Blending under deconstruction

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Disciplining the body? Reflections on the cross disciplinary import of ‘embodied meaning’ into interaction design

The aim of this paper is above all critically to examine and clarify some of the negative implications that the idea of ‘embodied meaning’ has for the emergent field of interaction design research. Originally, the term ‘embodied meaning’ has been brought into HCI research from phenomenology and cognitive semantics in order to better understand how user’s experience of new technological systems relies to an increasing extent on full-body interaction. Embodied approaches to technology design could thus be found in Winograd & Flores (1986), Dourish (2001), Lund (2003), Klemmer, Hartman & Takayama (2006), Hornecker & Buur (2006), Hurtienne & Israel (2007) among others. However, fertile as this cross-disciplinary import may be, design research can generally be criticised for being ‘undisciplined’, because of its tendency merely to take over reductionist ideas of embodied meaning from those neighbouring disciplines without questioning the inherent limitations it thereby subscribe to. In this paper I focus on this reductionism and what it means for interaction design research. I start out by introducing the field of interaction design and two central research questions that it raises. This will serve as a prerequisite for understanding the overall intention of bringing the notion of ‘embodied meaning’ from cognitive semantics into design research. Narrowing my account down to the concepts of ‘image schemas’ and their ‘metaphorical extension’, I then explain in more detail what is reductionistic about the notion of embodied meaning. Having done so, I shed light on the consequences this reductionism might have for design research by examining a recently developed framework for intuitive user interaction along with two case examples. In so doing I sketch an alternative view of embodied meaning for interaction design research. Keywords: Interaction Design, Embodied Meaning, Tangible User Interaction, Design Theory, Cognitive Semiotics</p

A narrative in three acts: Using combinations of image schemas to model events

Image schemas have been proposed as conceptual building blocks corresponding to the hypothesised most fundamental embodied experiences. We formally investigate how combinations of image schemas (or 'image schematic profiles') can model essential aspects of events, and discuss benefits for artificial intelligence and cognitive systems research, in particular concerning the role of such basic events in concept formation. More specifically, as exemplary illustrations and proof of concept the image schemas Object, Contact, and Path are combined to form the events Blockage, Bouncing, and Caused-Movement. Additionally, an outline of a proposed conceptual hierarchy of levels of modelling for image schemas and similar cognitive theories is given

Metaphor in Analytic Philosophy and Cognitive Science

This article surveys theories of metaphor in analytic philosophy and cognitive science. In particular, it focuses on contemporary semantic, pragmatic and non-cognitivist theories of linguistic metaphor and on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory advanced by George Lakoff and his school. Special attention is given to the mechanisms that are shared by nearly all these approaches, i.e. mechanisms of interaction and mapping between conceptual domains. Finally, the article discusses several recent attempts to combine these theories of linguistic and conceptual metaphor into a unitary account

Exploring figurative language recognition: a comprehensive study of human and machine approaches

Treballs Finals de Grau de Llengües i Literatures Modernes. Facultat de Filologia. Universitat de Barcelona. Curs: 2022-2023. Tutora: Elisabet Comelles Pujadas[eng] Figurative language (FL) plays a significant role in human communication. Understanding and interpreting FL is essential for humans to fully grasp the intended message, appreciate cultural nuances, and engage in effective interaction. For machines, comprehending FL presents a challenge due to its complexity and ambiguity. Enabling machines to understand FL has become increasingly important in sentiment analysis, text classification, and social media monitoring, for instance, benefits from accurately recognizing figurative expressions to capture subtle emotions and extract meaningful insights. Machine translation also requires the ability to accurately convey FL to ensure translations reflect the intended meaning and cultural nuances. Therefore, developing computational methods to enable machines to understand and interpret FL is crucial. By bridging the gap between human and machine understanding of FL, we can enhance communication, improve language-based applications, and unlock new possibilities in human-machine interactions. Keywords: figurative language, NLP, human-machine communication.[cat] El Llenguatge Figuratiu (LF) té un paper important en la comunicació humana. Per entendre completament els missatges, apreciar els matisos culturals i la interacció efectiva, és necessària la capacitat d'interpretar el LF. No obstant això, els ordinadors tenen dificultats per entendre la LF a causa de la seva complexitat i ambigüitat. És crític que els ordinadors siguin capaços de reconèixer el LF, especialment en àrees com l'anàlisi de sentiments, la classificació de textos i la supervisió de les xarxes socials. El reconeixement precís del LF permet capturar emocions i extreure idees semàntiques. La traducció automàtica també requereix una representació precisa del LF per reflectir el significat previst i els matisos culturals. Per tant, és rellevant desenvolupar mètodes computacionals que ajudin els ordinadors a comprendre i interpretar el LF. Fer un pont entre la comprensió humana i màquina del LF pot millorar la comunicació, desenvolupar aplicacions de llenguatge i obrir noves possibilitats per a la interacció home-màquina. Paraules clau: llenguatge figuratiu, processament del llenguatge natural, interacció home-màquina

DISCOURSE-DRIVEN MEANING CONSTRUCTION IN NEOSEMANTIC NOUN-TO-VERB CONVERSIONS [MEANING CONSTRUCTION IN NOUN-TO-VERB CONVERSIONS]

Neosemantic noun-to-verb conversions such as beer → to beer, door → to door, pink → to pink, etc., constitute a particularly interesting field of study for Cognitive Linguistics in that they call for a discourse-guided and context-based analysis of meaning construction. The present article takes a closer look at the cognitive motivation for the conversion process involved in the noun-verb alterations with a view to explaining the semantics of some conversion formations in relation to the user-centred discourse context. The analysis developed in this article draws from the combined insights of Fauconnier and Turner’s (2002) Conceptual Integration Theory and Langacker’s (2005, 2008) Current Discourse Space

Directional adposition use in English, Swedish and Finnish

Directional adpositions such as to the left of describe where a Figure is in relation to a Ground. English and Swedish directional adpositions refer to the location of a Figure in relation to a Ground, whether both are static or in motion. In contrast, the Finnish directional adpositions edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) solely describe the location of a moving Figure in relation to a moving Ground (Nikanne, 2003). When using directional adpositions, a frame of reference must be assumed for interpreting the meaning of directional adpositions. For example, the meaning of to the left of in English can be based on a relative (speaker or listener based) reference frame or an intrinsic (object based) reference frame (Levinson, 1996). When a Figure and a Ground are both in motion, it is possible for a Figure to be described as being behind or in front of the Ground, even if neither have intrinsic features. As shown by Walker (in preparation), there are good reasons to assume that in the latter case a motion based reference frame is involved. This means that if Finnish speakers would use edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) more frequently in situations where both the Figure and Ground are in motion, a difference in reference frame use between Finnish on one hand and English and Swedish on the other could be expected. We asked native English, Swedish and Finnish speakers’ to select adpositions from a language specific list to describe the location of a Figure relative to a Ground when both were shown to be moving on a computer screen. We were interested in any differences between Finnish, English and Swedish speakers. All languages showed a predominant use of directional spatial adpositions referring to the lexical concepts TO THE LEFT OF, TO THE RIGHT OF, ABOVE and BELOW. There were no differences between the languages in directional adpositions use or reference frame use, including reference frame use based on motion. We conclude that despite differences in the grammars of the languages involved, and potential differences in reference frame system use, the three languages investigated encode Figure location in relation to Ground location in a similar way when both are in motion. Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: Crosslingiuistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M.A. Peterson, L. Nadel & M.F. Garrett (Eds.) Language and Space (pp.109-170). Massachusetts: MIT Press. Nikanne, U. (2003). How Finnish postpositions see the axis system. In E. van der Zee & J. Slack (Eds.), Representing direction in language and space. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Walker, C. (in preparation). Motion encoding in language, the use of spatial locatives in a motion context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Lincoln, Lincoln. United Kingdo