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Metaphors of the Body in Gestural Languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Danielle Bouvet
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Extract

The experience of the body, which all speaking subjects share, is at the origin of many corporeal metaphors and figurative expressions which are laced throughout all of our productions of language, and which reveal the diverse representations of the body as elaborated within linguistic communities. For instance, when the French say that someone “does nothing with his ten fingers,” to signify his inactivity or laziness, this expression reveals a representation of the hand, which is viewed as “THE SEAT OF ACTIVITY.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 44 , Issue 175 , September 1996 , pp. 27 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

Notes

1. M. Johnson, The Body in the Mind. The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason, Chicago, 1987.

2. G. Lakoff and M. Johnson, Les Métaphores dans la vie quotidienne, Paris, 1985, p. 7.

3. F. de Saussure, Cours de linguistique générale, Paris, 1967, p.26.

4. A. Ombredanne, "La langage," in: G. Dumas (ed.), Nouveau traité de psycholo gie, Book IV, Paris, 1933, pp. 363-465.

5. P. Valéry, Variétés V, Paris, 1957, Vol. I, p. 1153.

6. Ch. Baudelaire, Paradis artificiels ("Mangeur d'opium"), Paris, Vol. I.

7. Abbé L.-M. Lambert, Langue de la physionomie et du geste mis à la portée de tous, suivi d'une méthode courte, facile et pratique d'enseignement des sourds-muets illet trés qui sont hors des institutions spéciales, et des élèves arriérés de ces mêmes écoles, Paris, 1865.

8. All words appearing in capital letters in this article henceforth refer to the gloss of the gestural sign.

9. G. Lacoff and M. Johnson (note 2 above), p. 36.

10. Ibid., p. 24.

11. Ibid., p. 25.

12. Ch. Darwin, The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, New York, 1873.

13. Z. Kövecses, Emotion Concepts, New York, 1990, p. 52.

14. See Grünbaum's article "Aphasie und Motorik," in: Zeitschrift für die gesamte Neurologie und Psychiatrie, 1930, quoted in: M. Merleau-Ponty, Phénoménologie de la Perception, Paris, 1945, p. 164.

15. G. Lakoff and M. Johnson (note 2 above), p. 45.

16. My italics.

17. G. Lakoff and M. Johnson (note 2 above), p. 65.

18. Ibid., p. 68.

19. Ibid., p. 65.

20. M. Johnson (note 1 above), p. xix.

21. M. Merleau-Ponty (note 14 above), p. 230.

22. Ibid., p. 221.

23. Ibid., p. 226.

24. M. Jousse, Le Parlant, la parole et le souffle, Paris, 1978.

25. E. Sapir, Anthropologie, Paris, 1967, p. 46.