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Da "boca do corpo" aos "olhos da alma": o embodied self no português europeu : uma abordagem cognotiva
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Abstract(s)
O presente trabalho perfilha a noção, comummente aceite no âmbito das modernas
Ciências Cognitivas, de que o embodiment é a condição básica dos nossos sistemas
perceptivos e cognitivos. De acordo com o conceito basilar de embodiment, percepção e
cognição encontram-se intimamente ligadas, e tal interdependência não pode deixar de
reflectir-se nos nossos processos de conceptualização e de expressão linguística.
Estes pressupostos fazem prever que o embodiment condicione fortemente as
conceptualizações respeitantes ao nosso próprio Eu, à relação entre o Eu e o corpo e à relação
entre o corpo e as suas partes e órgãos. Seguindo a escala de relações acabada de apresentar,
empreendemos sucessivamente, no âmbito do Português Europeu: a análise das modalidades
de referência ao Eu e das conceptualizações que lhes são subjacentes; a análise da
conceptualização do corpo, e da relação entre este e as suas partes, através de termos e
expressões capazes de ilustrar amplamente tais mecanismos conceptuais.
A linguagem encontra-se enraizada no corpo – embodiment “restrito” – e no ambiente
físico-social – embodiment “generalizado” –, e é essa dependência da língua, em relação ao
organismo e ao ecossistema, que faz com que se não possa falar sem se recorrer
sistematicamente a processos de figuração ancorados na realidade material circunstante, tais
como as metáforas e as metonímias. Em virtude das conceptualizações metonímica,
metafórica e híbrida (porque estes dois processos figurativos se encontram, em muitos casos,
intimamente coligados), a referência ao corpo e às partes ou órgãos do corpo demonstra-se,
pois, no Português Europeu como nas outras línguas (mas é o Português Europeu que nos
interessa prioritariamente), marcadamente polissémica.
Procurámos dar conta dessa polissemia generalizada, através da análise de alguns
termos básicos da taxonomia somática corrente e de algumas expressões referentes ao corpo
e às suas funções perceptivas e cognitivas. Essas análises estearam-se na consulta e
comparação sistemática dos verbetes que um grupo seleccionado de dicionários monolingues
dedica a tais termos e expressões, bem como nos dados que sobre os mesmos nos fornece o
corpus informático de elaboração de textos jornalísticos de que sistematicamente nos
servimos. Isso não nos impediu de recorrer oportunamente a outras fontes documentais,
sempre que estas nos tenham disponibilizado outros dados igualmente pertinentes, não
presentes nas fontes documentais básicas.
A análise dos dados linguísticos facultados pelas diversas fontes pautou-se, em linhas
muito gerais, pelos seguintes dois princípios, próprios da Linguística Cognitiva: a) a focalização preferencial da análise linguística sobre a componente semântica;
b) consequentemente seja a a) seja ao espírito que é próprio da Linguística Cognitiva,
o pleno desenvolvimento da análise semântica implica uma genuína aplicação do princípio da
Transdisciplinaridade, o que se traduz numa contínua atenção aos constructos propostos pela
Neurofisiologia, pela Psicologia Aplicada, pela História da Língua, pela Iconologia, pela
Antropologia Cultural, etc.
Uma Linguística Cognitiva “fechada em si própria” seria, com efeito, uma
contradição: uma abordagem cognitiva dos fenómenos linguísticos que prescinda dos
métodos de análise propriamente linguísticos – ou que os trate como acessórios – não é,
obviamente, Linguística; e uma Linguística que prescinda dos elementos fornecidos pelas
outras Ciências Cognitivas – ou que os trate como meramente acessórios – não pode ser dita
Cognitiva.
No final do trabalho, esperamos ter amplamente demonstrado:
a) a validade dos princípios acabados de enunciar;
b) a inevitabilidade do recurso à metáfora e à metonímia, no Português Europeu
(ainda que a mesma seja extensiva, muito provavelmente, a todas as línguas; mas só no caso
do Português Europeu nos é dado averiguá-lo cabalmente);
c) a interpenetração e interdependência dos processos de conceptualização metafórica
e metonímica (sendo igualmente válido, neste caso, o parêntese da alínea precedente).
This work supports the conviction, generally accepted within Cognitive Science, that embodiment is the basic condition of our perceptive and cognitive systems. According to the fundamental concept of embodiment, perception and cognition are closely connected, and such interdependence must be reflected, somehow, in our processes of conceptualization and of linguistic expression. These landmarks allow us to predict that embodiment may have a strong influence on conceptualizations concerning the Self, the relation between the Self and the body and that one between the body and its parts and organs. Drawing on this scale of relations and specifically regarding European Portuguese, we tried, then, to develop: the analysis of the ways of referring to the Self and of its inherent conceptualizations; the analysis of the conceptualizations of the body and of the relationship between it and its parts, throughout lexical units and idioms that are fit to illustrate such conceptual devices. Language is deep-rooted in the body (“special embodiment”) and in socio-physical environment (“generalized embodiment”). Consequently to this dependence of language on the organism and on the ecosystem, no one can talk without having a systematic recourse to figurative means that are rooted in the environmental material reality, such as metaphors and metonymies. In European Portuguese and in the other languages (but European Portuguese is nevertheless our main goal), metonymic, metaphorical and hybrid conceptualizations appear, therefore, as unavoidable linguistic devices and, specifically, as indispensable ways of polysemous reference to the body and its parts. So, polysemous extensions necessarily emerge from embodiment, as we hope we have proved throughout the analysis of some terms belonging to current somatic taxonomy and some idioms referred to the body and its perceptive and cognitive functions. These analyses are founded on a systematic comparison of the items that regard such lexemes and idioms in a chosen group of monolingual dictionaries and in a computer corpus of journalistic texts – and we used occasionally other documental sources, whenever they seemed fit for our investigation. Every single analysis was developed on the basis of the following principles, which are inherent to Cognitive Linguistics: a) the priority focus of any linguistic analysis on its semantic components; b) according to a) and within the spirit of Cognitive Linguistics, the full development of a semantic analysis implies a coherent application of the Transdisciplinarity principles –which involve a systematic attention to the outcomes of Neurophysiology, Applied Psychology, Philology, Iconology, Cultural Anthropology and so on. A Cognitive Linguistics “closed in itself” wouldn’t make any sense, because that would correspond to a contradiction in terms: a cognitive approach to linguistic phenomena that would ignore the methods of analysis that are specifically linguistic – or that would confer to them a secondary role – shouldn’t obviously be considered as Linguistics, at all; and a kind of Linguistics that would not consider the findings of the other Cognitive Sciences – or that would confer to them a secondary role – simply shouldn’t be cognitive. At the end of this work, we hope to have widely proved: a) the validity of the principles explained above; b) the inevitability of resorting to metaphor and to metonymy in European Portuguese (and in all languages, perhaps, although our demonstration concerns European Portuguese exclusively); c) the entanglement and the interdependence of metaphorical and metonymical conceptualization processes (with the same limitations as in the parentheses of the previous paragraph).
This work supports the conviction, generally accepted within Cognitive Science, that embodiment is the basic condition of our perceptive and cognitive systems. According to the fundamental concept of embodiment, perception and cognition are closely connected, and such interdependence must be reflected, somehow, in our processes of conceptualization and of linguistic expression. These landmarks allow us to predict that embodiment may have a strong influence on conceptualizations concerning the Self, the relation between the Self and the body and that one between the body and its parts and organs. Drawing on this scale of relations and specifically regarding European Portuguese, we tried, then, to develop: the analysis of the ways of referring to the Self and of its inherent conceptualizations; the analysis of the conceptualizations of the body and of the relationship between it and its parts, throughout lexical units and idioms that are fit to illustrate such conceptual devices. Language is deep-rooted in the body (“special embodiment”) and in socio-physical environment (“generalized embodiment”). Consequently to this dependence of language on the organism and on the ecosystem, no one can talk without having a systematic recourse to figurative means that are rooted in the environmental material reality, such as metaphors and metonymies. In European Portuguese and in the other languages (but European Portuguese is nevertheless our main goal), metonymic, metaphorical and hybrid conceptualizations appear, therefore, as unavoidable linguistic devices and, specifically, as indispensable ways of polysemous reference to the body and its parts. So, polysemous extensions necessarily emerge from embodiment, as we hope we have proved throughout the analysis of some terms belonging to current somatic taxonomy and some idioms referred to the body and its perceptive and cognitive functions. These analyses are founded on a systematic comparison of the items that regard such lexemes and idioms in a chosen group of monolingual dictionaries and in a computer corpus of journalistic texts – and we used occasionally other documental sources, whenever they seemed fit for our investigation. Every single analysis was developed on the basis of the following principles, which are inherent to Cognitive Linguistics: a) the priority focus of any linguistic analysis on its semantic components; b) according to a) and within the spirit of Cognitive Linguistics, the full development of a semantic analysis implies a coherent application of the Transdisciplinarity principles –which involve a systematic attention to the outcomes of Neurophysiology, Applied Psychology, Philology, Iconology, Cultural Anthropology and so on. A Cognitive Linguistics “closed in itself” wouldn’t make any sense, because that would correspond to a contradiction in terms: a cognitive approach to linguistic phenomena that would ignore the methods of analysis that are specifically linguistic – or that would confer to them a secondary role – shouldn’t obviously be considered as Linguistics, at all; and a kind of Linguistics that would not consider the findings of the other Cognitive Sciences – or that would confer to them a secondary role – simply shouldn’t be cognitive. At the end of this work, we hope to have widely proved: a) the validity of the principles explained above; b) the inevitability of resorting to metaphor and to metonymy in European Portuguese (and in all languages, perhaps, although our demonstration concerns European Portuguese exclusively); c) the entanglement and the interdependence of metaphorical and metonymical conceptualization processes (with the same limitations as in the parentheses of the previous paragraph).
Description
Keywords
Cognição Linguagem Lexicologia Processo cognitivo Língua portuguesa Linguística
Citation
Castanho, Arlindo José Nicau - Da "boca do corpo" aos "olhos da alma" [Em linha]: o embodied self no português europeu : uma abordagem cognotiva. Lisboa: [s.n.], 2009. 218 p.