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Cognitive Linguistics


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Introduction

Cognitive Linguistics is a new approach to the studyof language that emerged in the 1970s as a reactionagainst the dominant generative paradigm which

pursues an autonomous view of language. Some ofthe main assumptions underlying the generativeapproaches to syntax and semantics are not inaccordance with the experimental data in linguistics,psychology and other fields; the generative

commitment to notational formalism, that is to saythe use offormal grammars that views languagesas systems of arbitrary symbols manipulated bymathematical rules, is used at the expense ofdescriptive adequacy and psychological realism.


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Introduction

What Lakoff refers to as nonfinitary phenomena, i.e.mental images, general cognitive processes, basic-level categories, prototype phenomena, the use of

neural foundations for linguistic theory and so on, arenot considered part of these grammars because theyare not characterisable in this notation. It is from thisdissatisfaction with the dominant model thatCognitive Linguistics is created. Cognitive Linguistics

is not a totally homogeneous framework. Ungererand Schmid (1997) distinguish three mainapproaches: Experiental view, the Prominence view

and the Attentional view of language.


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Introduction

The Experiental view pursues a morepractical and empirical description of meaning;instead of postulating logical rules andobjective definitions based on theoreticalconsiderations, in this approach it is the userof the language who tells us what is going onin their minds when they produce and

understand words and sentences. EleanorRosch et al. (1977, 1978) carried out the firstresearch within this approach, mainly in thestudy of cognitive categories, which led to the

prototype model of categorisation.


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Introduction

Within this framework, the knowledge and experiencehuman beings have of the things and events that theyknow well is transferred to those other objects and

events, which they are not so familiar with, and evento abstract concepts. Lakoff and Johnson (1980)were among the first ones to pinpoint this conceptualpotential, especially in the case of metaphors.However, this does not only apply to the field of

metaphor but to other figurative resources which arenot considered part of the language in more

traditional linguistics, such as metonymy.


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Introduction

The Prominence view is based on concepts ofprofiling and figure/ground segregation, aphenomenon first introduced by the Danish gestalt

psychologist Rubin. The prominence principleexplains why, when we look at an object in ourenvironment, we single it out as a perceptuallyprominent figure standing out from the ground. Thisprinciple can also be applied to the study of language;

especially, to the study of local relations. It is alsoused in Langackers grammar, where profiling isused to explain grammatical constructs and, figureand ground for the explanation of grammatical

relations.


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Introduction

Finally, the Attentional view assumes thatwhat we actually express reflects which partsof an event attract our attention. A mainconcept of this approach is Fillmores (1975)notion offrame, i.e. an assemblage of theknowledge we have about a certain situation.Depending on our cognitive ability to direct

our attention, different aspects of this frameare highlighted, resulting in different linguisticexpressions.


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Introduction

The question of the complex relationshipbetween language, experience, and the mindhas been one with which every approach tolinguistics has grappled. The cognitiveperspective holds that language is part of acognitive system which comprises perception,emotions, categorization, abstraction

processes, and reasoning. All these cognitiveabilities interact with language and areinfluenced by language.


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Introduction

Thus, the perspective on language

offered by Cognitive Linguistics

emphasizes the effect of humanexperience of the world, the unique way

humans perceive and conceptualize

that experience, and how these are inturn reflected in the structure of

language itself.


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Introduction

A central claim of a cognitive approach is thatgrammar forms a continuum with the lexicon and isfully describable in terms of form-meaning pairings.

Thus, grammar is not represented as an autonomouscomponent. The problem of how people constructmeaning in thought and language is at the heart ofresearch in a cognitive approach to language. Assuch it emphasizes a usage-based conception of

language and evidences a concern for contextualized,dynamically constructed meanings and for thegrounding of language use in both cognitive and

social interaction.


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Introduction

Cognitive Linguistics has been developed byscholars like George Lakoff and RonaldLangacker. Basically Cognitive Linguisticsrelates language to conceptualization andhuman experience. Meaning is said to residein conceptualization, and grammar is notseen as autonomous. Cognitive processing

plays an important role in this model, andbasic cognitive abilities such as viewing,distancing and scanning are incorporated intothe theory.


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Introduction

Experiental realism or experientalism is the

term used to describe the philosophical view

that linguistic meaning cannot be describedindependently of the nature and experience

of the organisms doing the thinking.

Conceptual structure is meaningful because it

comes from and is linked to our pre-conceptual bodily experiences.


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Introduction

There is no objective, disembodied truth, andconsequently the world is not objectivelyreflected in language. Language is muchmore than just a mirror, it describes ourindividual and collective experiences of theworld. Conceptual and linguistic universalsarise from the fact that we have similar bodies

and brains, that we inhabit similarenvironments and that we communicate witheach other.


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Introduction

Cognitive Linguistics is by nature cross-disciplinaryand among the most obviously related fields arepsychology, neurophysiology, computer science and

general cogntive science. In my view, this opennessis part of what makes cognitive linguistics such anexciting venue. Much of the research has focused onmetaphor, semantic change, prototype effects,blends, prepositional expressions and many other

topics. There has also been a great deal of workcarried out in establishing appropriate formalisms.Key concepts include metaphors, prototype theory,

radial structures, mental spaces and embodiment.


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MAIN TENETS

As human beings the way in which we interact withour world through our spatial and temporal orientation,our manipulation of objects, our perception of the

things that surround us and our bodily movementsinfluences how we construct and understandmeaning. Based on empirical research in differentareas such as Cognitive Psychology, and

Anthropological Linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics

argues that both the design features of languages,and our ability to learn and use them are accountedfor by general cognitive abilities, our humancategorisation strategies, together with our cultural,contextual and functional parameters.


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MAIN TENETS

Human conceptual categories, the meaning

of words and sentences and the meaning of

linguistic structures at any level, are not a setof universal abstract features or uninterpreted

symbols. They are motivated and groundedmore or less directly in experience, in our

bodily, physical, social and culturalexperiences, because after all, we are

beings of the flesh.


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MAIN TENETS

The second main idea is related to the theory oflinguistic meaning. Most cognitive linguists rejectobjectivist theories of meaning. For Cognitive

Linguistics, meanings do not exist independently fromthe people that create and use them; all linguisticforms do not have inherent form in themselves, theyact as clues activating the meanings that reside inour minds and brains. This activation of meaning is

not necessarily entirely the same in every person,because meaning is based on individual experience

as well as collective experience.


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MAIN TENETS

Therefore, for Cognitive Linguistics, wehave no access to a reality independent

of human categorisation, and that iswhy the structure of reality as reflectedin language is a product of the humanmind. Semantic structure reflects the

mental categories which people haveformed from their experience andunderstanding of the world.


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METHODOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES

Human categorisation is one of the major issues inLinguistics. The ability to categorise, i.e., to judge thata particular thing is or is not an instance of a

particular category, is an essential part of cognition.Categorisation is often automatic and unconscious,except in problematic cases. This can cause us tomake mistakes and make us think that our categoriesare categories of things, when in fact they are

categories of abstract entities. When experience isused to guide the interpretation of a new experience,

the ability to categorise becomes indispensable.


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The classical view on categorisation, that of Aristotle,

claims that categories are defined in terms of a

conjunction of necessary and sufficient binary

features, that is to say that linguistic analyticalcategories impose a set of necessary and sufficient

conditions for the membership in the category. This

requirement not only implies that categories have

clear boundaries and that all members of a categoryhave equal status but also that there is an abstract,

general definition with which all the members of that

category must comply.


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Instead of relating these different senses toan abstract default sense that includes all ofthem, the cognitive approach adopts aprototype categorization model. In this modelhuman categories have two types ofmembers: the prototype and several less-central members related to the former in a

motivated way. The prototype is the best, themost prominent and the most typical memberof a category.


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Another consequence of the primacy of cognitive

abilities is that there is no strict distinction between

encyclopaedic and linguistic knowledge. Objectivists

differentiate between these two differentepistemological types of knowledge. On the one hand,

linguistic ordefinitional knowledge that

corresponds to the essential properties of the

entities and categories that the words designate;

and on the other, encyclopaedic knowledge

corresponds to the contingent properties of the

entities and properties that the words designate.


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This dictionary-encyclopaedia distinction

leads objectivists to postulate a meaning per

se, independent of whatever the speakermay know about the states of affairs that he is

referring to. This paradigm also induces the

distinction between literal (objectively true or

false) and figurative meaning (no directcorrespondence to entities and categories in

the real world).


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This continuum between language andexperience has led cognitive linguists to

study how conceptual structures orcognitive models are reflected inlanguage. According to Langacker,most concepts invoke other concepts

and without making an explicit referenceto them, they cannot be adequatelydefined.


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Research on metaphor occupies a central position in

Cognitive Linguistics. One of the major problems that

cognitive linguists still face is the question of how to

constrain metaphorical mappings. Attempts toconstrain the mapping process in metaphorical

production and comprehension can be found in

Lakoffs Invariance Principle, i.e. metaphorical

mappings preserve the cognitive topology of thesource domain in a way consistent with the inherent

structure of the target domain.


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The Invariance Principle is useful in order toconstrain the nature of those mappings: thatis to say, it is not possible to map from the

source domain structure that does notpreserve the inherent structure of the targetdomain. The only problem with this principleis that it does not show exactly what part of

the source domain is the one that must beconsistent with the structure of the targetdomain.


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Another important and interesting area of research isthe interaction between metaphor and metonymy.Goossens proposes the term metaphtonymy to

cover the possible interrelations between metaphorand metonymy. Among these interrelations, hedistinguishes two as the dominant patterns: onewhere the experiential basis for metaphor is ametonymy (metaphor from metonymy) and another

where a metonymy functioning in the target domain isembedded within a metaphor (metonymy within

metaphor).


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Thank you for your

attention

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