Includes bibliographical references and index.

Front Matter -- Copyright Page -- Acknowledgements -- Notes on Contributors -- Embodied Lexicon and the ‘Head’ / Iwona Kraska-Szlenk -- Comparative Studies -- ‘Head(s)’ in Portuguese: the Metaphor in European and Brazilian Portuguese / Aleksandra Wilkos and Mateus Cruz Maciel de Carvalho -- On the Lexeme ‘Head’ in Zamucoan / Luca Ciucci -- What the Grammaticalization of ‘Head’ Reveals about the Semantic Structure of a Language? / Zygmunt Frajzyngier -- ‘Head’ in Some Non-Bantu Languages of the Oriental Province of DR Congo / Helma Pasch -- ‘Head’ as a Link of Embodiment in Chinese / Yongxian Luo -- From Head to Toe: How Languages Extend the Head to Name Body Parts / Kelsie Pattillo -- Metonymic Extensions of the Body Part ‘Head’ in Mental and Social Domains / Iwona Kraska-Szlenk -- Case Studies -- The Conceptualization of HEAD among the Hausa Based on Verbal and Nonverbal Representations / Izabela Will -- Semantics of Amharic ras ‘Head’ / Abinet Sime -- ‘Head’ Idioms in Turkish: Contrasts and Correlations / Filiz Mutlu , Aysel Kapan , Ali Yagiz Sen , Hilal Yıldırım-Gündoğdu and Aslı Göksel -- ‘He Cracked His Head Feverishly’: Conceptualizations of HEAD and THINKING in Hungarian / Judit Baranyiné Kóczy -- Semantic Extensions of tatini ‘Her Head’ and tati ‘His Head’ in Deni (Arawá) / Mateus Cruz Maciel de Carvalho -- Wulaya ‘Head’ in Yanyuwa / Alice Gaby and John Bradley.

Embodiment in Cross-Linguistic Studies: The ‘Head’ edited by Iwona Kraska-Szlenk adds to linguistic studies on embodied cognition and conceptualization while focusing on one body part term from a comparative perspective. The ‘head’ is investigated as a source domain for extending multiple concepts in various target domains accessed via metaphor or metonymy. The contributions in the volume provide comparative and case studies based on analyses of the first-hand data from languages representing all continents and diversified linguistic groups, including endangered languages of Africa, Australia and Americas. The book offers new reflections on the relationship between embodiment, cultural situatedness and universal tendencies of semantic change. The findings contribute to general research on metaphor, metonymy, and polysemy within a paradigm of cognitive linguistics.