An enactive approach to fictive motion

Abstract

The linguistic path has been explored through several works (Talmy, 2000a; Dan I. Slobin, 2003). The present paper investigates a path underlain by the fictive motion (FM) phenomenon: The plateau goes east along the river. This itinerary, here called the ‘localization path’ discloses the FM of an item along a trajectory to highlight its immobility in space. This linguistic path is here inspected through a corpus-based analysis displaying the verbs come and go. If experiencing language is first vocal, this process also implies kinetic, non-verbal modalities. The languaging experience will hence be explored through the interaction between language, space and the speaker’s body through an enactive approach. A prototypical syntactic configuration mirroring the interpretative grid of FM reality will be defined. Recurrent syntactic patterns revealing the way the speaker projects his own world through simplex models will highlight the way the complexity of visual scenari is converted into linguistic sequences.

Keywords

• Fictive motion – embodiment – enaction – localization – syntactic pattern – simplexité