Editing Cognitive linguistics (section)

====Conceptual metaphor theory====

According to American linguist George Lakoff, ''metaphors'' are not just figures of speech, but modes of thought. Lakoff hypothesises that principles of abstract reasoning may have evolved from visual thinking and mechanisms for representing spatial relations that are present in lower animals.<ref name="Lakoff_1990">{{cite journal |last=Lakoff |first=George |date=1990 |title=Invariance hypothesis: is abstract reasoning based on image-schemas? |journal=Cognitive Linguistics |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=39–74 |doi=10.1515/cogl.1990.1.1.39 |s2cid=144380802 }}</ref> Conceptualisation is regarded as being based on the ''[[Embodied cognition|embodiment]]'' of knowledge, building on physical experience of vision and motion. For example, the 'metaphor' of emotion builds on downward motion while the metaphor of reason builds on upward motion, as in saying  “The discussion ''fell'' to the emotional level, but I ''raised it back up'' to the rational plane."<ref name="Lakoff&Johnson_1980">{{cite book |last1=Lakoff|first1=George|last2=Johnson|first2=Mark |title=Metaphors We Live By |publisher=University of Chicago Press |date=1980|isbn=978-0-226-46801-3}}</ref> It is argued that language does not form an independent cognitive function but fully relies on other [[Cognitive skill|cognitive skills]] which include perception, attention, motor skills, and visual and spatial processing.<ref name="Croft&Cruse_2004" /> Same is said of various other cognitive phenomena such as the [[Time perception|sense of time]]:

::"In our visual systems, we have detectors for motion and detectors for objects/locations. We do not have detectors for time (whatever that could mean). Thus, it makes good biological sense that time should be understood in terms of things and motion." —George Lakoff

In Cognitive Linguistics, [[Thought|thinking]] is argued to be mainly automatic and unconscious.<ref name="Lakoff&Johnson_1999">{{cite book |last1=Lakoff |first1=George |last2=Johnson |first2=Mark |title=Philosophy in the flesh : the embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought |publisher=Basic Books |date=1999 |isbn=0-465-05673-3}}</ref><ref name="Ibarretxe-Antuñano_2002">{{cite journal |last=Ibarretxe-Antuñano |first=Iraide |author-link=Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano|date=2002 |title=MIND-AS-BODY as a Cross-linguistic Conceptual Metaphor |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272507067 |journal=Miscelánea |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=93–119|access-date=2020-07-15}}</ref><ref name="Gibbs&Colston_1995">{{cite journal|last1=Gibbs|first1=R. W.|last2=Colston|first2=H.|date=1995|title=The cognitive psychological reality of image schemas and their transformations|journal=Cognitive Linguistics|volume=6|issue=4|pages=347–378|doi=10.1515/cogl.1995.6.4.347|s2cid=144424435}}</ref> Cognitive linguists study the [[Embodied cognition|embodiment]] of knowledge by seeking expressions which relate to [[Image schema|modal schemas]].<ref name="Luodonpää-Manni&Viimaranta_2017">{{cite book|last1=Luodonpää-Manni|first1=Milla|url=https://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/63854|title=Empirical Approaches to Cognitive Linguistics: Aalyzing Real-Life Data|last2=Penttilä|first2=Esa|last3=Viimaranta|first3=Johanna|date=2017|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-4438-7325-3|editor-last1=Luodonpää-Manni|editor-first1=Milla|chapter=Introduction|access-date=2020-06-30|editor-last2=Viimaranta|editor-first2=Johanna|archive-date=2020-10-23|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201023063439/https://www.cambridgescholars.com/download/sample/63854|url-status=dead}}</ref> For example, in the expression "It is quarter to eleven", the preposition ''to'' represents a modal schema which is manifested in language as a visual or sensorimotoric 'metaphor'.