From classical scientific metaphors to information visualization: Digital visual grammar in the context of the embodied cognition theory

Sabi­na G. Busare­va
Nation­al Research Lobachevsky State Uni­ver­si­ty of Nizh­ni Nov­gorod

From clas­si­cal sci­en­tif­ic metaphors to infor­ma­tion visu­al­iza­tion: Dig­i­tal visu­al gram­mar in the con­text of the embod­ied cog­ni­tion the­o­ry

Abstract. The author exam­ines the process of tran­si­tion from close read­ing to dis­tant read­ing as a lin­guis­tic prob­lem and an emerg­ing new type of text – infor­ma­tion visu­al­iza­tion. The con­junc­tion of tex­tu­al and visu­al com­po­nents is spe­cif­ic for infor­ma­tion visu­al­iza­tion. This paper describes the infor­ma­tion visu­al­iza­tion as a «new abstrac­tion» (accord­ing to the def­i­n­i­tion giv­en by Lev Manovich, a new media researcher). This def­i­n­i­tion actu­al­izes the prob­lem of inter­re­la­tions between abstrac­tions and metaphors. The author attempts to deter­mine a genealog­i­cal con­nec­tion between infor­ma­tion visu­al­iza­tion and metaphors, dis­tin­guish­es lin­guis­tic, cog­ni­tive, meta­lan­guage, sys­tem­at­ic and struc­tur­al aspects of metaphor under­stand­ing, and con­sid­ers in details the aspects that can be adapt­ed both for metaphor and infor­ma­tion visu­al­iza­tion. These aspects help to iden­ti­fy char­ac­ter­is­tics that show sim­i­lar­i­ty and dif­fer­ence of metaphors and infor­ma­tion visu­al­iza­tion. In the final part of the arti­cle, the author gives a con­clu­sion about the poten­tial of study­ing visu­al­i­sa­tion infor­ma­tion in the con­text of con­tem­po­rary human­i­ties research. 

Key­words: infor­ma­tion visu­al­iza­tion, metaphor, cog­ni­tive the­o­ry of metaphor, abstrac­tion, visu­al gram­mar

DOI: 10.5840/dspl2019220

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