Historical dictionary definitions revisited from a prototype theoretical standpoint

2008 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Molina
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Prototype Theory ◽  
Cognitive Constraints ◽  
Theoretical Standpoint ◽  
Dictionary Definitions

Historical dictionaries have not yet incorporated prototype theoretical principles, from which singular enhancements might be obtained in historical lexicography. Revisiting diachronic definitions from a prototypical standpoint underlines how salience-based definitions comply more accurately with the cognitive constraints of the human mind. Upon this realization, the paper presents a template for reorganizing historical definitions according to the principles of prototype theory. The resulting definitions depict the semasiological profile of terms in a more transparent way while stressing the mutual interface between linguistic and extralinguistic data and between synchrony and diachrony. At the same time, the paper shows how the theoretical tenets of cognitive linguistics can be put to use in the field of applied linguistics, viz. lexicography.

The Role of Cognitive Patterns in Modelling Reality by Means of Natural Language (The Case Study of the English Cognitive Pattern “Cleanness / Dirtiness”)

2021 ◽  
pp. 69-81
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Savitskaya ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural Language ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Cognitive Patterns ◽  
Cognitive Pattern ◽  
The World ◽  
Internal Comparison

In the field of cognitive linguistics it is accepted that, before developing its capacity for abstract and theoretical thought, the human mind went through the stage of reflecting reality through concrete images and thus has inherited old cognitive patterns. Even abstract notions of the modern civilization are based on traditional concrete images, and it is all fixed in natural language units. By way of illustration, the author analyzes the cognitive pattern “сleanness / dirtiness” as a constituent part of the English linguoculture, looking at the whole range of its verbal realization and demonstrating its influence on language-based thinking and modeling of reality. Comparing meanings of language units with their inner forms enabled the author to establish the connection between abstract notions and concrete images within cognitive patterns. Using the method of internal comparison and applying the results of etymological reconstruction of language units’ inner form made it possible to see how the world is viewed by representatives of the English linguoculture. Apparently, in the English linguoculture images of cleanness / dirtiness symbolize mainly two thematic areas: that of morality and that of renewal. Since every ethnic group has its own axiological dominants (key values) that determine the expressiveness of verbal invectives, one can draw the conclusion that people perceive and comprehend world fragments through the prism of mental stereo-types fixed in the inner form of language units. Sometimes, in relation to specific language units, a conflict arises between the inner form which retains traditional thinking and a meaning that reflects modern reality. Still, linguoculture is a constantly evolving entity, and its de-velopment entails breaking established stereotypes and creating new ones. Linguistically, the victory of the new over the old is manifested in the “dying out” of the verbal support for pre-vious cognitive patterns, which leads to “reprogramming” (“recoding”) of linguoculture rep-resentatives’ mentality.

scholarly journals INVESTIGATING COMMUNICATIVE-PRAGMATIC FUNCTIONS OF GRADATION

2020 ◽  
pp. 421-423
Author(s):  
Makhmudova Nilufarkhon Ravshanovna
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
English Language ◽  
Scientific Literature ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Knowledge Processes ◽  
Structural Linguistics ◽  
Separate Object ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
Linguistic Units

In this article has been illuminated the communicative-pragmatic functions of gradation in English and Uzbek languages. In the scientific literature, cognitive linguistics is also described as “connected semantics” because it deals mainly with semantics. While linguistic units serve to express objects that exist in the world and the actions that take place, semantics connect the interactions between linguistic units in a real or imaginary world. These relations are studied by linguistic semantics as a separate object of study. One of the important features of cognitive linguistics is that it allows us to see the language in relation to a person, that is, his consciousness, knowledge, processes of thinking and understanding, paying particular attention to how language forms and any language phenomena are associated with human knowledge and experience and how they relate to the human mind how to describe. KEY WORDS: English language, Uzbek language, gradation, communicative-pragmatic functions, structural linguistics, cognitive linguistics, semantics, pragmatic influence.

A Cognitive Approach to Scientific Data Mining for Syndrome Discovery

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Gagliardi
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Scientific Discovery ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
Learning System ◽  
Prototype Theory ◽  
Clinical Practices ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Research Activities ◽  
Clinical Domain

The author introduces a machine learning system for cluster analysis to take on the problem of syndrome discovery in the clinical domain. A syndrome is a set of typical clinical features (a prototype) that appear together often enough to suggest they may represent a single, unknown, disease. The discovery of syndromes and relative taxonomy formation is therefore the critical early phase of the process of scientific discovery in the medical domain. The system proposed discovers syndromes following Eleanor Rosch’s prototype theory on how the human mind categorizes and forms taxonomies, and thereby to understand how humans perform these activities and to automate or assist the process of scientific discovery. The system implemented can be considered a scientific discovery support system as it can discover unknown syndromes to the advantage of subsequent clinical practices and research activities.

scholarly journals The semantics of spatial prepositions: the main trends of research

2017 ◽  
pp. 188-212
Author(s):  
Ieva Stasiūnaitė
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Semantic Analysis ◽  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Linguistic Data ◽  
Spatial Prepositions

The paper overviews the main trends of research into the semantics of spatial prepositions, as demonstrated by a plethora of papers on linguistic data from a variety of languages. The more traditional approach focuses on the locative meaning with respect to other words—both syntagmatically and in paradigms, thus ruling out pragmatics—and considers multiple senses of the same preposition to be arbitrary. In contrast, the modern framework employs the principles of cognitive linguistics for semantic analysis, highlighting the conceptual structuring of entities or relations in extralinguistic reality. On the basis of geometric, functional, and other relations between the figure and the ground, it attempts to explicate not only prepositional synonymy, but also extensive polysemy as a form of categorisation. As a consequence, the distinct meanings of a preposition are considered to be related, deriving either from the prototypical sense or any other sense which is related to it, and arranged in a network. The modern line of investigation may provide more possibilities for researchers interested in one language and/or in cross-linguistic studies, thus contributing to the development of lexicography, translation, and other fields of applied linguistics.

scholarly journals Was kann moderne Linguistik für die Fremdsprachendidaktik leisten? Ausgewählte Aspekte

2019 ◽  
pp. 213-226
Author(s):  
Adam Szeluga
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Generative Grammar ◽  
Foreign Language Teaching ◽  
Learning Techniques ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

The article deals with the most important relations between Foreign Language Didactics and the main theoretical models in modern linguistics, especially the Applied Linguistics of second- and foreign-language teaching. Theories and models of modern linguistics have often laid the theoretical foundations of foreign language teaching, as we can observe in the individual methods and learning techniques (from structuralism to generative grammar, communicativepragmatic turn of the 60s and 70s, cognitive linguistics and to F. Grucza's anthropocentric theory of languages). In this perspective, the purpose of this article is to raise and discuss the question of how modern linguistic theories can improve the effectiveness of language teaching.

scholarly journals NOMINATIVE FIELD OF THE CONCEPT MARRIAGE AND ANALYSIS OF THE SYNONYMOUS RANGE OF ITS KEY UNIT

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (193) ◽  
pp. 218-224
Author(s):  
Nadiya Ivanenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
English Language ◽  
Complex Structure ◽  
Field Structure ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Semantic Field ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
The World ◽  
Basic Characteristics ◽  
Dictionary Definitions

The research focuses on the study of the actualization of the concept MARRIAGE in the context of the linguocognitive and linguocultural paradigm. The article analyzes the means of modeling the concept MARRIAGE in the British language picture of the world, its content, structure and cognitive interpretation. The concept-cognitive MARRIAGE is considered in the direction of anthropocentrism with consideration of modern achievements of cognitive linguistics, and also the place of this concept in construction of the British national picture of the world is defined. In the English language tradition, this social phenomenon is expressed through the lexical-semantic field of the concept MARRIAGE. The composition of other basic concepts of linguistic consciousness largely depends on the concept MARRIAGE. The article presents the results of etymological analysis. It plays a big role in determining the typology of culture and the need for this analysis helps to establish the source of origin of the conceptualizer. The analysis of dictionary definitions made it possible to investigate all the meanings of lexical units of the outlined nominative field. This allowed us to understand the nature and types of semantic structure of words that belong to different semantic groups and semasiological subclasses, as well as to look at the epidemiological relations of the key. In order to describe the complex structure of the organization of a multi-valued keyword, the notion of lexical-semantic variant is used. Basic characteristics of the concept MARRIAGE are possible to be found in the dictionary definitions and the complex structure of the concept is defined as a field structure, that is: denotative central content with semantic nucleus, peripherality and connotative surrounding.

DYING IS HARD TO DESCRIBE: METONYMIES AND METAPHORS OF DEATH IN THEILIAD

2018 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 359-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabian Horn
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Abstract Concept ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Epic Poem ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Battle Scenes

Homer'sIliadis an epic poem full of war and battles, but scholars have noted that ‘[t]he Homeric poems are interested in death far more than they are in fighting’. Even though long passages of the poem, particularly the so-called ‘battle books’ (Il.Books 5–8, 11–17, 20–2), consist of little other than fighting, individual battles are often very short with hardly ever a longer exchange of blows. Usually, one strike is all it takes for the superior warrior to dispatch his opponent, and death occurs swiftly. The prominence of death in Homeric battle scenes raises the question of how and in which terms dying in battle is being depicted in theIliad: for while fighting can be described in a straightforward fashion, death is an abstract concept and therefore difficult to grasp. Recent developments in cognitive linguistics have ascertained that, when coping with difficult and abstract concepts, such as emotions, the human mind is likely to resort to figurative language and particularly to metaphors.

Resource-rational analysis: Understanding human cognition as the optimal use of limited computational resources

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Falk Lieder ◽  
Thomas L. Griffiths
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Skills ◽  
Cognitive Modeling ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Architectures ◽  
Rational Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Constraints ◽  
Rational Models ◽  
And Linguistics

Abstract Modeling human cognition is challenging because there are infinitely many mechanisms that can generate any given observation. Some researchers address this by constraining the hypothesis space through assumptions about what the human mind can and cannot do, while others constrain it through principles of rationality and adaptation. Recent work in economics, psychology, neuroscience, and linguistics has begun to integrate both approaches by augmenting rational models with cognitive constraints, incorporating rational principles into cognitive architectures, and applying optimality principles to understanding neural representations. We identify the rational use of limited resources as a unifying principle underlying these diverse approaches, expressing it in a new cognitive modeling paradigm called resource-rational analysis. The integration of rational principles with realistic cognitive constraints makes resource-rational analysis a promising framework for reverse-engineering cognitive mechanisms and representations. It has already shed new light on the debate about human rationality and can be leveraged to revisit classic questions of cognitive psychology within a principled computational framework. We demonstrate that resource-rational models can reconcile the mind's most impressive cognitive skills with people's ostensive irrationality. Resource-rational analysis also provides a new way to connect psychological theory more deeply with artificial intelligence, economics, neuroscience, and linguistics.

Metaphor, Embodied Realism, and Sacramental Truth

2021 ◽  
pp. 21-57
Author(s):  
Stephen R. Shaver
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Prototype Theory ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Material World ◽  
Embodied Realism ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
Objective Observer ◽  
Independent Reality

This chapter and the next provide an introduction to the field of cognitive linguistics. This chapter focuses on core concepts including conceptual metaphor, metonymy, polysemy, and prototype theory (conceptual blending is explored in Chapter 3). Based on this overview, the author argues that language “means” not through referential correspondence to objective, observer-independent reality but by prompting for embodied simulation on the part of hearers and readers. Language, then, is true insofar as these simulations are apt to reality as experienced by embodied human beings. The chapter proposes that this epistemological perspective of “embodied realism” is congruent with the critical realism endorsed by many recent theologians and with a sacramental worldview in which the material world can be the arena for God’s self-communication.

The role of DO-auxiliary in subject-auxiliary inversion: Developing Langacker’s notion of existential negotiation

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Duffley
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Applied Linguistics ◽  
Foreign Language Teaching ◽  
Cognitive Motivation ◽  
Core Elements

AbstractThis paper builds on Langacker’s (in press. How to build an English clause. Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics 2(2)) analysis of subject-auxiliary inversion (SAI) as involving “existential negotiation”. Langacker’s account is completed by relating it to full verb inversion (FVI). In FVI, non-core elements are fronted, resulting in inversion without an auxiliary, as in Into the room walked Mary; however, non-core elements are also frontable in SAI, as in Bitterly did we regret our decision. Do is treated as denoting full actualization and SAI is accounted for by focus on an exceptionally intense mode of actualization, whence the use of do to explicitly express what is focused on. The role of into the room in the FVI example is to define a locus into which an entity is introduced. Since this does not involve focus on the fact or manner of the verbal event’s actualization, do is not used. This leads to a different division of inverted structures than that of Chen (2013. Subject auxiliary inversion and linguistic generalization: Evidence for functional/cognitive motivation in language. Cognitive Linguistics 24. 1–32), who distinguishes those that merely reverse subject and auxiliary (argued to denote non-indicative mood) from those where the inverted auxiliary-subject order is accompanied by fronting of a non-subject element (treated as involving focus on the fronted item). It is argued here that fronting do-auxiliary marks focus on the actualization of the verbal event itself.

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