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Article published In: Review of Cognitive Linguistics: Online-First Articles

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touch in language

ORCiD logo with link | University of Castilla-La Mancha
ORCiD logo with link | Lund University
Published online: 13 January 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00211.cab
Abstract
This study reviews the literature on touch to establish an analytical framework for the study of touch in communication through language. Two questions are at the heart of the study — an ontological and a methodological one: What counts as touch, and how can we investigate the way we talk about touch? Within the broad framework of cognitive semantics, we offer a general approach to touch and identify two main types of Gestalt profiles related to the dynamicity in the Gestalt formation, namely activity and experience, in which case the former is related to external stimulation only, while the latter may be the result of external or internal stimulation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.What counts as a sensory modality?
  • 3.What may count as touch?
  • 4.Descriptions of sensory experiences in language
  • 5.Exploring the data
  • 6.Analysing descriptions of touch
  • 7.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Declaration of interest statement
  • Note
  • References
References (37)
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Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Bianchi, Ivana, Carita Paradis & Joost van de Weijer
2025. Perceptual structure of opposites across sensory modalities. Language and Cognition 17 DOI logo

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