Dear All,
In "Metaphor, ad hoc concepts and word meaning - more questions than
answers" Robyn Carston poses the following questions:
What relationship there is, if any, between ... imagistic mental representations and
... conceptual, propositional, syntactic...(C)ould it be that we derive
conceptual representations through scrutinising the internal image, rather as we
might form thoughts through looking at an external picture? If so, this would
provide a ready explanation for the open-endedness and variability of metaphor
interpretations.
Gallese & Lakoff (2005) claim that the same neural substrate used in imagining is used
in understanding: "Consider a simple sentence, like 'Harry picked up the glass.'
If you can't imagine picking up a glass or seeing someone picking up a glass, then
you can't understand that sentence. Our hypothesis develops this fact one step further.
It says that understanding is imagination, and that what you understand of a sentence
is a contexts is the meaning of that sentence in that context".
Away from modularity?
Best,
Andre
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