The Social Nature of Embodied Cognition:A View from the World of Metaphor

The pervasive fact that human action is fundamentally embodied tends to be interpreted as evidence of a solitary person’s phenomenological experience in the physical world. Various empirical studies in cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics provide substantial support for the importance of recurring aspects of individual bodily action for both language and thought, especially in regard to the topic of metaphor. However, most of this research on embodied cognition fails to address the social nature of language and thought, and even how embodied experience is continually shaped by socio-cultural interactions. This article describes several ideas and research findings on the social nature of embodied, contextually embedded cognition. Particular emphasis is given to principles from dynamic systems theory and its relevance to understanding the interaction of embodied and social factors in metaphorical thought, language, and action.