This book deals with how language users express and understand literal and metaphorical spatial meaning in language and through gesture and pointing. The research draws on data from textual investigation using corpora, as well as from experiments of various kinds, such as psycholinguistic experiments and eye-tracking.



This book considers how language users express and understand literal and metaphorical spatial meaning not only in language but also through gesture and pointing. Researchers explore the ways in which theoretical developments in language and cognition, new empirical techniques, and new computational facilities have led to a greater understanding of the relationship between physical space and mental space as expressed in human communication.