Words and the Mind - How Words Capture Human Experience

Aug 28, 2026

Uploaded by Putri

Words and the Mind examines how language structures and conveys human experience through the semantic domain of the body. It focuses on how body-part terms are represented across cultures, what makes certain categories “basic,” and how naming varies while remaining constrained. Drawing on psycholinguistics, neuropsychological and imaging evidence, it evaluates whether body-part knowledge forms a distinct memory domain and discusses its perceptual and developmental foundations.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages18

Reading Time45 min

AccessFree to download

Words for Parts of the Body

Body Parts in Perception

# Words and the MindHow Words Capture Human Experience Edited byBarbara C.Malt and Phillip Wolff 2010 Oxford University Press Oxford University Press,Inc.,publishes works that furtherOxford University's objective of excellencein research,scholarship,and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong KarachiKuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City NairobiNew Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France GreeceGuatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal SingaporeSouth Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright ◎2010 by Barbara C.Malt and Phillip Wolff Published by Oxford University Press,Inc.198 Madison Avenue,New York,New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in a retrieval system,or transmitted,in any form or by any means,eectronic,mechanical,photocopying recording,or otherwise,without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Words and the mind:How words capture human experience/Barbara C.Maltand Phillip Wolff,editors. p.cm. ISBN 978-0-19-531112-9(cloth:ak.paper) 1.Psycholinguistics.I.Malt,Barbara C.I.Wolff,Phillip M.P37.W682010401'.9—de222009016072 135798642 Printed in the United States of Americaon acid-free paper 3 Asifa Majid The human body like any other object is per-ceived through our senses,but it is unique inthat it alone is internally as well as externallyapprehended.It serves as a special focus ofattention.It is ritually dressed and adorned ina variety of ways in different cultures—fromtattoos,piercings,and scarification to plasticsurgery and make-up.It is widely regarded asthe source for many of our concepts,particu-larly in relation to space,time,and emotions.Yet comparatively little attention is paid to thebasic vocabulary for the body. The body appears to be a discrete andindependent semantic domain in memory.Neuropsychological studies show that inboth production and comprehension,lexica]-semantic knowledge of body parts can berelatively preserved(Coslett,Saffran,&Schwoebel, 2002; Shelton, Fouch, &Caramazza,1998)or impaired (Dennis,1976;Suzuki,Yamadori,&Fuji,1997)in comparisonto other semantic domains.Imaging studiesalso provide converging evidence hat thereare distinct cortical areas responsible for pro-cessing semantic knowledge of body parts,regardless of input modality(written,spoken)or language(for English-French bilinguals;seeLe Clec'H et al,2000).Shelton,Fouch,&Caramazza(1998;Caramazza &Shelton,1998)have speculated that as a result of evolu-tionary pressures,body parts might be a spe-cialized module neurally and functionally.According to their account,semantic represen-tations are organized into domains becausethere have been specific adaptations to quickly ## WORDS FOR PARTS OF THE BODY classify and respond to objects relevant forsurvival value.The body would be one ofthese domains because body parts play a keyrole in interacting with the environment—"hands for grasping legs for movement,eyesfor seeing,mouths for ingesting,etc."(Sheltonet al.,1998,p.348).In addition to the evolu-tionary arguments,developmental evidencesuggests that the body is special.Infants lessthan an hour old imitate facial movements(Meltzoff &Moore,1983),and within a fewweeks they can even imitate simple manualgestures(Meltzoff &Moore,1977),suggestingan innate ability to perceive and interpret bodyparts The ontogenetic data and evolutionaryarguments,along with evidence from percep-tion that will be reviewed,suggest a funda-mental categorization of the body into parts—i.e.,into head,hands,arms,feet,legs,etc.The question addressed in this chapter iswhether there are"basic"body parts that arerecognized across cultures in how people talkabout the body.Or to put it another way,howdo people from different communitie

FAQs

本文聚焦哪一类语义成分与研究问题？

本文重点讨论身体部位词的指称范围，即不同语言中身体部位术语所覆盖的精确范围，以及不同语言的分类系统在多大程度上相似或不同。

神经心理学和影像研究支持了怎样的结论？

相关研究表明，身体部位的词汇-语义知识在加工与理解中可能相对保留或受到损害；同时，不论输入形式或语言，存在负责身体部位语义处理的相对独立皮层区域。

关于“身体部位类别”的主导观点是什么？

许多心理学家、语言学家和人类学家认为身体部位类别由视觉知觉的分割所“给予”，词只是对这些预先存在的部分贴标签，因而映射在直观上被视为直接且显而易见。

Aug 28, 2026

Uploaded by Putri