A Cognitive and Quantitative Approach to Mathematical Concretization

This chapter analyses the linguistic role of analogy as a strategy of concretizing abstract concepts addressed in popular science focused on mathematics. A rich analogy used in a text popularising number theory is explored through firstly a quantitative method and then using conceptual blending, a theory taken from cognitive linguistics. The chapter demonstrates the use of corpus-based and cognitive approaches to language in the analysis of the ways in which popular science texts aim to give non-experts a sense of understanding of complex mathematical concepts.