Language and space: some interactions.
Is language linked to mental representations of space? There are several reasons to think that language and space might be separated in our cognitive systems, but they nevertheless interact in important ways. These interactions are evident in language viewed as a means of communication and in language considered a form of representation. In communication, spatial factors may be explicit in language itself, such as the spatial-gestural system of American Sign Language. Even the act of conversing with others is a spatial behavior because we orient to the locations of other participants. Language and spatial representations probably converge at an abstract level of concepts and simple spatial schemas.
Chatterjee
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Department of Neurology and the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, The University of Pennsylvania, 3 West Gates, 3400 Spruce Street, 19104, Philadelphia, PA, USA