The Embodiment of Language
The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition October 9, 2018 Mark Johnson
Meaning is not primarily linguistic but arises from sensory, motor, and affective processes rooted in the body and brain. This article surveys embodied structures of meaning-making—such as body-part projections, perceptual concepts, image schemas, emotions, body-based grammatical constructions, and conceptual metaphors—as understood through simulation semantics, embodied construction grammar, and neural theory of language. It argues that the four Es of cognition (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended) should be supplemented with three more: emotional, evolutionary, and exaptative.