The theory of image schemas, which was first developed within cognitive semantics and has come to be highly influential in neighbouring areas of study such as cognitive and developmental psychology. The notion of an image schema is closely associated with the development of the embodied cognition thesis, proposed by early researchers in cognitive semantics, notably George Lakoff and Mark Johnson. One of the central questions raised by Lakoff and Johnson in their (1980) book Metaphors We Live By can be stated as follows: Where does the complexity associated with our conceptual representation come from? The answer they offered was that this complexity is, in large measure, due to a tight correlation between the kinds of concepts human beings are capable of forming and the nature of the physical bodies we have. From this perspective, our embodiment is directly responsible for structuring concepts. In this section, therefore, we address the idea central to the thesis of embodied cognition: the image schema.

What is an image schema?

In his (1987) book The Body in the Mind, Mark Johnson proposed that embodied experience gives rise to image schemas within the conceptual system. Image schemas derive from sensory and perceptual experience as we interact with and move about in the world. For example, given that humans walk upright and because we have a head at the top of our bodies and feet at the bottom, and given the presence of gravity which attracts unsupported objects, the vertical axis of the human body is functionally asymmetrical. This means that the vertical axis is characterised by an up-down or top-bottom asymmetry: the top and bottom parts of our bodies are different.

Cognitive semanticists argue that given the asymmetry of the human vertical axis we have to stoop to pick up fallen objects and look in one direction (downwards) for fallen objects and in another (upwards) for rising objects. In other words, our physiology ensures that our vertical axis, which interacts with gravity, gives rise to meaning as a result of how we interact with our environment. According to Johnson, this aspect of our experience gives rise to an image schema: the UP-DOWN schema. [See example from a client session in Section 2]

Moreover, as shown by the developmental psychologist Jean Mandler, image schemas are emergent. This means that because this experience is a function of our bodies and of our interaction in the world, this type of experience arises in conjunction with our physical and psychological development during early childhood. In other words, image schemas are not claimed to be innate knowledge structures.

Although the term ‘image’ is restricted to visual perception in everyday language, it has a broader application in psychology and in cognitive linguistics, where it encompasses all types of sensory-perceptual experience. [Which is why we prefer to call them ‘embodied schema’]

The term ‘schema’ in ‘image schema’ is also very important: it means that image schemas are not rich or detailed concepts, but rather abstract concepts consisting of patterns emerging from repeated instances of embodied experience. If we take a parallel example from language, words like thing or container have rather more schematic meanings than words like pencil or teacup.

By way of illustration the image schema CONTAINER results from our recurrent and ubiquitous experiences with containers as revealed by this extract from Johnson’s (1987) book, which describes the start of an ordinary day:

You wake out of a deep sleep and peer out from beneath the covers into your room. You gradually emerge out of your stupor, and pull yourself out from under the covers, climb into your robe, stretch out your limbs, and walk in a daze out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. You look in the mirror and see your face staring out at your. Your reach into the medicine cabinet, take out the toothpaste, squeeze out some toothpaste, put the toothbrush into your mouth, brush your teeth in a hurry, and rinse out your mouth. (Johnson 1987: 331; our italics differ from the original)

As this example reveals by the recurrent use of the expressions in and out, a great number of everyday objects and experiences are categorised as specific instances of the schematic concept CONTAINER: not only obvious containers like bathroom cabinets and toothpaste tubes or less obvious ‘containers’ like bed-covers, clothing and rooms, but also states like sleep, stupor and daze.

Properties of image schemas

Image schemas are preconceptual in origin. However once the recurrent patterns of sensory information have been extracted and stored as an image schema, sensory experience gives rise to a conceptual representation. This means that image schemas are concepts, but of a special kind: they are the foundations of the conceptual system, because they are the first concepts to emerge in the human mind, and precisely because they relate to sensory-perceptual experience, they are particularly schematic. Sometimes it is more difficult to grasp the idea of an image-schematic concept than it is to grasp the idea of a very specific concept like CAT or BOOK. This is because these specific concepts relate to ideas that we are aware of ‘knowing about’. In contrast, image schemas are so fundamental to our way of thinking that we are not consciously aware of them: we take our awareness of what it means to be a physical being in a physical world very much for granted because we acquire this knowledge so early in life, certainly before the emergence of language.

An image schema can give rise to more specific concepts

Cognitive linguists often attempt to support their formal representations of meaning elements by using diagrams. The CONTAINER image schema consists of the structural elements interior, boundary and exterior: these are the minimum requirements for a CONTAINER (Lakoff 1987).

Figure 1: CONTAINER embodied schema

The reason why this diagram does not resemble any specific type of container (like a teacup, a house or a bad mood) is precisely because of its schematic meaning. The idea behind this type of diagram is that it ‘boils down’ the image-schematic meaning to its bare essence, representing only those properties that are shared by all instances of the conceptual category CONTAINER.

Let’s consider just two variants of the CONTAINER schema lexicalised by ‘out’: