Language and creativity: a Construction Grammar approach to linguistic creativity

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Hoffmann
Keyword(s):  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Evolutionary Adaptation ◽  
Theory Construction ◽  
Conceptual Blending ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Explanatory Account ◽  
The Way

AbstractCreativity is an important evolutionary adaptation that allows humans to think original thoughts, to find solutions to problems that have never been encountered before and to fundamentally change the way we live. One particular domain of human cognition that has received considerable attention is linguistic creativity. The present paper discusses how the leading cognitive linguistic theory, Construction Grammar, can provide an explanatory account of creativity that goes beyond the issue of linguistic productivity. At the same time, it also outlines how Construction Grammar can benefit from insights from Conceptual Blending.

Time out of tense: Russian aspect in the imperative

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 541-576
Author(s):  
STEPHEN M. DICKEY
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Single Action ◽  
Time Out ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Russian Aspect ◽  
Do So

This article analyzes Russian aspectual usage in the imperative by combining Šatunovskij’s (2009) approach with Dickey’s (2018) cognitive linguistic theory of Russian aspect. It argues that the contrasting use of perfective and imperfective imperatives in mands for the completion of a single action can be explained in terms of the pragmatic mechanisms proposed by Šatunovskij (2009): perfective imperatives signal a request on the part of the speaker for the listener to make the decision to carry out the action, whereas imperfective imperatives make no such signal, because the decision has already been made. The latter occurs when the speaker knows or infers that the listener has already made the decision (or will do so if given the chance), or when the speaker has suspended the listener’s decision-making role and has gone ahead and made the decision. Various contextual uses of affirmative and negated imperatives and analyzes them in terms of the request or lack thereof for the listener to make the decision to carry out the action. The functions of the perfective and imperfective aspects in imperatives are argued to be instantiations of temporal definiteness and temporal indefiniteness (respectively). Inasmuch as this is true, Russian aspect codes alternative construals of time in non-finite usage as well as finite usage.

The interpretation of encapsulating anaphors in Spanish and their functions

2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-60 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lotte Dam
Keyword(s):  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Interpretive Process

Abstract Encapsulating anaphors differ from other types of anaphor by having one or more situations - not an entity - as its referent. The main aim of the article is to propose a hypothesis for how anaphoric encapsulation is resolved. The hypothesis builds on the cognitive linguistic theory of instructional semantics to suggest that anaphoric encapsulation provides instructions for the interpretive process, leading to the resolution of the anaphoric relation. A secondary aim is to illustrate various functions of this type of anaphor

scholarly journals Construction Grammar and the corpus-based analysis of discourses

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 291-323
Author(s):  
Nicholas Groom
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Model ◽  
General Framework ◽  
Construction Grammar ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Research Traditions ◽  
Detailed Case ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Academic Discourses ◽  
The Way

Abstract Construction grammar (CxG) initially arose as a usage-based alternative to nativist theoretical accounts of language, and remains to this day strongly associated with cognitive linguistic theory and research. In this paper, however, I argue that CxG can be seen as offering an equally viable general framework for socially-oriented linguists whose work focuses on the corpus-based analysis of discourses (CBADs). The paper begins with brief reviews of CxG and CBADs as distinctive research traditions, before going on to identify synergies (both potential and actual) between them. I then offer a more detailed case study example, focusing on a usage-based analysis of a newly identified construction, the WAY IN WHICH construction, as it occurs in corpora representing six different academic discourses. The paper concludes by rebutting some anticipated objections to the approach advocated here, and by proposing a new conceptual model for constructionist approaches to CBADs.

scholarly journals Comparing the Order of Multi-Layered Modifiers in English, Chinese and Vietnamese in Language Teaching

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 66-71
Author(s):  
Vo Thi Quynh Trang
Keyword(s):  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Intimate Relationship ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Object Type ◽  
The Core ◽  
Left Branch ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Right

From the cross-linguistic perspective and cognitive linguistic theory, this study has analysed the rules of multi-layered modifiers in English, Chinese, and Vietnamese, pointing out their common points and differences. Although all three languages belong to the SVO (subject-verb-object) type but modifiers in English and Chinese are in front of the core words, which shows that English and Chinese belong to the language in the left branch, but modifiers in Vietnamese, they are behind the core words which shows that Vietnamese belongs to the right branch. All the three languages have one thing in common, whether they are on the left or on the right branch, in which modifiers have the closest relationship with the core words that will stand nearest to them. Other modifiers that have a non-intimate relationship with the core words will stand further away from them. Thus, mastering this feature of the three types of languages will help in language teaching and learning.

scholarly journals Neither male nor female: Poetic imagery and the nature of God in the Old Testament

2019 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 166-181
Author(s):  
James Gordon McConville
Keyword(s):  
Old Testament ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Metaphorical Language ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Poetic Imagery ◽  
The Relationship

The article considers the relationship between the metaphorical language for God used in the poetry of the Old Testament, especially female metaphors, and the Old Testament’s portrayal of the nature of God. It considers two opposing views: first, that female imagery, such as birth imagery, suggests that Yahweh has a ‘female aspect’, and, second, that such language notwithstanding, Yahweh is indefeasibly male. The argument employs cognitive linguistic theory and suggests that male and female metaphors for Yahweh do not bespeak either maleness or femaleness in the deity, but rather Yahweh’s identification with human experience broadly. While the Old Testament emerged in a world dominated by masculine perspectives, it also transforms received concepts, especially in relation to God. This transformative character of the Old Testament can become a model for contemporary readings of the Bible in relation to the contentious area of gender and language for God.

scholarly journals A Cognitive Study of the Color Metaphor of Yellow

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 123
Author(s):  
Li Yan
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Rhetorical Device ◽  
Metaphorical Language ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Scope Of Application ◽  
Cognitive Study ◽  
Linguistic Phenomenon

A metaphor is the substitution of unknown things by familiar or perceptible things. Traditional linguistic theory regards metaphor as a rhetorical device and metaphorical linguistic transformation as an inter-lingual transformation at the rhetorical level. Cognitive linguistic theory holds that metaphor is not only a linguistic phenomenon but also an important cognitive way, which provides a new study of language cognition and transformation. From the perspective of cognitive linguistics, this paper analyses metaphorical phenomena and explores the transformation of metaphorical language to deepen readers' understanding of metaphorical language and broaden the scope of application of metaphorical techniques.

scholarly journals Textual Deixis and the ‘Anchoring’ Use of the Latin Pronoun hic

Mnemosyne ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 585-612
Author(s):  
Caroline Kroon
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Linguistic Theory ◽  
Explanatory Framework ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Discourse Organization ◽  
Communicative Strategy

This article evaluates the results of prior research on anaphoric reference in Latin, and tries to account for the various observations within a single explanatory framework. This framework combines insights from cognitive linguistic theory and from ongoing empirical research on the linguistic marking of discourse organization in Latin. After a brief discussion of recent cognitive linguistic views on the relation between deixis and anaphora, I concentrate on the various uses of the Latin demonstrativehicin Virgil’sAeneid. The examples discussed show thathic’s deictic aspect of proximity can be discerned in all its uses, the variety of which can best be described in terms of a ‘cline’, running from canonical deixis to canonical anaphora. It is argued that in its anaphoric use, Latinhicbehaves as a linguistic ‘anchoring’ device, and is used as part of a communicative strategy referred to as‘reculer pour mieux sauter’.

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