This paper illustrates the relationship between language and embodiment through evidence of the English and Vietnamese language. Evidence presented confirms that there is a close correlation between language and embodiment, thus inferring the implication for the job of teaching and learning languages, which requires the task takers to be equipped with knowledge of this relationship in order to provide a meaningful and productive work. | VNU Journal of Science, Foreign Languages 25 (2009) 250-256 Language and Embodiment Nguyen Tat Thang* Department of Foreign Languages, Dalat University, 01 Phu Dong Thien Vuong Street, Dalat, Vietnam Received 4 February 2009 Abstract. This paper illustrates the relationship between language and embodiment through evidence of the English and Vietnamese language. Evidence presented confirms that there is a close correlation between language and embodiment, thus inferring the implication for the job of teaching and learning languages, which requires the task takers to be equipped with knowledge of this relationship in order to provide a meaningful and productive work. This paper aims at presenting an understanding of the notion of embodiment and its relationship with language analysis, thus hopefully producing implication for the task of language teaching and learning with a new perspective and methodology. 1. Introduction* Cognitive Linguistics (CL) has emerged since the early 1980s, and has been of great interest for linguists. It is not only that CL is a new theory of linguistics, but it also includes latest notions that seek the explanation of language structures and meanings with the relationship with mind. One of the central theses of CL is the embodiment of language. The term embodiment has attracted a huge amount of attention in the school of cognitive linguistics. The embodiment thesis is “central to cognitive semantics” (Shina and Lopéz,) [1] And embodiment has been serving as one of the most important tenets in cognitive linguistics. Language is the major source of communication, and according to CL, language “cannot be investigated in isolation from human embodiment” (Evan and Green, 2006) [2]. 2. The embodiment thesis Cognitive Linguistics or cognitive semantics in particular, claims that the meanings of language are embodied, which means that it is the speaker’s bodily experience that triggers the linguistic expressions that carry the meaning(s) to
