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Вестник Челябинского государственного университета. 2019. № 10 (432). Филологические науки. Вып. 118. С. 223—227.
УДК 130.121.4 DOI 10.24411/1994-2796-2019-11031
ББК 81
ANTHROPOMORPHISM IN LANGUAGE STUDIED THROUGH THE PRISM OF EMBODIMENT*
S. A. Pesina1'2, L. G. Yusupov^, I. R. Pulekha4
1 St. Petersburg Humanitarian University of Trade Unions 2 St. Petersburg State University 3 Ural State Mining University 4Magnitogorsk State Technical University named after G. I. Nosov
Cognitive linguistics emphasises the importance of studying the phenomenon of "embodiment" (corporeity) through the prism investigating the central role of the human body (its structure and functioning). The idea of embodiment is employed to describe a social and cultural context in which the human body functions, cognition is materialised and language developed. The present paper verifies a hypothesis stating that the human body largely determines vital aspects of our experience and existence in general.
Key words: cognitive linguistics, embodiment, metaphor, semantic structure of the word, concept, consciousness.
The nature of our biological morphology (including the structure and functioning of our body), together with that of the physical environment with which we interact, determines almost all aspects of our experience and existence in general. Spheres of concepts that form in our cognitive domains and the nature of the reality that we think and speak about interact with our body: what we can perceive and understand often stems from our embodied experience.
From the point of view of linguistic-cognitive aspects of our approach, the matter in arm will have relevance to native speakers' ensuring continuity of linguistic thinking by means of traditionally formed categories that reflect information about their way of life and daily practice, etc. In this regard, we are interested in the degree of the anthropomorphism of language lexemes which are the most commonly used in daily life and in how anthropomorphism is involved in the formation of semantic structures of polysemants, and therefore, in the shaping of the linguistic picture of the world [6; 7].
*Перевод статьи: Песина С. А., Юсупова Л. Г., Пулеха И. Р. Антропоморфизм в языке сквозь призму воплощения // Вестник Челябинского государственного университета. 2019. № 1 (423). Филологические науки. Вып. 115. С. 106—112.
The article was originally published in Russian as: Pesina S. A., Yusupova L. G., Pulekha I. R. Antropomorphism v jazike skvoz prizmu voplotschenia [Anthropomorphism in language studied through the prism of embodiment] // Vestnik Chelyabinskogo gosudarstvennogo universite-ta. Filologicheskiye nauki [Bulletin of Chelyabinsk State University. Philology]. 2019, No. 1 (423), pp. 106-112.
A semantic space studied in this paper is connected with the anthropomorphic reflection of reality as a distinctive feature of one of the most significant segments of the conceptual and linguistic picture of the world. In general, such knowledge consists in the accumulation of cognitive attainments and ideas about the surrounding reality that are the most well-established in a linguistic community and imprinted in the structure of polysemantic words nominating both the human body and objects that make up man's immediate environment. Accordingly, this is of interest to cognitive linguistics because it is a question of the structuring and further storage of entire layers of information together with corresponding cognitive mechanisms necessary for extracting a particular meaning in the process of their actualisation. Since similar mechanisms involve the functioning of such semantic elementary items as invariants, the matter will concern an invariant method of studying semantic fields taken for an analysis.
With the anthropomorphic approach, the principle of language development is employed in a close connection with man's existence, when it is a human that becomes a centre of linguistic and conceptual pictures of the world and a measure of spiritual and material values. Considering themselves as a centre of reality, an individual perceives everything around themselves as a reflection of their existence. In this respect, a search for a systemically important basis of specifically figurative and emotional-sensual anthropomorphic nature in the content-related organisation of language lexemes led us to a semantic analysis of vocabulary. The given
insight presents the system-based approach to nominative anthropomorphism in language through the prism of embodiment processes, involving the identification of national-specific features of native speakers' anthropomorphic picture of the world.
Broadly defined, the hypothesis of embodiment (corporeality) is connected with a statement that man's physical, cognitive and social niches specify our conceptual and linguistic systems. From this point of view, the human mind should bear an imprint of embodied experience (in traditional linguistics — anthropocen-trism: a house stands on a hill).
In a physiological sense, the term "embodiment" refers to changes in development, which the human body experiences, while transforming from a zygote to a fetus or from a child to an adult individual. Thus, the equally important meaning of the term "embodiment" correlates with evolutionary changes which the human body undergoes in the course of its genetic history.
In a neurophysiological sense, the term "embodiment" refers us to certain neuronic structures and areas that correlate with functions such as the metaphorical projection and integration of image schemes oriented at a spectator in a visual system, etc. Such neu-ronic structures and regions may be also perceived as models of activity at the conceptual and psychological level of processing.
Embodiment has also a phenomenological meaning in which it can refer us to associations between our body and acts of conscious and thought-out reflection on various structures of our experience. Many features of cognition are "embodied", i.e. they deeply depend on characteristics of the physical body.
In this sense, it is logical that R. Descartes opposed the idea of the embodiment of knowledge, therefore "embodiment" is also used as a concise term for the Cartesian philosophical relationship of the mind and the body. Thus, employing the exemplary interpretation of the term "triangle", Descartes came to the conclusion that knowledge is unbodied, that is to say the latter fundamentally does not depend on any particular bodily sensation.
Finally, now the term "the embodiedness of knowledge" is also widely used in cognitive robot engineering. A variant of the implementation of schematic images is often associated with projects of humanoid robots, particularly where work that is performed by robots depends on specific morphological characteristics of a robot's body (morphology is used here in a biological rather than linguistic sense).
The above-mentioned ideas have led to today's confusion regarding what the term "embodiment" means in cognitive linguistics. Thus, some theorists argue
that this term is associated with a linguocultural theory of embodiment and with studies in the field of the schematism of mental processes, whereas other scientific schools persist in attempts made to connect embodiment with the study of physiological and nervous sensations of man.
This confusion in the use of the term "embodiment" in cognitive linguistics is also associated with the original formulation of G. Lakoff and M. Johnson's hypothesis concerning the structuring of metaphors. In particular, the authors maintained that we usually and quite predictably (i.e. according to certain algorithms) project figurative and schematic models of scholastic attainments from a more embodied source domain to a less understandable target domain for the purpose of better understanding [9]. In other words, every reflection between elements of a source and elements of a target is of a unidirectional kind: a reflection scheme is projected from a source to a target, rather than from a target to a source.
Yet modern formulations of embodiment hypotheses are based on a fact that theories in cognitive linguistics have certain neuronic and physiological orientation. We absolutely agree that man's corporal embodiment is extremely essential for the study of their conceptual structures. In this regard, the following statement may be cited: "advocates of the disembodied mind will, of course, say that conceptual structure must have a neural realisation in the brain, which just happens to reside in a body. But they deny that anything about the body is essential for characterising what concepts are" [9. P. 46]. Studies in cognitive science confirm the existence of the interdependence of conceptual and perceptual processes, on the one arm, and physiological and neurophysiological ones — on the other.
Returning to the problems related to studies of embodied consciousness in linguistics, we may state a fact that one and the same neuronic system involved in the comprehension of how our body is structured and how it functions plays a central role in processes of the conceptualisation and, further on, verbalisation of formed concepts. That is, the most important argument for the embodiment hypothesis is a fact that the same neuron-ic mechanisms causing the activity of the lower level, such as perception and movement, are considered to be the most essential for the development of cognitive abilities of the higher level, namely, the causality of our actions, deductions and conceptualisation in general. So, according to G. Lakoff and M. Johnson's opinion, "the very properties of concepts are created as a result of the way the brain and body are structured and the way they function in interpersonal relations and in the physical world" [9. P. 37]. Obviously, in the future, neu-
rolinguistics will be destined to study processes of the interaction of specific neuronic and physiological processes for a more detailed study of man's conceptual activity in different environments and cultures.
As far as cognitive linguistics is concerned, the embodiment theory may provide an explanation for the so-called problem of "complex metaphors" which are classified as conceptual metaphors (G. Lakoff). Their logical abstract essence is understood as part of the physical world which reflects objects of varying degrees of importance.
Our task includes finding and reconstructing an integral, though somewhat customary (naive), view of the world, inherent in language. It is a kind of collective philosophy which is imposed upon all native speakers, being obligatory to them. In this regard, an emphasis is placed on an anthropomorphic holistic lingual picture of the world. Proceeding from this, it is also necessary to distinguish the anthropomorphic picture of the world as a frarment of a holistic lingual picture of the world, described and presented by means of metaphors, metonymies and fixed phrases as the main types of figures of speech. Turned out to be in the linguocul-tural environment of a particular language within a respective language content and assimilating relevant realias, an individual lands in a synergetically developing cultural and lingual space.
Within the framework of this paper and using a material of specific semantic structures of words, we will demonstrate a fact that our body (or rather its structure and functioning) determines important aspects of our thinking and existence. The description of the functioning of the human body is absolutely projected both on objects surrounding us and abstract concepts which are in many cases difficult to comprehend.
Thus, the major meaning of the English noun arm may be interpreted as "the upper limb of the human body, reaching from the shoulder to the wrist", i.e. 'manus'. Some metaphors presented below reflect a comparison of various objects and artifacts with the appearance and function of the human arm. This part of the study aims at demonstrating what is an initial base in the formation and decoding of metaphorical meanings.
Thus, the metaphor arm — 'a narrow strip of water or land projecting from a larger body' is based on the comparison of a narrow strip of water/land with the human arm which is an extension (projection) of the human body to the same extent as a narrow strait/shallow/ sandbank appears in the form of part of a landscape, which protrudes from a larger plot of land. The semantic components (strip of water/land projecting from a larger part; narrow) form the basis of this meaning.
The meaning 'arm of a company/organisation' is based upon the comparison of a branch of an organisation with the human arm which functions independently, but which is part of the body (the components 'a division of a company/organisation, a smaller part of it' underlie the basis of this meaning).
In the above-adduced and subsequent meanings, the anthropomorphic principle is realised of the conceptualisation and, further on, nomination of objects and phenomena of the environment where a person, while placing themselves in the centre, becomes the main orienting point, a reference point and a personification of all surrounding objects and phenomena to which they attribute their own characteristics [1; 2; 3]. These objects become embodied, being likened to the appearance, structure and functioning of the human body as the closest of all tangible objects. Since these objects and phenomena look and "behave" in the same way as human beings, there occurs "the translucence" or "oscillation" of the semantics and/or visualised background conceptualisation of a corresponding part of the human body through the semantics of these embodied objects.
Thus, the metaphorical meaning 'arm of angles' (any of the usually two parts of a chromosome lateral to the centromere) is based on the schematic representation of a beam (in geometry) passing through one point and forming the sides of an angle. In this respect, human arms, raised at an angle, may quite resemble such a geometric figure as a combination of two semi-linear beams with a common point. It is possible to single out the following components in the basis of the semantics of this meaning: combination of two half-lines/beams; with a common endpoint.
Such are the metaphors arm of an anchor (based on the comparison of part of an anchor, reaching from "the top to the palm", with the reached-out arms of a man), as well as arm of a chromosome (any of the usually two parts of a chromosome lateral to the centromere). The latter represents any of the usually two lateral parts of a chromosome, which is likened to the human arm (components one of the two threadlike structures of nuclear acids; carrying genetic information; lateral).
The following meaning is of interest because it fully confirms a fact that this polysemantic word (arm) conveys a conception of any object the appearance and function, the position or form of which are related to the human arm: arm is a thing comparable to an arm in a form or function; anything considered to resume an arm in appearance, position, or function: an arm of a counterweight/completed machine/cables/stabiliser/ cultivators/bridge/tractor/robotic/landing/sea/record player etc.
Thus, man thinks anthropocentrically (man is a centre of the universe) and anthropomorphically (everything around functions according to the image and similarity of how the human body is arranged and functions, and, conversely, the properties of objects which are the most important for a human being are transferred to humans themselves). In this regard, the anthropocentric/anthropo-morphic way of the conceptualisation and verbalisation of the reality is both universal and nationally specific.
This approach gives priority to a systematic view of the meaning of words, which is considered as a reflection of an amount of knowledge that is contained in a corresponding cognitive structure. Searches for a basis of the naive anthropomorphic imaginative foundation in the content-related organisation of language gave an impulse to an invariant semantic analysis of vocabulary.
Apart from this specific feature of the above-analysed polysemant, there is exists another important question connected with the semantic identity of a polysemantic word: what exactly ties up all meanings of a word, preventing it from breaking up into homonyms. This problem can be solved by admitting a non-contextual invariant meaning which is of general kind and which is formed on the basis of the functioning of a word at the level of a language system.
An empirically carried-out component analysis of some metaphorical meanings made it possible to identify the most frequent semantic components of all redefined meanings. Such components as something long/narrow, lateral, projects from a larger structure; and a smaller division of a company/organisation reflect an anthropomorphic worldview of an average native speaker that the arm is the most important functional constituent part of the main object which is much more complex and significant in size and structure, and this part, as it were, protrudes from a larger structure. The analysis led to the objective formulation of such an abstract informative core of a polysemant (its lexical invariant).
In this connection, our thinking is quite predictable and it projects figurative and schematic models of knowledge, according to certain algorithms, from a more embodied source domain on a less understandable target domain for the purpose of the better handling of concepts.
The revealed abstract schematic construct makes it possible to fix man's stereotypical anthropomorphic reflection of objects and phenomena corresponding to both naive and scientific (arm of angles in maths) worldviews, which is the refracted human reflection of reality as a certain stage in the development of man's consciousness.
Thus, in the context of this paper, we have demonstrated based on the material of the specific semantic structure of the word (arm) that our body (or rather its struc-
ture and functioning) determines vital aspects of our thinking, verbalisation and, in general, existence. The description of the functioning of the human body is absolutely projected both on surrounding objects and abstract concepts which are often difficult to comprehend [7].
In view of the fact that the lexeme (arm) contains some found-out anthropocentric components connected with the human body that is capable of generating new associations, it may be assumed that the analysed polysemant (arm) will continue its anthropocentric development in the direction of a lexical invariant [4; 5; 10]. The functioning of the chosen lexical construct in consciousness follows from the fact that human consciousness memorises situations when these figurative components were implemented in semantic structures of assertions.
In summary, the above-presented fragment of the analysis of commonly occurring lexical units of anthropomorphic nature has demonstrated our view of the surrounding reality through the prism of embodied consciousness. In this case, the perceived reality is in many ways based on the nature of our unique human embodiment. It is safe to say that language does not reflect the world around us directly: it mirrors our unique human interpretation of the understanding of the world. In this context, we view our world through the prism of our own embodiment.
This does not mean that cognitive linguists deny the existence of the objective physical world independent of humans. They are now becoming increasingly aware that parts of the external reality, to which we have a conceptual access, are largely limited both by our own ecological niche to which we have adapted and by the nature of our embodiment. Such a view of the reality drew its name as experimentalism or empirical realism. Experimental realism admits that there exists the external reality that is reflected in concepts and language. This reality is mediated by our unique human experience which imposes limitations on the nature of this reality. Due to the fact that we are adapted to a specific ecological niche that has a certain shape and configuration, our bodies and consciousness imperatively ensure some unique attitude to the world or a way of seeing it among many possible perspectives.
The fact that our experience is embodied, i.e. to some extent structured depending on physiological parameters and features of the functioning of our body and our nervous system, has significant bearing on the course of cognition processes and their further emergence in language. An important consequence of studying processes of conceptualisation and mechanisms of the structuring and storage of accumulated information, including language information, is the circumstance that this knowledge lifts the veil on a secrecy regarding what our idea of what reality is.
References
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Information about the authors
Svetlana Andreyevna Pesina—Doctor of Philology, Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, Head of the English Language Chair of St. Petersburg Humanitarian University of Trade Unions, Professor of the Chair of English Philology and Cultural Linguistics of St. Petersburg State University. [email protected]
Lyalya Gainullovna Yusupova — Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor, Head of the Chair of Foreign Languages and Business Communication, Ural State Mining University. [email protected]
Irina Rudolfovna Pulekha — Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor, Magnitogorsk State Technical University named after G. I. Nosov. [email protected]
