American linguist who developed cognitive linguistics — the view that language reflects embodied conceptual structures — and the theory of conceptual metaphor, which argues that abstract thought is grounded in bodily experience.
Conceptual metaphor theory: abstract concepts (time, argument, emotion) are systematically understood in terms of concrete bodily experiences — Argument Is War; Time Is Money; Life Is a Journey. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: challenged classical category theory with prototype and basic-level categories. Where Mathematics Comes From: mathematical concepts are grounded in embodied experience.
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