LANGUAGE AND SPACE

▪ Abstract This review describes some recent, unexpected findings concerning variation in spatial language across cultures, and places them in the context of the general anthropology of space on the one hand, and theories of spatial cognition in the cognitive sciences on the other. There has been much concern with the symbolism of space in anthropological writings, but little on concepts of space in practical activities. This neglect of everyday spatial notions may be due to unwitting ethnocentrism, the assumption in Western thinking generally that notions of space are universally of a single kind. Recent work shows that systems of spatial reckoning and description can in fact be quite divergent across cultures, linguistic differences correlating with distinct cognitive tendencies. This unexpected cultural variation raises interesting questions concerning the relation between cultural and linguistic concepts and the biological foundations of cognition. It argues for more sophisticated models relating cult...

[1]  D. Prowe.  Berlin , 1855, Journal of public health, and sanitary review.

[2]  Henri Poincaré,et al.  The foundations of science , 2022 .

[3]  La catégorie des cas : étude de grammaire générale , 1941 .

[4]  E. Tolman.  Cognitive maps in rats and men. , 1948, Psychological review.

[5]  D. Copland.  The Australian National University. , 1951, Science.

[6]  F. J. Langdon,et al.  The Child's Conception of Space , 1967 .

[7]  J. Davenport.  Editor , 1960 .

[8]  Jeffrey Gruber.  Studies in lexical relations , 1965 .

[9]  F. Yates.  The Art of Memory , 1969 .

[10]  F. J. Langdon,et al.  The Child's Conception of Space , 1967 .

[11]  Magyar Tudományos Akadémia. Nyelvtudományi Intézet,et al.  A magyar nyelv történeti-etimológiai szótára , 1967 .

[12]  R. Hursthouse.  THE LOGIC OF DECISION AND ACTION , 1969 .

[13]  Verzekeren Naar Sparen,et al.  Cambridge , 1969, Humphrey Burton: In My Own Time.

[14]  Russell Ultan,et al.  Some General Characteristics of Interrogative Systems. Working Papers on Language Universals, No. 1. , 1969 .

[15]  M. Jammer.  Concepts of space : the history of theories of space in physics , 1971 .

[16]  Pierre Bourdieu,et al.  Outline of a Theory of Practice , 2020, On Violence.

[17]  H. H. Clark.  SPACE, TIME, SEMANTICS, AND THE CHILD , 1973 .

[18]  Robin M. Carter.  Chipewyan Classificatory Verbs , 1976, International Journal of American Linguistics.

[19]  G. Miller,et al.  Language and Perception , 1976 .

[20]  David Lewis,et al.  OBSERVATIONS ON ROUTE FINDING AND SPATIAL ORIENTATION AMONG THE ABORIGINAL PEOPLES OF THE WESTERN DESERT REGION OF CENTRAL AUSTRALIA , 1976 .

[21]  D. Lewis.  Route Finding by Desert Aborigines in Australia , 1976, Journal of Navigation.

[22]  Paul Kay,et al.  Language Evolution and Speech Style , 1977 .

[23]  Gary J. Witherspoon.  Language and art in the Navajo universe , 1977 .

[24]  L. Nadel,et al.  The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map , 1978 .

[25]  Clifford Alden Hill,et al.  Linguistic Representation of Spatial and Temporal Orientation , 1978 .

[26]  R. Downs,et al.  Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience , 1978 .

[27]  D. Slobin,et al.  The development of locative expressions in English, Italian, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish , 1977, Journal of Child Language.

[28]  Stephen P. Hugh-Jones,et al.  The Palm and the Pleiades: Initiation and Cosmology in Northwest Amazonia , 1980 .

[29]  Wilfrid S. Sellars.  Mental events , 1981 .

[30]  C. Goodwin.  Conversational Organization: Interaction Between Speakers and Hearers , 1981 .

[31]  S. Ardener.  Women and Space: Ground Rules and Social Maps , 1981 .

[32]  W. Klein,et al.  Speech, place, and action : studies in deixis and related topics , 1982 .

[33]  C. Fillmore.  Towards a Descriptive Framework for Spatial Deixis , 1982 .

[34]  Leslie G. Ungerleider.  Two cortical visual systems , 1982 .

[35]  S. Carey,et al.  Up front: the acquisition of a concept and a word , 1982, Journal of Child Language.

[36]  W. Klein,et al.  Here and there : cross-linguistic studies on deixis and demonstration , 1982 .

[37]  Clifford Hill,et al.  Up/down, front/back, left/right. A contrastive study of Hausa and English , 1982 .

[38]  R. Langacker.  Foundations of cognitive grammar , 1983 .

[39]  Leonard Talmy,et al.  How Language Structures Space , 1983 .

[40]  Re-directions in cognitive research with Australian Aborigines , 1983 .

[41]  Claudia Brugman.  The Use of Body-part Terms as Locatives in Chalcatongo Mixtec , 1983 .

[42]  C. H. Brown.  Where Do Cardinal Direction Terms Come From , 1983 .

[43]  ANTHROPOLOGY OF SPACE: EXPLORATIONS INTO THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY , 1984 .

[44]  Willem J. M. Levelt,et al.  Some Perceptual Limitations on Talking About Space , 1984 .

[45]  C. Frake.  COGNITIVE MAPS OF TIME AND TIDE AMONG MEDIEVAL SEAFARERS , 1985 .

[46]  R. Pinxten,et al.  The Anthropology of Space: Explorations into the Natural Philosophy and Semantics of the Navajo , 1985 .

[47]  Editors , 1986, Brain Research Bulletin.

[48]  W. Foley.  The Papuan Languages of New Guinea , 1986 .

[49]  Henrietta L. Moore,et al.  Space, Text and Gender: An Anthropological Study of the Marakwet of Kenya , 1987 .

[50]  Bernd Heine,et al.  On the Metaphorical Base of Grammar , 1986 .

[51]  Colin Renfrew,et al.  Archaeology and language , 1987 .

[52]  George Lakoff,et al.  Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things , 1987 .

[53]  Leonard Talmy,et al.  (1) Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms; and , 1987 .

[54]  We've got you coming and going , 1988 .

[55]  A Piazza,et al.  Reconstruction of human evolution: bringing together genetic, archaeological, and linguistic data. , 1988, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[56]  John W. Berry,et al.  Indigenous cognition : functioning in cultural context , 1988 .

[57]  R. Lathe.  Phd by thesis , 1988, Nature.

[58]  J. Denny.  CONTEXTUALISATION AND DIFFERENTIATION IN CROSS-CULTURAL COGNITION , 1988 .

[59]  M. Jeannerod.  The neural and behavioural organization of goal-directed movements , 1990, Psychological Medicine.

[60]  Sign languages of Aboriginal Australia , 1988 .

[61]  Robert E. Maclaury,et al.  Zapotec Body-Part Locatives: Prototypes and Metaphoric Extensions , 1989, International Journal of American Linguistics.

[62]  J. Leer.  Directional Systems in Athapaskan and Na-Dene , 1989 .

[63]  Some principles of Alaskan Athabaskan toponymic knowledge , 1989 .

[64]  T. Wynn.  The Evolution of Spatial Competence , 1989 .

[65]  M. Bierwisch,et al.  Dimensional Adjectives: Grammatical Structure and Conceptual Interpretation , 1989 .

[66]  Steven K. Thomason.  Free construction of time from events , 1989, J. Philos. Log..

[67]  R. Waterson,et al.  The Living House: An Anthropology of Architecture in South-East Asia , 1990 .

[68]  S. Low,et al.  The Built Environment and Spatial Form , 1990 .

[69]  Christina Toren.  Making Sense of Hierarchy: Cognition as Social Process in Fiji: Fijian Hierarchy and Its Constitution in Everyday Ritual Behavior , 1990 .

[70]  Claude Vandeloise,et al.  Spatial Prepositions: A Case Study from French , 1991 .

[71]  G. Reesink,et al.  The Empty Place: Poetry, Space, and Being among the Foi of Papua New Guinea , 1992 .

[72]  Brian Stross.  Classic Maya Directional Glyphs , 1991 .

[73]  On the First Ground of the Distinction of Regions in Space , 1991 .

[74]  B. Landau,et al.  Spatial language and spatial cognition , 1991 .

[75]  M. Bowerman,et al.  Learning to express motion events in English and Korean: The influence of language-specific lexicalization patterns , 1991, Cognition.

[76]  B. Heine,et al.  Grammaticalization: A Conceptual Framework , 1991 .

[77]  J. Paillard.  Brain and space , 1991 .

[78]  Adele E. Goldberg,et al.  It Can't Go Down the Chimney Up: Paths and the English Resultative , 1991 .

[79]  James Van Cleve,et al.  The Philosophy of Right and Left , 1991 .

[80]  S. Levinson.  Primer for the field investigation of spatial description and conception , 1992 .

[81]  J. Nichols.  Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time , 1992 .

[82]  Stephen C. Levinson,et al.  Space in Mesoamerican languages , 1992 .

[83]  S. McCluskey,et al.  Earth Is My Mother, Sky Is My Father: Space, Time, and Astronomy in Navajo Sandpainting , 1992 .

[84]  J. Stein.  The representation of egocentric space in the posterior parietal cortex. , 1992, The Behavioral and brain sciences.

[85]  J. Earman.  World enough and space-time : absolute versus relational theories of space and time , 1992 .

[86]  Mark C. Baker,et al.  Unmatched chains and the representation of plural pronouns , 1992 .

[87]  S. Levinson,et al.  ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ in Tenejapa: Investigating a Linguistic and Conceptual Gap , 1992 .

[88]  Revere D. Perkins.  Deixis, Grammar, and Culture , 1992 .

[89]  Jane H. Hill,et al.  Language and World View , 1992 .

[90]  David E. Irwin,et al.  Frames of reference in vision and language: Where is above? , 1993, Cognition.

[91]  John B. Haviland,et al.  Anchoring, Iconicity, and Orientation in Guugu Yimithirr Pointing Gestures , 1993 .

[92]  Edward S. Casey,et al.  Getting Back Into Place: Toward a Renewed Understanding of the Place-World , 1993 .

[93]  David Turnbull,et al.  Maps Are Territories Science is an Atlas : A Portfolio of Exhibits , 1993 .

[94]  Penelope Brown,et al.  Linguistic and nonlinguistic coding of spatial arrays: Explorations in Mayan cognition. Working Paper 24 , 1993 .

[95]  T. Swain.  A Place for Strangers: Index , 1993 .

[96]  Eric Pederson,et al.  Geographic and Manipulable Space in Two Tamil Linguistic Systems , 1993, COSIT.

[97]  Urpo Nikanne,et al.  On Assigning Semantic Cases in Finnish , 1993 .

[98]  J. Finlayson,et al.  A Place for Strangers: Towards a History of Australian Aboriginal Being , 1995 .

[99]  S. Levinson,et al.  'Uphill' and 'downhill' in Tzeltal , 1993 .

[100]  B. Landau,et al.  “What” and “where” in spatial language and spatial cognition , 1993 .

[101]  Rosaleen A. McCarthy,et al.  Spatial Representation: Problems in Philosophy and Psychology , 1993 .

[102]  C. Tilley,et al.  A Phenomenology of Landscape: Places, Paths and Monuments , 1994 .

[103]  S. Levinson,et al.  Vision, shape, and linguistic description: Tzeltal body-part terminology and object description , 1994 .

[104]  S. Levinson,et al.  Immanuel Kant among the Tenejapans: Anthropology as Empirical Philosophy , 1994 .

[105]  E. Danziger.  Out of sight, out of mind: person, perception, and function in Mopan Maya spatial deixis , 1994 .

[106]  A. Rumsey.  The Dreaming, Human Agency and Inscriptive Practice , 1994 .

[107]  P. Brown.  The INs and ONs of Tzeltal locative expressions: the semantics of static descriptions of location , 1994 .

[108]  The social relationships of changing Hai||om hunter-gatherers in northern Namibia, 1990-1994 , 1994 .

[109]  Caesarius Ruddyanto,et al.  Language Style and Social Space: Stylistic Choice in Suriname Javanese , 1994 .

[110]  Jean Harkins,et al.  11 Mparntwe Arrernte and the Search for Lexical Universals , 1994 .

[111]  Soteria Svorou,et al.  The grammar of space , 1994 .

[112]  Anna Wierzbicka,et al.  Semantic and lexical universals : theory and empirical findings , 1994 .

[113]  Gunter Senft.  Ein Vorschlag, wie man standardisiert Daten zum Thema 'Sprache, Kognition und Konzepte des Raumes' in verschiedenen Kulturen erheben kann , 1994 .

[114]  P. Descola,et al.  In the Society of Nature: A Native Ecology in Amazonia. , 1994 .

[115]  Colin Renfrew,et al.  The Ancient Mind: Elements of Cognitive Archaeology , 1997 .

[116]  Eric Pederson,et al.  Language as context, language as means: Spatial cognition and habitual language use , 1995 .

[117]  G. Senft.  Sprache, Kognition und Konzepte des Raums in verschiedenen Kulturen , 1995 .

[118]  Soonja Choi,et al.  Verbs, particles, and spatial semantics: Learning to talk about spatial actions in typologically different languages , 1995 .

[119]  Nicholas Evans,et al.  A Grammar Of Kayardild , 1995 .

[120]  David P. Wilkins,et al.  When ˝go˝ means ˝come˝: Questioning the basicness of basic motion verbs , 1995 .

[121]  Linda Schele,et al.  Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman's Path , 1995, Cambridge Archaeological Journal.

[122]  Gunter Senft.  Classificatory particles in Kilivila , 1995 .

[123]  Nicholas D. Evans,et al.  A grammar of Kayardild : with historical-comparative notes on Tangkic , 1995 .

[124]  Elizabeth Keating,et al.  Spatial Conceptualizations of Social Hierarchy in Pohnpei, Micronesia , 1995, COSIT.

[125]  Seungho Nam,et al.  The semantics of locative prepositional phrases in English , 1995 .

[126]  Elinor Ochs,et al.  Linguistic resources for socializing humanity. , 1996 .

[127]  Gordon D. Logan,et al.  A computational analysis of the apprehension of spatial relations , 1996 .

[128]  S. Levinson.  Frames of reference and Molyneux's question: Cross-linguistic evidence , 1996 .

[129]  Spatial dimensions and orientation of objects in Yucatec Maya , 1996 .

[130]  E. Danziger.  Parts and Their Counterparts: Spatial and Social Relationships in Mopan Maya , 1996 .

[131]  Willem J. M. Levelt,et al.  Perspective taking and ellipsis in spatial descriptions , 1996 .

[132]  M. Bowerman.  The origins of children's spatial semantic categories: Cognitive vs. linguistic determinants , 1996 .

[133]  Stephen C. Levinson,et al.  Relativity in spatial conception and description , 1996 .

[134]  D. Slobin.  From “thought and language” to “thinking for speaking” , 1996 .

[135]  Eugene S. Hunn,et al.  Columbia Plateau Indian Place Names: What Can They Teach Us? , 1996 .

[136]  Eric Pederson,et al.  Spatial operations in deixis, cognition, and culture: where to orient oneself in Belhare , 1997 .

[137]  Stephen C. Levinson,et al.  Language and Cognition: The Cognitive Consequences of Spatial Description in Guugu Yimithirr , 1997 .

[138]  Martin Haspelmath,et al.  From space to time : temporal adverbials in the world's languages , 1997 .

[139]  John B. Haviland,et al.  Guugu Yimithirr Cardinal Directions , 1998 .

[140]  J. Peregrin.  LINGUISTICS AND PHILOSOPHY , 1998 .

[141]  S. Crawford,et al.  Volume 1 , 2012, Journal of Diabetes Investigation.

[142]  Vivienne Fong,et al.  The order of things : what directional locatives denote , 1998 .

[143]  Power Sharing: Language, Rank, Gender and Social Space in Pohnpei, Micronesia , 1998 .

[144]  Studying Spatial Conceptualization across Cultures , 1998 .