hin thn ca ngnng thng qua cc dn chng trong ting Anh v ting Vit. Bi bo khng nh s tn ti ca mitng quan mt thit gia ngn ng v tnh hin thn. Qua bi bo, chng ti hy vng a ra cc gi cho vic ging dy v hc ngoi ng, mt cng vic i hi kin thc v mi quan h ny nhm to ramt kt qu kh quan trong vic dy v hc.

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