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When Flesh Turns Into Words: The Emergence of Meaning Through (and in) The Body

Abstract

For a long time, the body was seen as a container for the rational substance, the Cartesian res cogitans, which attributed the value of the human rationality to the mind. However, this fragmentation of the man has given the body an almost null role to reason. Throughout this article, we discuss the place of the body as a semantic field for the reason: we advocate that it is through the body that most of the concepts emerge, especially those related to emotions, an abstract and historically denied category in the philosophic field. It is through the notion of an embodied cognition that the basis of conceptualization and conceptualization processes are assumed, especially in areas such as Cognitive Linguistics.

Key-words:
Body; emotions; meaning; concepts; cognition

Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão, Bloco B- 405, CEP: 88040-900, Florianópolis, SC, Brasil, Tel.: (48) 37219455 / (48) 3721-9819 - Florianópolis - SC - Brazil
E-mail: ilha@cce.ufsc.br