The Semantics of Space: Experiential and Linguistic Aspects of Selected English Spatial Terms

To investigate relationships between spatial terms and the human experience of space, participants in three separate experiments were asked to sort 35 English spatial terms into groups on the basis of which items seemed most similar to one another. Participants also were asked to provide a descripti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of psycholinguistic research Vol. 34; no. 2; pp. 133 - 152
Main Authors Pollio, Howard R., Fagan, Lance B., Graves, Thomas R., Levasseur, Priscilla
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, NY Springer 01.03.2005
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects
Adolescent
Adult
Biological and medical sciences
Cluster Analysis
English
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Geography
Humans
Language
Linguistic Relativity
Linguistics
Male
Maya (People)
Mayan Languages
Memory
Miscellaneous
Native Speakers
Phenomenology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Resistance (Psychology)
Semantic Categories
Semantics
Space
Space Classification
Space Perception
Spatial Ability
Statistical Analysis
Terminology as Topic
Theories
Undergraduate Students
Vocabulary
Whorf, Benjamin Lee
Word Meaning
Space
Human
Phenomenology
spatial experience
English
Language
Semantics
Lexicon
Cognition
linguistic relativity
spatial terms
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ISSN0090-6905
1573-6555
DOI10.1007/s10936-005-3635-4

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Summary:To investigate relationships between spatial terms and the human experience of space, participants in three separate experiments were asked to sort 35 English spatial terms into groups on the basis of which items seemed most similar to one another. Participants also were asked to provide a descriptive rationale for each of their groupings. Once all groupings were recorded, they were subject to hierarchical clustering analysis and results of all three studies produced five different clusters centering around issues of: (1) barrier and passage, (2) distance, (3) embodiment, (4) boundary and containment, and (5) verticality. Meanings for each cluster were named on the basis of participant descriptions and from independent evaluations made by the research team. Using these thematic meanings as a guide, a first-person description of spatial experience was developed and related to current analyses of the Whorf Hypothesis concerning issues of spatial experience and memory.
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ISSN:0090-6905
1573-6555
DOI:10.1007/s10936-005-3635-4