What is an image schema? Looking for an answer in Latvian and Mandarin Chinese
What is an image schema? Looking for an answer in Latvian and Mandarin Chinese

Summary/Abstract: Image schema is one of the key notions in the discussions of the semantics of spatial adpositions. The diversity of related topics and the abundance of literature on these conceptual primitives makes the concept image schema difficult to grasp. The aim of this article is to clarify this notion by explicating on some important aspects of the schematization and representation of spatial scenes using the CONTAINMENT schema as an example. The article also demonstrates that the cross-linguistic comparison of an image schema is an effective method employed to better understand the universal cognitive processes underlying language use. The article contains a comparison of the spatial functional units that express the CONTAINMENT schema in Latvian and Mandarin Chinese, a discussion of the blurriness of the boundary between the concepts containment and support and their relation to the concept location. The relationship between image schemas and semantic frames, the factors that influence schematization and the phenomenon of parallel usage of locative units are discussed too. Image schema transformations are characterized as the mechanism of extending the meanings of spatial phrases.

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