contextualization and methodology: 30 years of cognitive linguistics (and beyond) contextualization...

Contextualization and Contextualization and Methodology: 30 Years of Methodology: 30 Years of

Cognitive LinguisticsCognitive Linguistics(and Beyond)(and Beyond)

Dirk GeeraertsDirk Geeraerts

University of LeuvenUniversity of LeuvenRU Quantitative Lexicology and Variational RU Quantitative Lexicology and Variational

LinguisticsLinguistics

ICLC X. Kraków 20.07.2007

Questions

questions for the end of an anniversary conference:

• is there a unifying factor behind the development of Cognitive Linguistics ?

• if so, in which direction could Cognitive Linguistics develop in the future ?


Approach

• present a brief overview of the history of Cognitive Linguistics

• situate CL in the context of the history of linguistics, and thus identify major underlying trends in the development of CL

• draw methodological and theoretical conclusions from that analysis

• illustrate those conclusions


TOC

Step I. Thirty Years of Cognitive LinguisticsStep I. Thirty Years of Cognitive Linguistics

Step II. The Wider ContextStep II. The Wider Context

Step III. Cognitive Linguistics as a Step III. Cognitive Linguistics as a Recontextualizing ApproachRecontextualizing Approach

Step IV. Methodological ConsequencesStep IV. Methodological Consequences

Step V. An IllustrationStep V. An Illustration

Overall ConclusionOverall Conclusion


Step IStep IThirty Years of Cognitive LinguisticsThirty Years of Cognitive Linguistics


Thirty years of CL

three landmarks in the history of CL


Thirty years of CL


• 1975-1977the early beginnings:

Talmy 1975 on figure/groundLangacker 1976 on Cognitive GrammarLakoff 1977 on ‘gestalt’ models


Thirty years of CL


• 1987-1989entering the international scene:

1987 Langacker: Foundations of Cognitive Grammar1987 Lakoff: Women, Fire & Dangerous Things1988 Rudzka-Ostyn (ed.), Topics in CL1989 1st Intl Cognitive Linguistics Conference1989 launching Cognitive Linguistics, the journal


Thirty years of CL


• from 1996-1998 oninternational consolidation:

publication of textbooks and reference worksfoundation of national ICLA affiliates


Thirty years of CL




Spain 1998, Finland 2001, Poland 2001,

Russia 2004, Germany 2005, France 2005,

Japan 2005, Korea 2005, UK 2006, China 2006


Thirty years of CL




Ungerer & Schmid 1996


Thirty years of CL




Dirven & Verspoor 1998


Thirty years of CL




Violi 2001


Thirty years of CL




Croft & Cruse 2004


Thirty years of CL




Evans & Green 2006


Thirty years of CL




Geeraerts 2006


Thirty years of CL




Kristiansen et al. 2006


Thirty years of CL




Geeraerts & Cuyckens 2007


Thirty years of CL

simplifying in three decades:

• 1977-1987: the pioneering stage• 1987-1997: the expansion stage• 1997-2007: the consolidation stage


Thirty years of CL

simplifying in three decades:

• 1977-1987: the pioneering stage• 1987-1997: the expansion stage• 1997-2007: the consolidation stage

what are the theoretical developments accompanying this sociological expansion ?


Step IIStep IIThe Wider ContextThe Wider Context


Overview

an overview of the development of linguistic theory in the 20th century:

• decontextualization• initial reactions• recontextualization

claim: CL epitomizes the recontextualizing tendency


Saussurean Grammar

• langue:a social system a collective set of coded conventions

• parole:an individual, psychological activity a set of combinations from the code


Saussurean Grammar

• a missing link:where is the locus of an individual's knowledge of the social system ?what is the bridge between the social code and the individual activity ?

graphically:


socialsystem

individualactivity

langue parole

Saussurean Grammar


?

socialsystem

individualactivity

individualsystem

langue parole

Saussurean Grammar


Chomskyan Grammar

• competence:filling in the gap an individual's knowledge of the language

• but creating a new hiatus:the social nature of the system remains out of sightagain a binary instead of a ternary division


?

socialsystem

individualactivity

individualsystem

langue parole

competence performance

Chomskyan Grammar


consequences of the Chomskyan position:

• where does the individual knowledge of the language come from ? if the source of linguistic knowledge is not social, what is it ?⇨ innateness, a genetic conception of language

• hence: a stepping-stone development,leading by an internal logic to an isolation of grammar:

Chomskyan Grammar


if it cannot be social, it has to be genetic



if it is genetic, it cannot be semantic or lexical




if it cannot be semantic or lexical, it's about formal rule systems




if it cannot be semantic or lexical, it's about formal rule systems

if it's about formal rule systems, the application of the rules is trivial


social code performanceGRAMMAR

Chomskyan Grammar


social code

performanceGRAMMAR

Chomskyan Grammar


social code performance

GRAMMAR

Chomskyan Grammar



GRAMMAR

meaning/lexicon

Chomskyan Grammar


in other words: a restrictive strategy that separates the autonomous grammatical module from different forms of context:

• the social context• the discursive context of actual language use• the cognitive context of meaning and

experience

↳ decontextualisation

Chomskyan Grammar


Initial reactions

• 1960-1980:• the discarded aspects of language are

developed separately, as disciplines more or less independent from theoretical grammar


Initial reactions


GRAMMAR

meaning/lexicon



GRAMMAR

meaning/lexicon

socio-linguistics

Initial reactions



GRAMMAR

meaning/lexicon

socio-linguistics

Initial reactions

Labov 1972, Sociolinguistic PatternsHaugen 1966, Language Conflict and Language PlanningWeinreich, Labov & Herzog 1968, "Empirical foundations for a theory of language change"Gumperz & Dell Hymes (eds.) 1972, Directions in Sociolinguistics: the Ethnography of Speaking



GRAMMAR

meaning/lexicon

socio-linguistics

Initial reactions



GRAMMAR

meaning/lexicon

socio-linguistics

pragmatics

Initial reactions



GRAMMAR

meaning/lexicon

socio-linguistics

pragmatics

Initial reactions

Grice 1975, "Logic and conversation"Stalnaker 1974, "Pragmatic presuppositions"Gazdar 1979, Pragmatics: Implicature, Presupposition and Logical FormCoulthard 1977, An Introduction to Discourse AnalysisGumperz 1982, Discourse StrategiesBrown & Yule 1983, Discourse AnalysisTannen 1984, Conversational Style



GRAMMAR

meaning/lexicon

socio-linguistics

pragmatics

Initial reactions



GRAMMAR

meaning/lexicon

socio-linguistics

pragmatics

formal semantics

Initial reactions



GRAMMAR

meaning/lexicon

socio-linguistics

pragmatics

formal semantics

Initial reactions

Montague 1974, Formal Philosophy

Dowty 1979, Word Meaning and Montague GrammarPartee 1979, "Semantics:

mathematics or psychology ?"



GRAMMAR

meaning/lexicon

socio-linguistics

pragmatics

formal semantics

Initial reactions


Contemporary trends

general (or at least growing) tendencydissatisfaction with the modular view of linguistics,in favor of an integrated approach:

the peripheral aspects that were being developed largely separately and autonomously, are being linked up more narrowly with the grammar itself (which can then no longer be autonomous)


Contemporary trends

↳ how does this work in CL ?i.e. how does CL integrate the different facets that were discarded by the decontextualizing approach ?

• meaning• the lexicon• the performance level• the social side of language


Step IIIStep IIICognitive Linguistics as a Cognitive Linguistics as a

Recontextualizing ApproachRecontextualizing Approach


Recovering meaning

the basic vocabulary of CL involves a set of semantic concepts:prototype, schematic network, conceptual metaphor, metonymy, conceptual integration, idealized cognitive models, framesand all sorts of construal mechanisms


Recovering the lexicon

the family of construction grammars constitute a lexicalist approach in various respects

• constructions may consist of abstract entities togther with lexically specific elements

• constructions, even if abstract, have to be studied together with their lexical realization

• semantically, constructions exhibit the same structural features as lexical categories


Recovering performance

from the beginning of CL, there is an interest in pragmatic meaning (cp. grammaticalization research), but the tendency becomes outspoken with

• the definition CL as a usage-based theory of grammar

• the growing interest in applied CL (acquisition, poetics, language learning, critical discourse analysis and framing)


Recovering the social context

two major tendencies:

• situated embodiment and the sociocultural background of meaning: biocultural linguisticscp. Chris Sinha

• variationist CL: cognitive sociolinguisticsCL from the point of view of lectal variation (dialectal, regiolectal, sociolectal, stylistic variation)Kristiansen & Dirven (eds.) 2007



GRAMMAR

meaning/lexicon

Summary



GRAMMAR

meaning/lexiconbasic concepts

Summary



GRAMMAR

meaning/lexicon construction grammarsbasic concepts

Summary



GRAMMAR

meaning/lexicon construction grammarsbasic concepts

Summary

usage-based CLapplied CL



GRAMMAR

meaning/lexicon construction grammars

cultural CLvariationist CL

basic concepts

Summary

usage-based CLapplied CL


Recontextualization

in the context of contemporary linguistics,CL epitomizes the gradual recovery of the ‘peripheral’ modules that were discarded by a decontextualizing approach to grammar

in the context of the internal development of CL,this recovery takes the form of a gradual broadening of the notion of context:


Recontextualization

• from the beginning, in its basic concepts, CL assumes a contextualized notion of meaning:meaning in language is not isolated, but is integrated with other types of cognition

existing categories polysemyencyclopedic knowledge frames and ICM’sgeneral cognitive capacities construal


Recontextualization

• construction grammar and usage-based approaches add the discursive context of actual language use;some focal points of investigation:

- the dialectic interplay between structure and use

- the discourse function of items and the discursive grounding of constructions (Current Discourse Space)

- the discursive dynamics of meaning


Recontextualization

• biocultural CL and variationist CL add the social context of cultures and lectal variation

the underlying drift of CL consists of a systematic recontextualization of the grammar


Chronology

can we map this contextual expansion onto the chronological evolution of CL?

• the pioneering stage and the consolidation stage focused largely on the basic concepts

• the expansion stage was devoted to the broadening of the relevant notion of context;some landmarks:


Chronology

• construction grammar:Goldberg 1995 ConstructionsCroft 1999 Radical Construction Grammar

• cultural linguistics:Palmer 1996 Towards a Theory of Cultural LinguisticsZlatev 1997 Situated Embodiment


Chronology

• usage-based approaches:Barlow & Kemmer 2000 Usage-based Models of LanguageTomasello 2003 Constructing a Language

• variationist approaches:Kristiansen & Dirven 2007 Cognitive Sociolinguistics


Step IVStep IVMethodological ConsequencesMethodological Consequences


Methodological consequences

if we can agree that CL is essentially characterized by a recontextualizing ‘drift’, there are specific consequences with regard to

• the observational basis of linguistic research• the analytical method of linguistic research• the theoretical model of the grammar


The observational basis

if you take a usage-based model seriously, you will have to study actual language use

a shift from introspective conceptual analysisto the study ofnon-elicited language use: corpus linguisticson line processes: experimental research


The analytical tools

if you take the dialectic relationship between structure and use seriously, you need to take into account patterns of use (frequency and entrenchment)

if you wish to investigate how diverse factors like meaning, structure, discourse and lectal variation interact, the sheer complexity of the phenomena calls for appropriate methods

a shift towards quantitative testing of hypotheses


The theoretical model

if we assume that factors like meaning, structure, discourse and lectal variation co-determine grammatical phenomena, then we cannot exclude a radical non-modular conception of grammar

a shift towards a multifactorial descriptive model of the grammar that does not a priori impose a distinction between various levels of analysis


Three footnotes

i. all of this is in line with fundamental insights of the founding fathers of CL:

in particular, cp. key notions introduced by Ron Langacker that embody various forms of contextualization as defined above:

usage-based grammarconstruction grammarcurrent discourse space


Three footnotes

ii. quantitative corpus-based or experimental research is not the traditional way of doing CL, but it is an emerging trendcp. theme session ‘Corpus-driven Corpus Linguistics’

theoretical justification: see contributions by Gibbs and Geeraerts in 1st volume of the new series Applications of Cognitive Linguistics


Three footnotes

iii. quantitative corpus-based or experimental research does not eliminate introspection

in an empirical cycle, introspective interpretation is indispensableto arrive at testable hypothesesto interpret the results of the empirical test

but it is not itself the test


Step VStep VAn IllustrationAn Illustration


What ?

• a case study illustrating the type of approach suggested above

• if we agree that CL is a recontextualizing approach par excellence, and if we agree that this will have methodological consequences,

what would it mean in practice ?


What ?

• make / let causation in Dutch:is the distribution of laten ‘let’ determined by indirect causation ?

• Kemmer & Verhagen 1994; Stukker 2006:direct causation: doen ‘make’indirect causation: laten ‘let’


What ?

• make / let causation in Dutch: is the distribution of laten ‘let’ determined by indirect causation ?

• Kemmer & Verhagen 1994; Stukker 2006:direct causation: doenindirect causation: laten

I make him collect the ticketsversusI let him collect the tickets


What ?



"The causer produces the effected event directly; there is no intervening energy source 'downstream'"(Stukker 2006: 50)


What ?



"Besides the causer, the causee is the most immediate source of energy in the effected event. The causee has some degree of 'autonomy' in the causal process"(Stukker 2006: 50)


How ?

what we need:• a representative corpus of language data• a set of potentially relevant factors coded in

the corpus• a statistical technique analysing the relevance

of the factors


How ?



of the factorsCGN – Corpus of spoken Dutch, release 1.0900 hrs, tagged2/3 Dutch, 1/3 Flemishregister and text type variation (see below)automatic data selection with manual correction


How ?



of the factors

for closer analysis in a moment:external factorsinternal factors


How ?



of the factors

stepwise logistic regression:what is the impact of a multitude of possibly relevant factors on the variation observed in the (categorical) data?


External factors

wired-in variation in the CGN:• speaker characteristics: sex, age, educational

level• regional variation: Belgian Dutch vs.

Netherlandic Dutch• register variation: 15 'components', divided

along three dimensions

dialogues and multilogues vs. monologuesprivate speech vs. public speechspontaneous vs. prepared speech


Internal factors

• syntactic construction type• coreferentiality between matrix subject and

infinitival subject/object• animacy of matrix subject• lexical collocational strength


Internal factors


infinitival subject/object• animacy of matrix subject• lexical collocational strengthif laten expresses indirect

causation, you don't expect laten in constructions with intransitive verbs, where the "causee" is not expressed


Internal factors


infinitival subject/object• animacy of matrix subject• lexical collocational strengthif doen expresses

direct causation, coreferentiality should favour the use of doen (you cannot get more direct)


Internal factors



if doen expresses direct causation, you expect more doen with animate matrix subjects (animate subjects have more control over the flow of energy)


Internal factors



if the relevant factors are purely semantic ones (a model of causation), you don't expect any collocational idiomatization (lexical fixation)


Construction types

- coreferentiality + coreferentiality

x doet/laat ysubj Vintrans ik ... iets vallenik ... iets vallen ik ... mij vallenik ... mij vallen

x doet/laat ysubj Vtrans ik ... hem doenik ... hem doen ik ... mij doenik ... mij doen

x doet/laat zobj Vtrans ik ... iets zienik ... iets zien ik ... mij verrassenik ... mij verrassen

x doet/laat ysubj zobj Vtrans

ik ... iemand iets zienik ... iemand iets zien ik ... iemand mij verrassenik ... iemand mij verrassen

x doet/laat zsubj door ypp Vtrans

ik ... de boom door hem ik ... de boom door hem vellenvellen

ik … mij door iemand ik … mij door iemand verrassen verrassen


Overview of factors

a typical example of the type of analysis we suggested:

• a usage-based analysis, taking into account• semantics (animacy)• lexical and constructional factors (collocation,

construction pattern)• lectal variation (region, register)


Results

• stepwise logistic regression:construct a model explaining the variation in the data (in our case: the choice between doen and laten),by stepwise adding the factors (as coded in the database) that contribute most to the reduction of the variation

• 3975 observations, of which less than 10% doen

• relevant factors, in order of importance:


Results

• construction typein contrast with the intransitive condition, transitives boost the presence of laten

• animacy: inanimate matrix subjects massively support doen, e.g.de wind deed hem huiveren

• country: Flemish has more doen than Dutch


Results

• register: the majority of non-spontaneous, prepared text types significantly support doen

• collocational measuressignificant lexical collocation enhances doen: some verbs typically associate with doen (more than inanimacy of subject etc. predict); as a marked form, doen tends to be a lexical exception


Summary

• the default form for causatives is laten, to the extent that the more typically causative a construction is, the more readily it uses laten

• doen is a marked form, triggered by constructional (inanimacy of matrix subject, intransitivity of verb) ànd lexical factors

• doen is more formal, given its distribution over registers, than laten

• the restrictions on the use of doen are less outspoken in Flemish than in Dutch


Summary

• is it possible to find a unifying interpretation for these results ?

• the direct/indirect causation model is not completely adequate:a majority of the predictions that we started off with is not confirmed


Summary

- intransitivity halts laten: not correct- coreferentiality boosts doen: not correct- animacy boosts doen: not correct- idiomaticity plays no role: not

correct- lectal effects are not expected: not

correct


Alternative

an alternative interpretative hypothesis:doen is an archaic form; this ties in with all the relevant observations, i.e.

a) that it is typical for more formal registersb) that it is sensitive to lexical associations

(idiomatic effects as a form of relics)c) that it occurs more in Belgian Dutch (which is

known to be the more archaic variety in a number of respects)


Alternative

d) that, semantically speaking, it seems to be retracting to one core form of causation, i.e. direct material causation

(the directness explains the intransitivity effect: transitives involve an intermediate entity)(the material aspect relates to the inanimacy of the subjects, as opposed to the volitional causation of human subjects)


Conclusion

• interpretative hypotheses based on typically CL-based assumptions can be empirically tested,i.e. they can be subjected to the empirical cycle


Conclusion

• interpretative hypotheses based on typically CL-based assumptions can be empirically tested,i.e. they can be subjected to the empirical cycle

theory

testable hypothesis

interpretation

empiricaltest


Conclusion

• such tests need to involve all the types of context that form part of the underlying ‘recontextualizing drift’ of CL (semantic, constructional, lexical, discursive, lectal context)

• the resulting model is a multifactorial grammar in which grammatical phenomena are simultaneously sensitive to various factors


Overall ConclusionsOverall Conclusions


The first 30 years

• is there a unifying factor behind the development of Cognitive Linguistics ?

• if contemporary linguistics is indeed going through a phase of recontextualisation after the Chomskyan decontextualisation of the grammar,then CL represents that recontextualizing tendency more than any other approach


And beyond

• if so, in which direction could Cognitive Linguistics develop in the future ?

• if CL continues on the path of corpus-based and experimental usage-based analyses, then a multifactorial model of the grammar is a perfect embodiment of a recontextualized grammar

for further information:http://wwwling.arts.kuleuven.be/qlvl

[email protected]

contextualization and methodology: 30 years of cognitive linguistics (and beyond) contextualization...

Documents

history of linguistics

variational linguistics

journal slide

international consolidation

cognitive grammar lakoff

publication of textbooks

toc step

international scene