Image schemas as a cognitive basis of language articulation

A subject’s meanings and values embedded in the present corpus of scientific knowledge within the paradigm of post-nonclassical rationality contribute to the diffusion of strict boundaries between philosophy of mind and cognitive sciences. Such diffusion manifests itself in convergent processes, which determine similarity of imaginative and symbolical manifestations of their cognitive products. This paper deals with cognitive functions of imagination, more precisely, with the influence of its schematic products on the formation of conceptual metaphors during the processes of mental development. The study of ontogenetic foundations of conceptual thinking, in its turn, clarifies some debatable aspects of the modern theory of image schemas. Methodologically, the paper is based on the conception of constructive realism (V. Lectorsky), developed in contemporary embodied epistemology. The study demonstrates how embodied epistemology assimilates and philosophically enriches some conceptual findings of cognitive linguistics and developmental psychology, in contrast to the assumption, previously developed in cognitive sciences, that philosophy might be successfully replaced by general, most abstract divisions of cognitive sciences themselves. The findings of the study can be applied in general divisions of theory of knowledge dealing with cognitive functions of imagination as well as in semiotic research focusing on meaning formation in the processes of cognitive transition from percept to concept. The result of the study may be formulated as demonstration of how contemporary embodied epistemology interacts with cognitive sciences (cognitive linguistics and developmental psychology) in comprehending the mystery of the meaning constitution process, particularly language metaphor formation from initial pre-language conceptualization of natural and social worlds. The paper concludes that image schematization precedes conceptual metaphor formation.