Shared Similes in the Homeric Epics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan L. Ready
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Frame Semantics

Our Homeric poets strove to display their competence by doing what their predecessors and peers did. To discover the shared similes in the Iliad and the Odyssey, the chapter first reviews the (nearly) verbatim short vehicle portions and similar long vehicle portions found (a) in the Iliad and Odyssey or (b) in the Iliad or Odyssey and in other archaic Greek hexameter poems or lyric poems. The chapter then discusses “scenarios” to get at the mental templates underlying many of our Homeric poets’ vehicle portions, templates that reveal the extent of their use of shared vehicle portions. By linking this model of scenarios with an approach from cognitive linguistics known as Frame Semantics, one can detect the ease with which a Homeric poet learned the scenarios. Our poets’ demonstrations of their use of shared elements also comes to the fore when one examines their similes as two-part equations, each composed of a tenor and a vehicle.

A Case for Grace? Case-Grammar, Frame-Semantics, and Biblical Hebrew חֵן

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Carsten Ziegert
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Frame Semantics ◽  
Potential Conflict ◽  
Case Grammar ◽  
Basic Meaning ◽  
Biblical Texts

Abstract The traditional rendering “grace” for חֵן is controversial. Frame semantics, a theory originating in cognitive linguistics, anticipates that prototypical situations are evoked in language users’ minds each time a word is used. Thus, a “frame” for “חֵן situations” is reconstructed from Biblical texts. Apart from the basic meaning “beauty” which is offered in dictionaries, too, an extended meaning is presented: חֵן designates “the settling of a (potential) conflict between two parties that only one party can bring to a conclusion.”

Beyond the sentence

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kerstin Fischer
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Frame Semantics ◽  
Cognitive Perspective ◽  
Pragmatic Markers ◽  
Grammatical Mood ◽  
Spoken Interaction ◽  
Interactive Experience ◽  
Grammatical Structures

Construction grammarians are still quite reluctant to extend their descriptions to units beyond the sentence. However, the theoretical premises of construction grammar and frame semantics are particularly suited to cover spoken interaction from a cognitive perspective. Furthermore, as construction grammar is anchored in the cognitive linguistics paradigm and as such subscribes to meaning being grounded in experience, it needs to consider interaction since grammatical structures may be grounded not only in sensory-motor, but also in social-interactive experience. The example of grounded language learning experiments demonstrates the anchoring of grammatical mood in interaction. Finally, phenomena peculiar to spoken dialogue, such as pragmatic markers, may be best accounted for as constructions, drawing on frame semantics. The two cognitive linguistic notions, frames and constructions, are therefore particularly useful to account for generalisation in spoken interaction.

Beyond Barr ‐ Biblical Hebrew Semantics at its Crossroads

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Carsten Ziegert
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Frame Semantics ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Conceptual Metaphors ◽  
Wilhelm Von Humboldt ◽  
Survey Article ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

Summary This survey article comments on the history of biblical semantics from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the present time. This period of 200 years is divided into three phases, each of which is governed by a predominant paradigm: 1) The era of biblical philology was heavily influenced by the ideas of Wilhelm von Humboldt. 2) Linguistic structuralism was promulgated to biblical scholars by James Barr since the 1960s. 3) The present time, still dominated by structuralism, has nevertheless seen the rise of a new paradigm, namely, cognitive linguistics. Within this domain, particularly frame semantics and the theory of conceptual metaphors have the potential to bring fresh insights to biblical semantics, exegesis and theology. This development is illustrated by means of some examples from the field of biblical Hebrew.ZusammenfassungIn diesem Überblicksartikel wird die Geschichte der biblischen Semantik vom Anfang des 19. Jahrhunderts bis in die Gegenwart nachgezeichnet. Dieser Zeitraum von 200 Jahren lässt sich in drei Phasen einteilen, in denen jeweils ein Paradigma maßgeblich ist: 1) Die Epoche der biblischen Philologie war stark von den Ideen Wilhelm von Humboldts geprägt. 2) Der linguistische Strukturalismus wurde in den Bibelwissenschaften seit den 1960er Jahren durch James Barr vorherrschend. 3) In der Gegenwart, die immer noch vom Strukturalismus beherrscht wird, zeichnet sich die kognitive Linguistik als ein neues Paradigma ab. Vor allem die Frame-Semantik und die Theorie der konzeptuellen Metaphern haben das Potential, die biblische Semantik, Exegese und Theologie durch neue Erkenntnisse zu bereichern. Das wird durch einige Beispiele aus dem Bereich des biblischen Hebräisch veranschaulicht.RésuméCe survol examine l’histoire de la sémantique biblique du début du XIXe siècle à nos jours. Cette période de 200 ans comporte trois phases, chacune dominée par un paradigme différent: 1) L’époque de la philologie biblique est fortement marquée par les idées de Wilhelm von Humboldt. 2) Dans les années soixante, c’est le structuralisme linguistique de James Barr qui se répand parmi les exégètes. 3) Aujourd’hui, bien que le structuralisme ait encore l’avantage, un nouveau paradigme est né et se développe, savoir la linguistique cognitive. Dans ce domaine, la sémantique des schémas et la théorie des métaphores conceptuelles en particulier peuvent offrir tant à la sémantique biblique, qu’à l’exégèse et à la théologie des perspectives nouvelles. La preuve en est donnée par des exemples tirés du domaine de l’hébreu biblique.

Integrating constructional semantics and conceptual metaphor

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Conceptual Structure ◽  
Unified Model ◽  
Cognitive Grammar ◽  
Frame Semantics ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Conceptual Structures ◽  
Metaphoric Language ◽  
Metaphor Theory

Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) aims to represent the conceptual structure of metaphors rather than the structure of metaphoric language. The theory does not explain which aspects of metaphoric language evoke which conceptual structures, for example. However, other theories within cognitive linguistics may be better suited to this task. These theories, once integrated, should make building a unified model of both the conceptual and linguistic aspects of metaphor possible. First, constructional approaches to syntax provide an explanation of how particular constructional slots are associated with different functions in evoking metaphor. Cognitive Grammar is especially effective in this regard. Second, Frame Semantics helps explain how the words or phrases that fill the relevant constructional slots evoke the source and target domains of metaphor. Though these theories do not yet integrate seamlessly, their combination already offers explanatory benefits, such as allowing generalizations across metaphoric and non-metaphoric language, and identifying the words that play a role in evoking metaphors, for example.

What is חֶ֫סֶד‎? A frame-semantic approach

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 711-732
Author(s):  
Carsten Ziegert
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Social Knowledge ◽  
Frame Semantics ◽  
Short History ◽  
Semantic Approach ◽  
Linguistic Methodology ◽  
History Of Research ◽  
History Of

This article presents a new investigation of חסד‎, a much-discussed Biblical Hebrew lexeme. A short history of research reveals that the most influential studies of חסד‎ lack a sound linguistic methodology. Cognitive linguistics, particularly frame semantics, provides a methodology that deliberately takes cultural and social knowledge into account. The meaning of חסד‎ turns out to be an action or an event rather than an attitude. It can be described as ‘an action performed by one person for the benefit of another to avert some danger or critical impairment from the beneficiary’. This definition is then applied to some difficult passages which contain the lexeme חסד‎ including Hos. 6.6 and Isa. 40.6 and arguably produces better readings.

Learning formulaic creativity: Chunking in verbal art and speech

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
The Other ◽  
Oral Poetry ◽  
Frame Semantics ◽  
Complex Dynamic ◽  
Verbal Art ◽  
Cognitive Study ◽  
Compositional Patterns ◽  
Oral Composition ◽  
Rule Inference

AbstractThe chunking problem is central to linguistics, semiotics, and poetics: How do we learn to organize a language into patterns and to use those patterns creatively? Linguistics has mainly offered two answers, one based on rule inference through innate capacities for processing and the other based on usage and on outstanding capacities for memory and retrieval. Both views are based on induction and compositionality. The Parry–Lord theory of oral composition-in-performance has argued that oral singers produce complex poems out of rehearsed improvisation through the mastery of a system of formulas, chunks that integrate phrasal, metrical, and semantic structures. The framework of formulaic creativity proposed here argues that the cognitive study of oral poetics can provide crucial insights into the chunking problem. I show the major connections between Parry–Lord and usage-based cognitive linguistics, mainly Construction Grammar and Frame Semantics. However, these approaches still remain compositional and thus struggle to model creativity and learning in oral poetry and everyday speech. The alternative is to explore a model of formulaic creativity not based on compositional patterns, but on wide learning for connecting discriminative perceptual features directly to semantic contrasts within a complex dynamic system, without the intermediation of a set of discrete units.

scholarly journals SOCIAL FRAME IN COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS AND ITS POTENTIAL IN TRANSLATION STUDIES

2021 ◽  
pp. 226-229
Author(s):  
Halyna Rishniak
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Frame Semantics ◽  
Cognitive Frames ◽  
Different Types

The article deals with the application of cognitive frames for TS analysis. It is suggested that Cognitive translatology offers a theoretical framework for a systematic and coherent description of different types of frames. Rendering of social frames actualized in Thomas Hardy’s novel “Under the Greenwood Tree” in the Ukrainian translation by Mariia Holovko is researched and different findings and losses of her translation are analyzed from the standpoint of frame semantics.

scholarly journals Reframing Reality of Online Learning on the Basis of Internet Memes

2021 ◽  
pp. 140-155
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Majdzińska-Koczorowicz ◽  
Julia Ostanina-Olszewska
Keyword(s):  
Online Learning ◽  
Distance Learning ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Cognitive Models ◽  
Frame Semantics ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Metaphor Theory

The paper sets out to investigate the interplay between image and text with reference to chosen cognitive models in order to pinpoint the image of distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. The bilateral nature of memes will be discussed in relation to the cognitive linguistics framework, in particular the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, Kovecses 2002, Forceville 1996, 2008, 2009), Frame Semantics (Fillmore 1988) construal (Langacker 1987, 2008), blending theory (Fauconnier and Turner 2002), Discourse Viewpoint Space  (Dancyngier and Vandelanotte 2017).

scholarly journals A Cognitive Linguistics approach to internet memes on selected Polish internet sites

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Ostanina-Olszewska ◽  
Aleksandra Majdzińska-Koczorowicz
Keyword(s):  
Social Communication ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Frame Semantics ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Semantic Framework ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
Salient Features

A Cognitive Linguistics approach to internet memes on selected Polish internet sitesThe present study aims to analyse selected internet memes as examples of social communication from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics, and to examine more closely the relation between their visual and verbal aspects. Internet memes contain a wide range of constructions (necessary for rebuilding the semantic framework and extracting selected content), which are fragmentary but at the same time sufficient to induce a whole framework of meanings by using their salient features. The multimodal context is considered within the frameworks of conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980), construal (Langacker, 1987, 2008), frame semantics (Fillmore, 1988), conceptual blending theory (Fauconnier & Turner, 2002) and Discourse Viewpoint Space (Dancygier & Vandelanotte, 2016). The paper will present an analysis of the structure of internet memes, which are rich concepts that spread rapidly and widely, and also invite recipients to actively participate in the construction of the message, thus becoming contributors. Memy internetowe na wybranych polskich stronach internetowych. Podejście językoznawstwa kognitywnegoMemy są często bogatymi tworami, łączącymi konstrukcje i zabiegi językowe z elementami wizualnymi, które pomimo bycia jedynie cząstkowymi desygnatami, pozwalają na wydobycie ram semantycznych oraz zrozumienie określonych treści z często fragmentarycznego przekazu obrazka. Przyswojenie komunikatu odbywa się przy pomocy wybranych elementów językowych i ikonicznych osadzonych w kontekście multimodalnym.Celem artykułu jest analiza relacji pomiędzy aspektem wizualnym i werbalnym w wybranych memach internetowych, rozumianych jako przykłady komunikacji społecznej, przy pomocy narzędzi językoznawczych, m.in. teorii metafory pojęciowej i metonimii (Lakoff i Johnson, 1980), obrazowania mentalnego (Langaker, 1987, 2008), semantyki ramowej (Fillmore, 1988), teorii amalgamatów pojęciowych (Fauconnier i Turner, 2002) oraz perspektywy narracyjnej (ang. Discourse Viewpoint Space) (Dancygier i Vandelanotte, 2016).

‘[T]his world is now thy pilgrimage’: William Michael Rossetti's Cognitive Maps of France and Italy

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-99
Author(s):  
Eleonora Sasso
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Venice Lagoon ◽  
Cognitive Map ◽  
Reference Points ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Mental Picture ◽  
Historical Figures ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Cognitive Semantic ◽  
St Helena

This paper takes as its starting point the conceptual metaphor ‘life is a journey’ as defined by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) in order to advance a new reading of William Michael Rossetti's Democratic Sonnets (1907). These political verses may be defined as cognitive-semantic poems, which attest to the centrality of travel in the creation of literary and artistic meaning. Rossetti's Democratic Sonnets is not only a political manifesto against tyranny and oppression, promoting the struggle for liberalism and democracy as embodied by historical figures such as Napoleon, Mazzini, Cavour, and Garibaldi; but it also reproduces Rossetti's real and imagined journeys throughout Europe in the late nineteenth century. This essay examines these references in light of the issues they raise, especially the poet as a traveller and the journey metaphor in poetry. But its central purpose is to re-read Democratic Sonnets as a cognitive map of Rossetti's mental picture of France and Italy. A cognitive map, first theorised by Edward Tolman in the 1940s, is a very personal representation of the environment that we all experience, serving to navigate unfamiliar territory, give direction, and recall information. In terms of cognitive linguistics, Rossetti is a figure whose path is determined by French and Italian landmarks (Paris, the island of St. Helena, the Alps, the Venice Lagoon, Mount Vesuvius, and so forth), which function as reference points for orientation and are tied to the historical events of the Italian Risorgimento. Through his sonnets, Rossetti attempts to build into his work the kind of poetic revolution and sense of history which may only be achieved through encounters with other cultures.

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