The 'language and space' area is a relatively new research area in cognitive science. Studying how language and spatial representation are linked in the human brain mainly draws on research in existing disciplines focusing on language, perception, categorization and development. Representative researchers from these sub-disciplines of cognitive science discuss new insights in their own field of expertise and show what role their definition of 'function', 'feature'or 'functional feature' plays in their research. New research centered around these concepts is on the forefront of developments in these sub-disciplines and in the area of 'Language and Space'.

The notions of 'function', 'feature' and 'functional feature' are associated with relatively new developments and insights in several areas of cognition. This book brings together different definitions, insights and research related to defining these notions from such diverse areas as language, perception, categorization and development. Each of the contributors in this book explicitly defines the notion of 'function', 'feature' or 'functional feature' within their own theoretical framework, presents research in which such a notion plays a pivotal role, and discusses the contribution of functional features in relation to their insights in a particular area of cognition. As such, this book not only presents new developments devoted to defining 'function', 'feature' and 'functional feature' in several sub-disciplines of cognitive science, but also offers a focused account of how these notions operate within the cognitive interface linking language and spatial representation. All book chapters are accessible for the interested novice, and offer the specialized researcher new empirical and theoretical insights into defining function, both with respect to the language and space interface and across cognition. The introduction to the book presents the reader with the main issues and viewpoints that are discussed in more detail in each of the book chapters.

This book, intended primarily for researchers and advanced students, expands greatly on previous work by the authors exploring the topography of the multidimensional “functional-cognitive space” within which functional, cognitive and/or constructionist approaches to language can be located. The analysis covers a broad range of 16 such approaches, with some additional references to Chomskyan minimalism, and is based on 58 questionnaire items, each rated by 29 experts on particular models for their importance in the model concerned. These ratings are analysed statistically to reveal overall patterns of (dis)similarity across models. The questionnaire ratings and experts’ comments are then used, together with the authors’ close reading of the literature, in detailed discussion leading to a final dichotomous rating for each feature in each model, the results again being analysed statistically. The final chapter presents the overall conclusions and suggests how existing collaborations between approaches could be strengthened, and new ones created, in future research. Exploring Functional-Cognitive Space has been awarded the 2016 prize of the Spanish Association for Applied Linguistics (Asociación Española de Lingüística Aplicada, AESLA) for work by experienced researchers.

This book brings together researchers in linguistics, computer science, psychology and cognitive science to investigate how motion is encoded in language. Part I considers the parameters of the field, while part II looks at the way in which spatial scale or granularity plays a role in the encoding of motion in language.

Our use of spatial prepositions carries an implicit understanding of the functional relationships both between objects themselves and human interaction with those objects. This is the thesis rigorously explicated in Saying, Seeing and Acting. It aims to account not only for our theoretical comprehension of spatial relations but our ability to intercede with efficacy in the world of spatially related objects. Only the phenomenon of functionality can adequately account for what even the simplest of everyday experiences show to be the technically problematic, but still meaningful status of expressions of spatial location in contentious cases. The terms of the debate are established and contextualised in Part One. In the Second Section, systematic experimental evidence is drawn upon to demonstrate specific covariances between spatial world and spatial language. The authors go on to give an original account of the functional and geometric constraints on which comprehension and human action among spatially related objects is based. Part Three looks at the interaction of these constraints to create a truly dynamic functional geometric framework for the meaningful use of spatial prepositions. Fascinating to anyone whose work touches on psycholinguistics, this book represents a thorough and incisive contribution to debates in the cognitive psychology of language.

This book considers how people talk about the location of objects and places. The book reports on the latest developments in the field of spatial language and sets an agenda for future research on spatial conceptualization and communication in cognitive science, computer science, psychology, and linguistics.

This book collates evidence from behavioural, brain imagery and stroke-patient studies, to discuss how cognitive and neural processes are responsible for language.