Thinking about numbers using space: the role of conceptual metaphors

My research concerns conceptual metaphor, the notion that we think about abstract domains, such as numbers, in terms of concrete ones, such as space (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Specifically, I plan to investigate how metaphors aid mathematical reasoning through a multimodal corpus analysis and a series of experiments. The English Language & Applied Linguistics department at the University of Birmingham specialises in cognitive and corpus linguistics and so would be a good fit for my project. My proposed lead supervisor Professor Jeannette Littlemore is a major metaphor scholar who has worked extensively on embodied cognition, and Dr Bodo Winter is an expert in numerical cognition. Dr Marcus Perlman, Professor Ewa Dabrowska and Dr Gareth Carroll could offer additional support.