한국수어에 나타난 개념의 신체화 : [봄]. [여름]. [가을], [겨울], [밤], [낮] 수어를 중심으로

In conceptual metaphor theory, it has been assumed that our bodily apparatus shapes and constrains our categorization and conceptulization. Bodily experiences with physical and social environments decide how we construe ourselves and the things around us. The embodiment hypothesis has been well proved through diverse investigations of linguistic data. However the research focus has been only on spoken languages. Research on embodiment observed in sign languages has not been conducted to a large extent. Bridging the research gap, this paper analyzes six signs, such as SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER, DAY, and NIGHT, and demonstrates that the signs utilize bodily experiences iconically and the iconic signs metonymically extend their meanings to ‘warmth’, ‘hotness’, ‘wind’, ‘coldness’, ‘darkness’, and ‘brightness’, respectively. The meanings again extend to indicate the target concepts through PROPERTY FOR CATEGORY metonymy. The analysis shows that embodiment of conceptualization is easily observed in sign languages since they utilize body parts as articulators.