The Semantics of Space: Experiential and Linguistic Aspects of Selected English Spatial Terms

To investigate relationships between spatial terms and the human experience of space, participants in three separate experiments were asked to sort 35 English spatial terms into groups on the basis of which items seemed most similar to one another. Participants also were asked to provide a descriptive rationale for each of their groupings. Once all groupings were recorded, they were subject to hierarchical clustering analysis and results of all three studies produced five different clusters centering around issues of: (1) barrier and passage, (2) distance, (3) embodiment, (4) boundary and containment, and (5) verticality. Meanings for each cluster were named on the basis of participant descriptions and from independent evaluations made by the research team. Using these thematic meanings as a guide, a first-person description of spatial experience was developed and related to current analyses of the Whorf Hypothesis concerning issues of spatial experience and memory.