Cognitive Linguistics in the Year 2015

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-154 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura A. Janda

Cognitive linguistics views linguistic cognition as indistinguishable from general cognition and thus seeks explanation of linguistic phenomena in terms of general cognitive strategies, such as metaphor, metonymy, and blending. Grammar and lexicon are viewed as parts of a single continuum and thus expected to be subject to the same cognitive strategies. Significant developments within cognitive linguistics in the past two decades include construction grammar and the application of quantitative methods to analyses.

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Guocai ZENG

Within the theoretical frameworks of cognitive linguistics and cognitive construction grammar, this papertakes the pair of a WH-question and one of its answers in contemporary spoken English as the research object and regards such pairs as WH-dialogic constructions. In this study we construct an Event-based Schema-Instance Cognitive Model (ESI model) to analyze the cognitive-functional properties of this category of dialogic constructions. The discoursal expansion and textual cohesion in discourse achieved through the application of such dialogic constructions indicate that the usage of WH-dialogic constructions is one of the basic cognitive strategies for human beings to construe the objective world. 


Corpora ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-349
Author(s):  
Craig Frayne

This study uses the two largest available American English language corpora, Google Books and the Corpus of Historical American English (coha), to investigate relations between ecology and language. The paper introduces ecolinguistics as a promising theme for corpus research. While some previous ecolinguistic research has used corpus approaches, there is a case to be made for quantitative methods that draw on larger datasets. Building on other corpus studies that have made connections between language use and environmental change, this paper investigates whether linguistic references to other species have changed in the past two centuries and, if so, how. The methodology consists of two main parts: an examination of the frequency of common names of species followed by aspect-level sentiment analysis of concordance lines. Results point to both opportunities and challenges associated with applying corpus methods to ecolinguistc research.


2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dagmar Divjak ◽  
Natalia Levshina ◽  
Jane Klavan

AbstractSince its conception, Cognitive Linguistics as a theory of language has been enjoying ever increasing success worldwide. With quantitative growth has come qualitative diversification, and within a now heterogeneous field, different – and at times opposing – views on theoretical and methodological matters have emerged. The historical “prototype” of Cognitive Linguistics may be described as predominantly of mentalist persuasion, based on introspection, specialized in analysing language from a synchronic point of view, focused on West-European data (English in particular), and showing limited interest in the social and multimodal aspects of communication. Over the past years, many promising extensions from this prototype have emerged. The contributions selected for the Special Issue take stock of these extensions along the cognitive, social and methodological axes that expand the cognitive linguistic object of inquiry across time, space and modality.


2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-238
Author(s):  
Zsuzsa Máthé

"What Time Does in Language: a Cross-Linguistic Cognitive Study of Source Related Variation in Verbal Time Metaphors in American English, Finnish and Hungarian. Such a universal yet abstract concept as time shows variation in metaphorical language. This research focuses on metaphorical language within the framework of the cognitive metaphor theory, investigating time through a contrastive cross-linguistic approach in three satellite-framed languages. By combining qualitative and quantitative methods, this study attempts to identify what time does in language in a metaphorical context, with a focus on verbs in causative constructions (e.g. time heals) as well as manner of motion verbs (e.g. time rushes), through an empirical corpus-based study complemented by the lexical approach. The two main conceptual metaphors that are investigated in this study are TIME IS A CHANGER and TIME IS A MOVING ENTITY. While these two conceptual metaphors are expected to be frequent in all three languages, differences such as negative/positive asymmetry or preference of a type of motion over another are expected to be found. The primary objective is to explore such differences and see how they manifest and why. The hypothesis is that variations among the three languages related to the source domain (CHANGER and MOVING ENTITY), are more likely to be internal and not external. The purpose is to investigate these variations and to determine what cognitive underpinnings they can be traced back to, with a focus on image schemas. The study reveals that source internal variation does prevail over source external variation. The results show that cross-linguistic differences of such a relevant concept as time do exist but more often through unique characteristics of the same source domain rather than new, distinctive domains. Keywords: cognitive linguistics, corpus linguistics, conceptual metaphor theory, metaphorical entailments, source domain "


Author(s):  
Grigory Ivanovich Gerasimov ◽  
Andrei Vladimirovich Gerasimov

The subject of this research is the historical writing technique, which allows creating convincing images of the past. The goal of this article is ti analyze the structure of texts written by the historians and covering the period from antiquity to the XXI century. The theoretical framework consists of the idealistic approach towards history developed by the author. This article is first to examine the structure of texts written by the prominent historians of the past, such as Herodotus, Nestor, Karamzin, Klyuchevsky, and some historians of the XX – XX centuries from the perspective of idealistic approach and the use of quantitative methods. For comparison, analysis is conducted on the literary texts of A. S. Pushkin and V. S. Pikul dedicated to historical themes. The article employs content analysis, structural analysis, and terarchical cluster analysis of the texts on the basis of their structure. This revealed that the structure of these texts consists of the factual and theoretical statements, where the firs prevailed until the mid XX century. The use of cluster analysis allowed building a matrix of similarity of the works. The main method of creating convincing historical text lies in selection and interpretation of the the facts in accordance with the dominant worldview or a widespread historical concept. Facts are subordinated to the theory and confirm the fundamental ideas and historical concepts, as well as depict a convincing image of the past. The conducted analysis indicates that theory plays the key role in creating a convincing historical text, while facts are secondary; no significant impact of historical methods is revealed. The major difference between the analyzed historical and literary texts consists in the fact that there is no theory in the literary works.


2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elzbieta Wójcik-Leese

In the first Polish attempt to systematically describe free verse Urbafska (1995) argues that this poetic form requires ‘visual perception during mental (silent) reading’. As free verse gradually adapts to late 20th-century culture, where the visual supersedes the oral, the intonation and rhythm of a poem increasingly come to depend on its graphic segmentation. Consequently, the visual design of the poem constitutes its meaning. As cognitive linguistics admits that sensory imagery, also visual, ‘plays a substantial role in conceptual and semantic structure’ (Langacker, 1983), it seems possible to employ the cognitive parameters of focal adjustments to analyse a poem composed in free verse. If we assume that reading such a poem involves ‘scanning through a domain’ of the page and ‘along a line’ of the poem ‘until a contrast is registered’ (Langacker, 1983), then we can discuss the whole poem in terms of the figure/ground organization. The whole poem can thus be treated both as the figure in itself and as the background to each of the verses, which demands from its readers constant readjustment of the viewpoint. Therefore the awareness of the cognitive strategies of focal adjustments may help to analyse syntactic and stylistic resources of the salient ordering offered by free verse. Moreover, it may assist the translation of poems composed in free verse and the assessment of translated texts.


Health and safety regulations have always been concerned with risk, though not always overtly. The quantitative expression of risk does not appear in regulations and rarely in guidance materials but is inherent in the policy underlying the development of regulations and in their practical application. The ways in which actual and perceived expressions of risk are used in regulatory actions differ widely. Some dangers are treated as unaccept­able and the regulatory policy is to exclude them totally. In the real world, such policies are never completely successful. The head-on collision of trains in main-line working is one example. The deliberate use of known carcinogens as pesticides is another. Other dangers are recognized as inevitable but as being reducible in degree. The regulatory activity is then aimed at limiting the extent to which a citizen can expose other citizens to this danger and, more recently, the extent to which he is permitted to put himself at risk. The balance of risks and benefits and of one risk with another underlie decisions in these cases. Not only consequences but probabilities become relevant. In the past, all, and even now most, of the regulation of risk has been on a non-quantitative basis. Increasingly, there is a desire to make the process more quantitative and to introduce the idea of acceptability. This change is provided for by many of the features of the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974. Within the framework of that Act, the Health and Safety Commission and its operating arm, the Health and Safety Executive, are developing the more systematic use of quantitative methods of controlling hazards from work activities. The regulation of risk is a growth industry and it behoves us all to clarify our objectives. An aim of zero risk would not be to the benefit of society, but its replacement by more suitable aims is a long and com­plicated process.


Author(s):  
Ronny Boogaart ◽  
Egbert Fortuin

From the start of cognitive linguistics, in the 1980s, researchers working within this framework have given ample attention to mood and modality. This is understandable since these categories crucially involve speaker attitude and perspective and cognitive linguistics has always concerned itself with the ways in which language users present a subjective construal of reality. This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of how mood and modality are analyzed within different strands of cognitive linguistics, ranging from the models of force dynamics and Mental Spaces to Cognitive Grammar. Specific topics discussed include the polysemy of modal verbs, the analysis of tense as modality, and the highly detailed account of modal verbs offered by Langacker in terms of “grounding” and “subjectivity”. The emerging framework of construction grammar focuses on the linguistic contexts, that is constructions, in which modal forms are used, regarding these as constraints on polysemy.


2018 ◽  
Vol 232 ◽  
pp. 01057
Author(s):  
Yashun Zhang

In the past few years, shared bicycles without piles developed so fast, they also experienced problems such as unregulated bicycle parking and unrepaired damaged bicycles. This article’s study about users’ consciously participating in the reporting damaged or illegal vehicles, encourages shared bicycle users’ value co-creation behaviours, and strengthens the interaction between companies and users. This paper uses the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse the reliability and validity of the collected questionnaires, and uses the structural equation model to test the relevant hypotheses. It draws the conclusion that sense of responsibility, sense of accomplishment, expected revenue, peer acceptance, and self-efficacy have positive impacts on the value co-creation behaviour of shared bicycle users. The value creation behaviour of users has a positive impact on process satisfaction and result satisfaction.


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