Document Open Access Logo

Diversity in Spatial Language Within Communities: The Interplay of Culture, Language and Landscape in Representations of Space (Short Paper)

Authors Bill Palmer, Alice Gaby, Jonathon Lum, Jonathan Schlossberg

PDF

File

Thumbnail PDF
PDF
LIPIcs.GISCIENCE.2018.53.pdf
  • Filesize: 336 kB
  • 8 pages

Document Identifiers

Subject Classification

ACM Subject Classification
  • Information systems → Geographic information systems
Keywords
  • spatial language
  • Frame of Reference
  • landscape
  • sociotopography

Metrics

  • Access Statistics
  • Total Accesses (updated on a weekly basis)
    0
    PDF Downloads
    0
    Metadata Views

Abstract

Significant diversity exists in the way languages structure spatial reference, and this has been shown to correlate with diversity in non-linguistic spatial behaviour. However, most research in spatial language has focused on diversity between languages: on which spatial referential strategies are represented in the grammar, and to a lesser extent which of these strategies are preferred overall in a given language. However, comparing languages as a whole and treating each language as a single data point provides a very partial picture of linguistic spatial behaviour, failing to recognise the very significant diversity that exists within languages, a largely under-investigated but now emerging field of research. This paper focuses on language-internal diversity, and on the central role of a range of sociocultural and demographic factors that intervene in the relationship between humans, languages, and the physical environments in which communities live.

Cite As Get BibTex

Bill Palmer, Alice Gaby, Jonathon Lum, and Jonathan Schlossberg. Diversity in Spatial Language Within Communities: The Interplay of Culture, Language and Landscape in Representations of Space (Short Paper). In 10th International Conference on Geographic Information Science (GIScience 2018). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 114, pp. 53:1-53:8, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2018) https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.GISCIENCE.2018.53

Author Details

Bill Palmer
  • University of Newcastle, Australia
Alice Gaby
  • Monash University, Australia
Jonathon Lum
  • Monash University, Australia
Jonathan Schlossberg
  • University of Newcastle, Australia

Funding

This research was funded by Australian Research Council Discovery Project DP120102701. We gratefully acknowledge this support.

References

  1. Jürgen Bohnemeyer. Spatial frames of reference in Yucatec: Referential promiscuity and task-specificity. Language Sciences, 33:892-914, 2011. Google Scholar
  2. Jürgen Bohnemeyer, Katharine T. Donelson, Randi E. Tucker, Elena Benedicto, Alejandra Capistrán Garza, Alyson Eggleston, Néstor Hernández Green, María de Jesús Selene, Hernández Gómez, Samuel Herrera Castro, Carolyn O'Meara, Enrique Palancar, Gabriela Pérez Báez, Gilles Polian, and Rodrigo Romero Méndez. The cultural transmission of spatial cognition: Evidence from a large-scale study. In Cogsci 2014 Proceedings, pages 212-217, 2014. URL: https://mindmodeling.org/cogsci2014/papers/047/paper047.pdf.
  3. Jürgen Bohnemeyer and Christel Stolz. Spatial reference in Yukatek Maya: A survey. In Stephen C. Levinson and David Wilkins, editors, Grammars of space: Explorations in cognitive diversity, pages 273-310. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006. Google Scholar
  4. Jürgen Bohnemeyer and Randi Tucker. Space in semantic typology: Object-centered geometries. In Peter Auer, Martin Hilpert, Anja Stukenbrock, and Benedikt Szmrecsanyi, editors, Space in language and linguistics: Geographical, interactional, and cognitive perspectives, pages 637-666. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin, 2013. Google Scholar
  5. Eve Danziger. Language, space and sociolect: Cognitive correlates of gendered speech in Mopan Maya. In Catherine Fuchs and Stéphane Robert, editors, Language diversity and cognitive representations, volume 3, pages 85-107. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1999. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/hcp.3.09dan.
  6. Cris Edmonds-Wathen. Frame of Reference in Iwaidja: Towards a culturally responsive early years mathematics program. PhD thesis, RMIT, Melbourne, 2012. Google Scholar
  7. Olivier Le Guen. Modes of pointing to existing spaces and the use of frames of reference. Gesture, 11(3):271-307, 2011. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/gest.11.3.02leg.
  8. Stephen C. Levinson. Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: Crosslinguistic evidence. In Paul Bloom, Mary A Peterson, Lynn Nadel, and Merrill F Garrett, editors, Language and Space, pages 109-169. MIT Press, Cambridge, 1996. Google Scholar
  9. Stephen C. Levinson. Space in language and cognition: Explorations in cognitive diversity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003. Google Scholar
  10. Stephen C Levinson and David Wilkins, editors. Grammars of space: Explorations in cognitive diversity. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006. Google Scholar
  11. Jonathon Lum. Frames of spatial reference in Dhivehi language and cognition. PhD thesis, Monash University, Melbourne, 2018. Google Scholar
  12. Asifa Majid, Melissa Bowerman, Sotaro Kita, Daniel B.M. Haun, and Stephen C. Levinson. Can language restructure cognition? The case for space. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8(3):108-114, 2004. Google Scholar
  13. Felicity Meakins, Caroline Jones, and Cassandra Algy. Bilingualism, language shift and the corresponding expansion of spatial cognitive systems. Language Sciences, 54:1-13, 2016. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2015.06.002.
  14. Carolyn O’Meara and Gabriela Pérez Báez. Spatial frames of reference in Mesoamerican languages. Language Sciences, 33(6):837-852, 2011. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2011.06.013.
  15. Bill Palmer. Topography in language: Absolute Frame of Reference and the Topographic Correspondence Hypothesis. In Rik De Busser and Randy J. LaPolla, editors, Language structure and environment. Social, cultural and natural factors, pages 179-226. John Benjamins Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 2015. Google Scholar
  16. Bill Palmer, Alice Gaby, Jonathon Lum, and Jonathan Schlossberg. Socioculturally mediated responses to environment shaping universals and diversity in spatial language. In Paolo Fogliaroni, Andrea Ballatore, and Eliseo Clementini, editors, Proceedings of workshops and posters at the 13th International Conference on Spatial Information Theory (COSIT 2017), pages 195-205. Springer International Publishing, Cham, 2018. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63946-8_35.
  17. Bill Palmer, Jonathon Lum, Jonathan Schlossberg, and Alice Gaby. How does the environment shape spatial language? Evidence for sociotopography. Linguistic Typology, 21(3), 2017. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/lingty-2017-0011.
  18. Eric Pederson. Geographic and manipulable space in two Tamil linguistic systems. In Andrew U. Frank and Irene Campari, editors, Spatial Information Theory: A theoretical basis for GIS, pages 294-311. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1993. Google Scholar
  19. Eric Pederson. Spatial language in Tamil. In Stephen C. Levinson and David Wilkins, editors, Grammars of space: Explorations in cognitive diversity, pages 400-436. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006. Google Scholar
  20. Eric Pederson, Eve Danziger, David Wilkins, Stephen C. Levinson, Sotaro Kita, and Gunter Senft. Semantic typology and spatial conceptualization. Language, 74(3):557-589, 1998. Google Scholar
  21. Jonathan Schlossberg. Atolls, islands and endless suburbia: space and landscape in Marshallese. PhD thesis, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia, 2018. Google Scholar
  22. Joshua A. Shapero. Does environmental experience shape spatial cognition? Frames of Reference among Ancash Quechua speakers (Peru). Cognitive Science, 41:1274-1298, 2017. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12458.
  23. Angela Terrill and Niclas Burenhult. Orientation as a strategy of spatial reference. Studies in Language, 32(1):93-136, 2008. URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/sl.32.1.05ter.
Questions / Remarks / Feedback
X

Feedback for Dagstuhl Publishing


Thanks for your feedback!

Feedback submitted

Could not send message

Please try again later or send an E-mail
© 2023-2025 Schloss Dagstuhl – LZI GmbH About DROPS Imprint Privacy Contact