Abstract
Spatial scenes are identical in the world languages. However, cultures may diverge in profiling spatial scenes (Levinson 2003). This paper selects for study the prepositions in and on in English and their Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) counterparts fi and 3ala, arguing that MSA and English seem to diverge in the spatial configurations and meanings of these prepositions. The sub-schemas of CONTAINMENT (in-ness) in MSA are found to partially overlap with those of English, with the other sub-schemas being taken care of by SUPPORT (on-ness) and PUNCTUALITY (point-ness). Such differences classify MSA more as a CONTAINMENT-based language than English, which seems to prefer SUPPORT and PUNCTUALITY. However, English and MSA seem to converge in their metaphoric conceptualizations of states owing to conceptual embodiment (Lakoff 1987). The article discusses the implications of such findings for spatial cognition and cultural cognition and EFL/ESL writing and translating.
Highlights
Spatial cognition is about how the human mind profiles and conceptualizes relations between objects in physical and non-physical spaces
In order to account for spatial scenes in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), there is need to capture the nature of different potential grounds that admit profiling as containers and supports
The main argument has been that MSA is an inness-oriented language, i.e. Arabs have a spatial cognition that is predominantly CONTAINMENT-based while English is an onness-oriented language, i.e. the English have a spatial cognition that is predominantly SUPPORT/CONTACT/ATTACHMENT-based
Summary
Spatial cognition is about how the human mind profiles and conceptualizes relations between objects in physical and non-physical spaces. While MSA uses CONTAINMENT to conceptualize the relation between xatim ('a ring') and isbu3 '(a finger') through the preposition fi ('in') in xatimum fi isbi3i-ha ('a ring in her finger'), English profiles such a relation as ring on finger (Bowerman 1996: 154) in terms of SUPPORT It seems that the expression of the relation between F and G in abstract states is spatialized through the spatialization-of-form hypothesis (Lakoff 1987) indiscriminately either as CONTAINMENT and SUPPORT in both MSA and English. In the case of at the college, even though, like classroom and bus, college has all the features of a container, its high concavity has been overridden by PUNCTUALITY It seems that in English concavity may be variously conceptualized as CONTAINMENT, SUPPORT, or PUNCTUALITY. The last section addresses in the form of recommendations some of the implications of the insights of a cognitive approach to spatial and metaphoric scenes for spatial cognition and EFL/ESL writing and translating
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