ABSTRACT

I rst encountered Dan Slobin’s ideas on motion and linguistic relativity in 2000, while strug-gling to dene my doctoral focus of investigation. His ideas proved so enlightening that they inspired my entire research paradigm, and they continue to do so today. It was in February 2003 that I eventually met Dan for the rst time, in Berkeley, at the occasion of the 29th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. I offered a critical talk entitled ‘Rethinking Thinking for Speaking’ after which Dan kindly invited me for sushi. This was the start of a continuous relationship and correspondence on our shared interests in language and cognition, and the domains of motion and vision. Dan proved to be an invaluably supportive mentor while I completed my doctoral research, and to this day Dan contributes his time and insights generously to the development of my work. Needless to say, his generosity and devotion to the eld and its researchers is yet another powerful source of inspiration.