LAYERS AND LEVELS: What a Column of Water Tells Us about Human Cognition

Abstract

The notion of levels can be found in many everyday expressions, such as top-level destination, entry-level sales, low-level panic, high risk level, basic-level research, high level of care, level of meaning, level of knowledge, level of freedom, and level of importance. I argue that these are metaphorical expressions in which the respective abstract concepts can be understood in terms of the more palpable experience of the levels to which we are accustomed through the handling of liquids. By looking at the interaction between SCALE and ITERATION image schemas, this article examines an embodied interpretation of levels, layers and water columns in the context of containers to facilitate a better understanding of these experiences and their use as a source domain for conceptual metaphors in language, science and mathematics. The conceptual analysis in this paper is limited to English expressions.

Is There Such a Thing as Orthogonyms?

“…The experience of intensity is unlike that of extent. It represents a nested relationship.8 Nested arrangements are difficult to express, visualize and argue about without recourse to conceptual metaphors (Raykowski 2018). They are best described in terms of levels, as depicted in Figure 3 in which a 'very high level' of intensity already includes a 'high level' , which includes a 'low level' , which includes a 'very low level' , which in turn includes no intensity.…”

“…Sensory products10 share the structure outlined above; they associate intensive orthogonyms with extensive orthogonyms. The properties of sensory products can be best analyzed and described with the analogy of a water column, where products are defined as the totality of unique associations between levels of water in a container and the number of containers (Raykowski 2018). This is possible because levels represent a nested concept, and adding containers constitutes a repetitive act of some extent.…”

“…Extensive representations depict the repetition of a unit (e.g., addition or subtraction). In addition to intensive and extensive representations, Raykowski (2018) identifies square representation, in which the intensity and its extent are 'identical ' . 12 Note that the notion of products is one of a few ways in which orthogonyms can be associated.…”

“…Intensity is an example of the schema Mark Johnson refers to as SCALE: "Scales have a cumulative character of a special sort. If you are collecting money and have accumulated $15, then you also have $10" (1987: 122) Raykowski (2014Raykowski ( , 2018. refers to this arrangement as a NESTED schema because it applies to all nested concepts such as value, importance, magnitude, and level.Downloaded from Brill.com09/22/2020 10:21:45PM via free access…”

Sensory Schema: From Sensory Contrasts to Antonyms

“…The brackets demonstrate that sensations have quite sophisticated structure. Furthermore, the use of the notions of intensity and extent is widespread, as they can be found in areas of expression as different as engineering, sciences, arts and music and in practically all forms of expression, including natural language (Raykowski, 2018(Raykowski, , 2019.…”