George Lakoff, professor of linguistics

George Lakoff is a cognitive linguist and professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley, where he has taught since 1972. His research involves the application of cognitive and neural linguistics to politics, literature, philosophy and mathematics. His research involves questions traditionally pursued by linguists, such as the conditions under which a certain linguistic construction is grammatically viable, but he is best know for his ideas about the centrality of metaphor to human thinking, political behavior and society. His concept of the "embodied mind", which he has written about in relation to the nature of everyday thought - as well as higher mathematics - has gained wide currency. In recent years he has applied his work to the realm of politics, analyzing political worldviews and the framing of issues in public discourse. He is now working on a neural theory of thought and language that explains how meaningful ideas can arise from neural circuitry and their connections to the body.