Cognitive Linguistics and the Concept(s) of Number

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafael Núñez ◽  
Tyler Marghetis
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Numerical Cognition ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Natural Numbers ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Number Concepts ◽  
Fictive Motion ◽  
Positive Integers

What is a ‘number,’ as studied within numerical cognition? The term is highly polysemous, and can refer to numerals, numerosity, and a diverse collection of mathematical objects, from natural numbers to infinitesimals. However, numerical cognition has focused primarily on prototypical counting numbers (PCNs) – numbers used regularly to count small collections of objects. Even these simple numbers are far more complex than apparent pre-conditions for numerical abilities like subitizing and approximate discrimination of large numerosity, which we share with other animals. We argue that the leap to number concepts proper relies, in part, on two embodied, domain-general cognitive mechanisms: conceptual metaphor and fictive motion. These mechanisms were first investigated within cognitive linguistics, a subdiscipline of cognitive science, but are now thought to subserve cognition more generally. We review the proposal that these mechanisms structure numerical cognition – including PCNs, but also the positive integers and arithmetic – and survey the supporting empirical evidence.

The concept «reality» in John Berger’s essay about Vincent Van Gogh as an instrument of fine artworks interpretation

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 141-147
Author(s):  
Tetyana Lunyova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Critical Discussion ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Vincent Van Gogh ◽  
The Third ◽  
Artistic Representation ◽  
The World ◽  
Art For Art's Sake ◽  
World Image

The article investigates the interpretative function of the concept REALITY in John Berger’s essay about Vincent van Gogh’s art by applying the methodology of cognitive linguistics. Following Nikolay N. Boldyrev, the interpretative function of the language is considered in the article as the third main linguistic function. The theoretical and methodological foundations of the study are further developed with the idea, which is expressed by several researchers (V. V. Feshchenko, Ye. A. Yelina, U. A. Zharkova), that discourse about art performs an interpretative role. The aim of the study is to reveal the linguo-cognitive mechanisms that enable the concept REALITY to operate as a means of interpretation of van Gogh’s art in Berger’s essay. The research has demonstrated that before the concept REALITY is applied to the analysis of van Gogh’s paintings and drawings, this concept is explicitly interpreted in the essay. The following linguo-cognitive mechanisms are employed to make the content of the concept REALITY clear to the reader: actualization of the commonly known sense «reality is opposed to imagination», critical discussion of this sense, introduction of the conceptual metaphor REALITY IS THE OBJECT THAT SHOULD BE SALVAGED, and actualization of the selected fragments of the philosophical world image as well as scholarly world image, especially the conception of art for art’s sake and the conceptual metaphor REALITY IS SOMETHING THAT LIES BEHIND THE SCREEN CREATED BY THE CULTURE. Thus, having been thoroughly interpreted in the essay, the concept REALITY is used as an instrument of the interpretation of van Gogh’s artistic principles and artworks. The following linguo-cognitive mechanisms support the concept REALITY in its interpretative function: applying the conceptual metaphor REALITY IS SOMETHING THAT LIES BEHIND THE SCREEN CREATED BY THE CULTURE to read van Gogh’s letters, using the conceptual metaphor REALITY IS THE OBJECT THAT SHOULD BE SALVAGED to analyse the facts from the painter’s life, introducing the conceptual metaphor REALITY IS THE CONSUMING ITSELF PHOENIX, actualizing of the concepts WORK and PRODUCTION as the key concepts in the artist’s world image, utilizing the concepts WORK and PRODUCTION to interpret several of van Gogh’s paintings, applying the actualized conception of art for art’s sake to reveal van Gogh’s artistic principles, constructing the conceptual metaphors VAN GOGH’S ART IS APPROACHING THE WORLD and VAN GOGH’S ARTISTIC REPRESENTATION OF REALITY IS DISSOLVING IN REALITY, and constructing the conceptual metaphor VAN GOGH’S PAINTINGS ARE LASERS.

Introspection and cognitive linguistics

2006 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 135-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raymond W. Gibbs
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Simple Fact ◽  
The Real ◽  
Language And Thought ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Interdisciplinary Scholarship

Cognitive linguists typically conduct their scholarship by relying upon their own intuitions about systematic patterns of language and what these may imply about the structure of human thought. But are linguists’ introspections reliable sources of evidence? Much work in contemporary cognitive science suggests that people’s introspections about their beliefs, feelings, and the reasons for their actions are quite inaccurate. Even trained experts often fail to recognize the real reasons for their beliefs and actions. The simple fact is that our ability to introspect upon many cognitive processes is extremely limited. This article discusses the implications of this empirical evidence for cognitive linguistic research and theory. I suggest several ways, nonetheless, by which cognitive linguists can better contribute to interdisciplinary scholarship by more systematically exploring the nature and reasons for their introspections on language and thought.

scholarly journals Seacraft Names in Military Discourse

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-26
Author(s):  
E. E. Golubkova ◽  
E. B. Kivileva
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Frame Analysis ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Military Discourse ◽  
Named Objects ◽  
American Tradition ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
The Military

The article analyses the process of meaning formation of names of warships in the military discourse with the aim of identifying conceptual mechanisms which underlie the naming of seacraft. The research constitutes part of the study in the field of cognitive linguistics and fills in the gap in the studies of metaphoric potential and cultural specificities of secondary names applied to artifacts (as big as warships) in British and American tradition. The results show that of all 1200 seacraft names, 700 units are originally zoomorphic common nouns transformed into proper names of seacraft with which they “share” and sometimes even exchange some of their basic or latent semantic characteristics. It was revealed that underlying mechanisms of meaning formation in seacraft nicknames are cognitive mechanisms of conceptual metaphor, focusing and defocusing. To describe them the methods of frame analysis and cognitive metaphoric modelling are employed. Metaphor in the paper is both the object and the tool of research. To support the analysis, the information about specific features of named objects and creatures is elicited from dictionaries and language corpora.

Why cardinalities are the “natural” natural numbers

2008 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 659-659
Author(s):  
Mathieu Le Corre
Keyword(s):  
Natural Number ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Numerical Cognition ◽  
Independent Sets ◽  
Natural Numbers ◽  
Number Concepts

AbstractAccording to Rips et al., numerical cognition develops out of two independent sets of cognitive primitives – one that supports enumeration, and one that supports arithmetic and the concepts of natural numbers. I argue against this proposal because it incorrectly predicts that natural number concepts could develop without prior knowledge of enumeration.

scholarly journals Conceptualizations of the Heart in Jordanian Arabic: A Cognitive Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Omar Bani Mofarrej ◽  
Ghaleb Rabab'ah
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
Human Heart ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
Cognitive Perspective ◽  
Jordanian Arabic ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
Idiomatic Expressions ◽  
Levantine Arabic

The present paper examines the metaphorical and metonymical conceptualizations of the heart in Jordanian Arabic (JA) within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory developed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The main aim is to explore how the human heart is conceptualized in JA, and to test the applicability of the different general cognitive mechanisms proposed by Niemeier (2003 and 2008) to those found in JA. The data were extracted from Idioms and Idiomatic Expressions in Levantine Arabic: Jordanian Dialect (Alzoubi, 2020), and other resources including articles, dissertations and books of Arabic proverbs. The findings revealed that all the four general cognitive mechanisms suggested by Niemeier (2003 and 2008) are applicable to JA. The findings also showed that the similarity derives from the universal aspects of the human body, which lends tremendous support to the embodiment hypothesis proposed by cognitive linguists. 

scholarly journals Standing up to the canoe: Competing cognitive biases in the encoding of stative spatial relations in a language with a single spatial preposition

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 807-841
Author(s):  
Åshild Næss
Keyword(s):  
Motion Analysis ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Spatial Configuration ◽  
Spatial Relations ◽  
Standing Up ◽  
Fictive Motion ◽  
Search Domain

AbstractThis paper discusses how verbal directional markers are used to encode stative spatial relations in the Oceanic language Äiwoo. It argues that the apparent reversal of directional meaning in stative expressions, where ‘up’ is used in expressions meaning ‘underneath’, ‘down’ in expressions meaning ‘above’, and ‘out’ in expressions meaning ‘inside’, can be explained by a fictive motion analysis where the figure is construed as metaphorically moving towards the ground. It moreover argues that in expressions where motion leads to a resulting spatial configuration, where ‘up’ means ‘on top of’ rather than ‘underneath’, this reading is overridden by the so-called goal bias, whereby the resultant configuration is more cognitively salient than the motion producing it. It suggests that the linguistic construal of stative spatial relations may to some extent be correlated with the formal means of expression, where marking by adpositions favours a ‘search domain’ construal whereas encoding within the verb favours a ‘fictive path’ construal. It thus provides a new angle on the linguistic encoding of spatial relations, an area which has been subject to much research within cognitive linguistics, but which so far has paid little attention to the possibility of encoding stative spatial relations within the verb.

Through the prototypes of through: A corpus-based cognitive analysis

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-70
Author(s):  
Gaëtanelle Gilquin ◽  
Andrew McMichael
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Cognitive Analysis ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Historical Origin ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
L1 Acquisition

Abstract This paper empirically tests a number of criteria proposed in the literature to identify the prototype of a linguistic category in order to see how they compare with each other - and what this can tell us about the concept of prototypicality. The item under investigation is through, and the starting point is an intuition-based definition of prototypical through. The different criteria are frequency of use, ease of elicitation, historical origin, patterns in L1 acquisition and patterns in L2 use. All instances of through retrieved for testing each of these criteria are classified according to a taxonomy couched in Construction Grammar terms. The findings confirm the special status of the intuition-based prototype of through (the [X moves through Y] construction) according to some of the criteria, but also reveal divergent results, in particular a central use of the instrumental prepositional phrase with through. Conclusions are drawn about the theoretical concept of prototypicality and its possible multi-faceted nature, and more generally about the place of empirical evidence in Cognitive Linguistics.

scholarly journals O SENSO COMUM DE INFORMAÇÃO: QUESTÕES OPORTUNAS

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-93
Author(s):  
Marcos Gonzalez
Keyword(s):  
Critical Review ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Key Technology ◽  
Semantic Frames ◽  
Concept Of Information

Problematizamos o conceito de informação, sob a perspectiva da Linguística Sociocognitiva, em especial da teoria da metáfora conceptual e da teoria dos frames semânticos, a fim de verificar se a terminologia predominante da Ciência da Informação (CI) é próxima do “senso comum”, como querem alguns autores da área. De fato, pudemos descrever o esquema cognitivo em que o conceito de informação é produtivo. Identificamos um componente da metáfora do canal, a metáfora INFORMAÇÃO É CONTEÚDO, capaz de confirmar a suspeita dos epistemólogos da CI e ir além: ela revela uma maneira mecânica de “falar sobre comunicação” que é de um “senso comum” desde há muitos séculos. Qual “senso comum”? Argumentando que a metáfora INFORMAÇÃO É CONTEÚDO faz mais sentido no contexto da comunicação escrita do que na falada, sugerimos uma revisão crítica dos efeitos que o letramento em massa aos seis anos poderia estar provocando na mentalidade ocidental: ao valorizar a escrita, tecnologia fundamental para a sustentabilidade das “sociedades da informação”, estaremos negligenciando a oralidade e, em consequência, negando nossa humanidade? THE COMMONSENSE OF INFORMATION: TEMPESTIVE QUESTIONSAbstractWe problematize the concept of information, from the perspective of socio-cognitive linguistics, especially that from the conceptual metaphor and semantic frames theories, in order to check whether the prevailing terminology of the Information Science (IS) is close to the “commonsense”, as some authors whish. In fact, we describe a cognitive scheme in which the concept of information is productive. A component of the conduit metaphor, INFORMATION IS CONTENT, seems to confirm the suspicion of IS epistemologists and more: it reveals a mechanical way to “speek about communication” that is a “commonsense” for centuries. Which “commonsense”? Arguing that the metaphor INFORMATION IS CONTENT makes more sense in the context of written language than in spoken one, we suggest a critical review of the effects that mass literacy at age six could be causing in Western mind: giving prestige to the writing language, a key technology for the sustainability of “information societies”, are we neglecting orality and therefore denying our humanity?

scholarly journals A marriage of convenience or an amicable divorce: Metaphorical blends in the debates on Brexit

ExELL ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Sanja Berberović ◽  
Mersina Mujagić
Keyword(s):  
Public Discourse ◽  
Figurative Language ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Discourse Coherence ◽  
The Way

Abstract The paper investigates the interaction of conceptual blending and conceptual metaphor in producing figurative creativity in discourse. The phenomenon of figurative creativity is defined by Kövecses (2005) as creativity arising through the cognitive mechanisms of metonymy, metaphor, and blending. Specifically, the paper examines the use of creative figurative language in the British public discourse on the topic on Brexit. The aim of this paper is to show that conventional metaphors can be creatively stretched through conceptual blending, producing instances of creative figurative language. Specifically, applying blending theory, we will analyse innovative conceptual blends, motivated by the conventional marriage/divorce metaphor. In addition, the paper also examines the way in which creative figurative language produced in metaphorical blends provides discourse coherence at intertextual and intratextual levels.

scholarly journals Neo-mechanistic explanatory integration for cognitive science: the problem of reduction remains

Sofia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Azevedo Leite
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Cognitive Models ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Significant Challenge ◽  
Neural Processes ◽  
Cognitive Theories ◽  
Multi Level

One of the central aims of the neo-mechanistic framework for the neural and cognitive sciences is to construct a pluralistic integration of scientific explanations, allowing for a weak explanatory autonomy of higher-level sciences, such as cognitive science. This integration involves understanding human cognition as information processing occurring in multi-level human neuro-cognitive mechanisms, explained by multi-level neuro-cognitive models. Strong explanatory neuro-cognitive reduction, however, poses a significant challenge to this pluralist ambition and the weak autonomy of cognitive science derived therefrom. Based on research in current molecular and cellular neuroscience, the framework holds that the best strategy for integrating human neuro-cognitive theories is through direct reductive explanations based on molecular and cellular neural processes. It is my aim to investigate whether the neo-mechanistic framework can meet the challenge. I argue that leading neo-mechanists offer some significant replies; however, they are not able yet to completely remove strong explanatory reductionism from their own framework.

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