Why cognitive linguistics requires embodied realism

2002 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Johnson ◽  
George Lakoff
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Embodied Realism

scholarly journals The DIVIDED SELF metaphor: A cognitive-linguistic study of two poems by Nabokov

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 97
Author(s):  
Mª Asunción Barreras Gómez
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
The Self ◽  
Linguistic Study ◽  
Divided Self ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Embodied Realism ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Shed Light

<p>This paper will approach two of Nabokov’s poems from the perspective of embodied realism in Cognitive Linguistics. We will shed light on the reasons why we believe that Nabokov makes use of the DIVIDED SELF metaphor in his poetry. In the analysis of the poems we will explain how the Subject is understood in the author’s life in exile whereas the Self is understood in the author’s feelings of anguish and longing for his Russian past. Finally, we will also explain how Nabokov’s use of the DIVIDED SELF metaphor thematically structures both poems.</p>

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.

‘[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.

cognitive-pragmatic account of the English imperative-conditional construction

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-269
Author(s):  
Keding Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Processing Unit ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
The Third ◽  
Pragmatic Enrichment ◽  
Symbolic Structure ◽  
Speaker Intentions ◽  
Interactive Relationship ◽  
Pragmatic Account ◽  
Everyday Communication

The imperative-conditional construction (ICC) in English is a type of construction which consists of an ordinary imperative clause and an ordinary declarative clause connected by the connective and or or. This article deals with the speaker intentions of ICCs and their motivations from a cognitive-pragmatic approach. Based on the concept of construction in cognitive linguistics, an ICC can be called a complex symbolic structure which, though composed of two components, should be regarded as a single pragmatic processing unit. It is demonstrated that, in everyday communication, the ICC can usually convey three kinds of speaker intentions: a prohibitive intention, an inducing/forcing intention, and an advisory intention. The first refers to the intention of the speaker to prohibit the hearer from carrying out the act described by the imperative. The second is the intention of the speaker to induce or force the hearer to bring about the act described by the imperative. The third refers to the intention of the speaker to advise the hearer to carry out the act described by the imperative. These speaker intentions are highly motivated. The motivations include the constructional context, the conditional relation between the imperative and the declarative, the directive force of the imperative, the pragmatic enrichment of the declarative, and the complementary and interactive relationship between the imperative and declarative clauses, among which the constructional context serves as an overall motivation, and the rest may be seen as specific motivations.

Pohľad Na Pomenovanie Cez Prizmu Teoretických Rámcov A Slovníkového Hesla

2018 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-301
Author(s):  
Alexandra Jarošová
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Linguistic Meaning ◽  
Extended Model ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Departure Point ◽  
Lexical Meaning ◽  
Linguistic Pragmatics ◽  
Situational Contexts ◽  
Methodological Procedures

Abstract The first part of this paper outlines the relevant aspects of functional structuralism serving lexicographers as a departure point for building a model of lexical meaning useable in the Dictionary of Contemporary Slovak Language. This section also points to some aspects of Klára Buzássyová’s research on lexis and word­formation that have enriched the functional­structuralist paradigm. The second section shows other theoretical and methodological frameworks, such as linguistic pragmatics, cognitive linguistics and corpus linguistics (all of them departing in some respect from the structuralism and, in other aspects, being complementary with it) that can enhance the structuralist basis of the model. The third section outlines an extended model of lexical meaning that represents a synthesis of all those theoretical frameworks and, at the same time, represents a reflection of three language constituents: 1. The social constituent is present in consideration of communicative functions of utterances, naming functions of lexical units, functional styles and registers, language norms, and situational contexts; 2. The psychological component takes the form of consideration of the prototype effect, the abolition of boundaries between linguistic meaning and other parts of cognition; 3. Thanks to the structural/systematic component, a description of paradigmatic and syntagmatic behaviour of words can be performed, and an inventory of formal­content units and categories (lexemes, lexies, word­forming and grammatical structures) can be provided. In our dictionary practice, the above­mentioned model is reflected in the methodological procedures as follows: 1. Systemization of repetitive (regular, standardized) phenomena; 2. Prototypicalization of meaning description; 3. Contextualization/encyclopedization of meaning description; 4. Pragmatization of meaning description; 5. Continualized presentation of language phenomena, i.e., introduction of numerous phenomena of transient and indeterminate nature and indicating the existence of a semantic­pragmatic and lexical­grammatical continuum; 6. “Discretization” of combinatorial continuum, i.e., identification and description of entrenched word combinations with naming functions.

من الاشتراك الدلالي إلى تغير المعنى

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
saber lahbacha
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Arabic Language ◽  
Pragmatic Approach ◽  
Cognitive Approach ◽  
Meaning Change ◽  
Language And Literature ◽  
Lexical Concepts

From polysemy to meaning change: lexical cognitive perspectivesSaber Lahbacha By:PhD. Arabic language and Literature, University of Manouba, Member of association of Arabic lexicology in TunisAbstract:Many essays to find a model to study polysemy in most words emerged in several semantic, lexical, cognitive and pragmatic perspectives. Diverse dimensions of this phenomenon are activated according to the requirements of each discipline. If the lexical treatment gives priority to distinguish between polysemy (one entry) and homonymy (many entries), the pragmatic approach includes the contextual non-linguistic operators in building polysemy. The cognitive approach considers that lexical concepts are sets of semantic complicated nuances built on polysemy. This cognitive approach considers that there is no way to distinguish between meanings and the boundaries between them are ambiguous.Key words: Semantics – Polysemy – cognitive linguistics – lexicology – homonymy. ملخصلم تنقطع محاولات إيجاد منوال لمقاربة الاشتراك الدلالي (تعدّد المعاني) في معظم الكلمات عن البروز ضمن منظورات دلالية ومعجمية وعرفانية وتداولية متعددة. وبحسب مقتضيات كلّ فرع لساني، يجري تنشيط الأبعاد المختلفة للظاهرة ويتم التركيز على مناحٍ دون أخرى. فإذا كانت المعالجة المعجمية تضع أولوية اهتمامها في توضيح التمييز بين الاشتراك الدلالي (مدخل واحد) والاشتراك اللفظي (مداخل متعددة)، فإن المقاربة التداولية تؤصل مشاركة العوامل السياقية غير اللغوية في تأسيس الاشتراك الدلالي. أما المقاربة العرفانية فترى أن المفاهيم المعجمية هي مجموعات من الفروق الدلالية المتراكبة التي تقوم على الاشتراك الدلالي ولا ترى أن التمييز بين المعاني ممكن بل إن الحدود بين المفاهيم المعجمية ضبابية.الكلمات المفاتيح: علم الدلالة - الاشتراك الدلالي – اللسانيات العرفانية – المعجمية - الاشتراك اللفظي.

Cognitive dominants of the conceptual sphere in the novel “of human bondage” by W. S. Maugham

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-61
Author(s):  
Olga B. Ponomareva ◽  
Valeriya I. Orlova
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Meaning Of Life ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Thought Processes ◽  
New Paradigm ◽  
Comprehensive Description ◽  
Semantic Fields ◽  
Linguistic Representations ◽  
Basic Concepts ◽  
Linguistic Methods

This article presents a comprehensive analysis of the basic concepts that make up the conceptual sphere of the novel “Of Human Bondage” by W. S. Maugham. These concepts act as cognitive dominants of the linguistic consciousness of the protagonist’s linguistic personality in the work under study. The novelty of this research lies in the fact that it is performed within the framework of a new paradigm of linguistics — the cognitive linguistics, which involves the study of mental and linguistic representations of thought processes that occur during the perception of information. Moreover, the novel “Of Human Bondage” by W. S. Maugham has not attracted the attention of linguists-cognitologists previously, which adds to the novelty of this article. In addition, the present study provides a comprehensive description of the basic concepts making up the conceptual sphere of the novel. The linguistic methods of representing various concepts in the analyzed work are determined by the national, personal, cultural, and psychological aspects of Maugham’s thinking. The authors employ a communicative-cognitive methodological analysis proposed by N. S. Bolotnova involving the modeling of textual and intertextual semantic fields of artistic concepts and the analysis of the conceptual sphere of a literary text. The universal concepts RELIGION, LOVE, PASSION, THE MEANING OF LIFE, which constitute the conceptual sphere of the novel by W. S. Maugham “Of Human Bondage”, are analyzed. The main result of the study is that THE MEANING OF LIFE concept is universal, not individual, and it includes other universal concepts, such as RELIGION, LOVE, PASSION, THE MEANING OF LIFE, conceptual metaphors and metonyms, symbols, and other words-associates, which constitute the broad figurative and evaluative periphery of the conceptual sphere of the novel.

The Property Species

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart J. Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
First Century ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Symbolic Thought ◽  
Core Property ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

What is property, and why does our species happen to have it? The Property Species explores how Homo sapiens acquires, perceives, and knows the custom of property, and why it might be relevant for understanding how property works in the twenty-first century. Arguing from some hard-to-dispute facts that neither the natural sciences nor the humanities—nor the social sciences squarely in the middle—are synthesizing a full account of property, this book offers a cross-disciplinary compromise that is sure to be controversial: All human beings and only human beings have property in things, and at its core, property rests on custom, not rights. Such an alternative to conventional thinking contends that the origins of property lie not in food, mates, territory, or land, but in the very human act of creating, with symbolic thought, something new that did not previously exist. Integrating cognitive linguistics with the philosophy of property and a fresh look at property disputes in the common law, this book makes the case that symbolic-thinking humans locate the meaning of property within a thing. The provocative implications are that property—not property rights—is an inherent fundamental principle of economics, and that legal realists and the bundle-of-sticks metaphor are wrong about the facts regarding property. Written by an economist who marvels at the natural history of humankind, the book is essential reading for experts and any reader who has wondered why people claim things as “Mine!,” and what that means for our humanity.

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