Space in Language and Cognition: Explorations in Cognitive Diversity

ISBN-13: 9780521812627 / Angielski / Twarda / 2003 / 414 str.

Stephen C. Levinson

Opis

Spatial orientation and direction are core areas of human and animal thinking. But, unlike animals, human populations vary considerably in their spatial thinking. Revealing that these differences correlate with language (which is probably mostly responsible for the different cognitive styles), this book includes many cross-cultural studies investigating spatial memory, reasoning, types of gesture and wayfinding abilities. It explains the relationship between language and cognition and cross-cultural differences in thinking to students of language and the cognitive sciences.

Recenzje

"Levinson's book will certainly stand as a textbook in the study of the relationship between language and cognition, and is rich and challenging reading...Those with an interest in the issue of linguistic variation will find an unusually well-documented and well-argued presentation of the actual variation in the domain of spatial reference."
-Ingjerd Hoem, Institute for Pacific Archaeology and Cultural History, The Kon-Tiki Museum, Anthropological Linguistics

Spis treści

Preface; 1. The intellectual background: two millenia of Western ideas about spatial thinking; 2. Frames of reference; 3. Linguistic diversity; 4. Absolute minds: glimpses into two cultures; 5. Diversity in mind: methods and results from a cross-linguistic sample; 6. Beyond language: frames of reference in wayfinding and pointing; 7. Language and thought.