scholarly journals Place Names in Ekegusii Language: A Cognitive Linguistics Approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-38
Author(s):  
Aunga Solomon Onchoke
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Panel Discussion ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Cognitive Metaphor ◽  
The Social ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
Mapping Analysis ◽  
Different Types

This paper analyses place names in the Ekegusii language from the cognitive linguistics point of view. The study is grounded on three objectives: to identify and explain the Ekegusii names of places, to describe the social cultural values, and to account for the cognitive processes involved in their mapping, analysis and elucidation. The data comprises of a list of Ekegusii place names collected from two counties, Kisii and Nyamira, by interviewing people through snowballing, and later holding a panel discussion with selected elders regarding the mapping processes and meanings associated with them. The Cognitive Metaphor Theory was used to map them to the different types of conceptual domains. Findings from this study show that place names in Ekegusii are conceptualized as seasons, topography, people, animals, plants and objects (as source domains which are social-culturally determined), and portray their cultural identity and tradition. The study concludes by suggesting further research in onomastics, especially on metaphor and metonymy in other languages of the world.

scholarly journals Metaforikus névadás

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 9-28
Author(s):  
Katalin Reszegi
Keyword(s):  
Data Collection ◽  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Psychological Reality ◽  
Cognitive Mechanism ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
Proper Nouns ◽  
Cognitive Metaphor ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
The Creation

The paper discusses the cognitive mechanics of metaphorical name-giving with a focus on place names, following an overview of cognitive metaphor theory and the questions of metaphorically used proper nouns. In cognitive linguistics, the use of metaphors is a cognitive mechanism that plays a fundamental role in human thought and understanding, and the creation of our social, cultural and psychological reality. A particular form of this also manifests in name-giving, creating a small but influential category of names. The category of place names also influences the application of this name-giving method: it is generally used in more informal names and name types. The creation of such a name requires the speaker to detach themselves from the conventional norms of direct descriptionand metonymic name-giving, and relies on their lingual creativity and ability to detach themselves from dominant name-giving models. However, names in the category can also be divided into subcategories. Beyond the typical common-noun-based metaphorical name-giving, more complex parallels can also be found, resulting in the associations connecting the names of several nearby locations. Place names can also serve as the base of metaphorical name-giving, supporting the complex meaning of these names. Despite the fact that the majority of metaphorical names are available from contemporary data collection, it is obviously a long-standing and ancient method of name-giving, as it is based on a cognitive mechanics that seem to be as old as humanity itself.

Leader metaphors in Ekegusii language

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-215
Author(s):  
Aunga Solomon Onchoke ◽  
Xu Wen
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Values ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Cognitive Mapping ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Linguistic Study ◽  
Descriptive Research ◽  
Bantu Language ◽  
Cognitive Metaphor ◽  
The Social ◽  
Metaphor Theory

Abstract This is a cognitive linguistic study of a cultural-specific metaphor of a leader in Ekegusii, an African Bantu language in Kenya. A descriptive research design was used whereby the natives were asked to identify and explain the Ekegusii leader metaphorical terms and phrases, describe the social cultural values and to account for the cognitive mapping processes involved. The data collected were analyzed using the Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT) of Lakoff and Johnson (1980). The results show that a leader in Ekegusii is conceptualized as a plant, animal, object or the behavior the leader exhibits (also act as X domains). It was also found out that context, values, attitude of the speaker and cultural knowledge play a major role in interpreting and understanding Ekegusii leader metaphors. The study concludes by suggesting further research of metaphors in African and other languages to enable comparisons.

scholarly journals “Cognitive Linguistics: Looking back, looking forward”

2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 447-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dagmar Divjak ◽  
Natalia Levshina ◽  
Jane Klavan
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
The Past ◽  
European Data ◽  
Time Space ◽  
The Social ◽  
Theory Of Language ◽  
Looking Back ◽  
West European

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.

scholarly journals Kriminalinės justicijos recepcija visuomenėje

2012 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Dobryninas ◽  
M. Dobrynina ◽  
I. Česnienė ◽  
V. Giedraitis ◽  
R. Merkevičius
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Expert Knowledge ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Public ◽  
Professional Interest ◽  
The Social ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Penal Law ◽  
Vilnius University

Santrauka. Kriminalinė justicija suprantama kaip socialinės kontrolės sistema, kuri per atitinkamą įstatymų leidybą, praktikas bei institucijas užtikrina nusikaltimų kontrolę ir prevenciją bei taiko poveikio priemones teisės pažeidėjams. Kriminalinės justicijos paskirtis demokratinėje visuomenėje atitinka jos narius vienijantį bendrą socialinį interesą – gyventi saugioje ir solidarioje visuomenėje, kurioje kiekvienam jos piliečiui yra užtikrinamas tinkamas saugumo lygis, paisoma jų teisių, o teisingumas vykdomas visiems vienodai ir teisingai. Nors Vakarų civilizacijos kriminalinės justicijos principams yra daugiau kaip du šimtai metų, jų įgyvendinimas visuomenėje nėra mechaninis ir priklauso nuo įvairių istorinių, kultūrinių, geografinių bei globalaus vystymosi aplinkybių. Straipsnyje, remiantis fenomenologinės sociologinės požiūriu, analizuojamos kriminalinės justicijos recepcijos konstravimo aspektai profesiniame lauke, jo sąsajos su makro (ekonomikos) bei mikro (psichologijos) socialiniais veiksniais, masinių medijų įtaka kriminalinės justicijos suvokimui visuomenėje. Atsižvelgiama ne tik į relevantiškas šiai problemai teorinius šaltinius, bet ir atliktos fokusuotų grupinių diskusijų rezultatus. Pirmame poskyryje analizuojami profesiniai teisiniai kriminalinės justicijos apibrėžimo aspektai, antrame – demonstruojami, kaip ekonominiai procesai gali keisti politinius kriminalinės justicijos tikslus. Trečias poskyris nagrinėja psichologinius veiksnius, kurie gali įtakoti paprastų žmonių sampratą apie kriminalinę justiciją. Ketvirtas poskyris pristato komunikacinius kriminalinės justicijos recepcijos visuomenėje aspektus.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: kriminalinė justicija, diskursai, ekonominiai ciklai, psichologinė recepcija, masinės medijos. Keywords: criminal justice, discourses, economic circles, psychological reception, mass media.ABSTRACT  On Perceptions of Criminal Justice in SocietyThe perception of criminal justice in society is a controversial social problem. Traditionally, criminal justice issues have been treated as a matter of professional interest for criminologists, criminal justice experts and other professionals from related fields. But is expert knowledge the only valid kind when it comes to criminal justice topics? This question, though rhetorical, is aimed at stimulating discussion about the co-existence of different types of social knowledge on criminal justice, and their impact on various discourses concerning crime and punishment in society. In this article a group of researchers from Vilnius University makes use of phenomenological methods to analyse three different types of discourse on criminal justice: professional, political and public. The professional discourse on criminal justice is scrutinised from the perspective of penal law, the political discourse from the point of view of macroeconomics, while the public discourse is analysed using ideas drawn from psychology and media studies. The analysis of these discourses seeks to examine the social construction of criminal justice, and the particularities of its reception among professionals, politicians and a wider public.

scholarly journals English Influence on Linguistic Landscape of Modern Russian Cities

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Svetlana Pitina
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Linguistic Landscape ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Urban Place ◽  
Saint Petersburg ◽  
City Space ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Place Naming ◽  
Modern Russian

This paper provides an integral cognitive and language and cultural study of linguistic landscape diversity which is of a particular interest from the viewpoint of multilingualism expansion. The research aims to outline and analyze peculiarities of English influence on the modern urban space of Russian cities. This paper puts forward and confirms the hypothesis that English influence on linguistic landscape of the three modern Russian cities is a regular process in commercial place naming, that it is realized in various ways in different types of ergonyms to meet the demands of customers. Local city space is seen as a complex system from the point of view of language and cultural studies. Local urban naming is analyzed on the material of about 1,000 partially or completely anglicized names of language centers, tourist agencies and book shops of Yekaterinburg, Saint-Petersburg and Chelyabinsk retrieved from official websites. The data analysis has shown the existence of both general tendencies in forming urban commercial place names and realization of regional consciousness in naming. The findings prove that nomination processes in urban naming combine local and global tendencies. One of the main universal tendencies of naming is urban globalization realized in the English influence on the modern linguistic landscape in general and on the urban place names in particular. It is shown that English influence (Anglicization) is realized in glocalization, the coexistence of English and local characteristics of Russian urban place names. Anglicization tendencies and mechanisms include language fashion and creativity. The study reveals patterns of borrowing, codeswitching and language interplay. It is illustrated that blending, transliteration from English into Russian, usage of hybrid words and expressions are characteristic of the analyzed minor place names.

scholarly journals L’uso della toponomastica come indicatore di insediamenti e strutture fortificate: il caso toscano

X ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camillo Berti ◽  
Massimiliano Grava
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Geographical Information Systems ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Time Span ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Geographical Information ◽  
Place Names ◽  
Scientific Contribution ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Diachronic Analysis

The use of toponymy as an indicator of settlements and fortified structures: the Tuscan caseThe purpose of this contribution is to analyze the spatial distribution of the place names referred to the Tuscan territory, to fortified structures and settlements, through the study of the place names recorded geodatabase RE.TO.RE. (Regional Toponymic Repertory) created by the Tuscany Region with the scientific contribution of the Universities of Pisa, Florence and Siena. The Tuscan toponyms has been the object of both a synchronic study within each of the cartographic sources that make up the geographical database, and a diachronic analysis between the temporal thresholds in which the archive is articulated. The database, extrapolated from cartographic supports, in fact covers a time span between the first decades of the nineteenth century (nineteenth century land registries) and the most recent information series produced in the regional context (Carta Tecnica Regionale). In the contribution, the place names related in various ways to different types of structures and fortified settlements, such as castle, fort, tower, fortress, has been analyzed both in relation to the distribution and spatial aspects, and in reference to their evolutionary dynamics (persistence, disappearance, transformation), with the aim of identifying possible relationships between the territory and the distribution in time and space of the different types of fortifications. From a methodological point of view, the study has been carried out, in addition to the traditional tools of the topomastic survey, especially taking advantage of the potential of spatial analysis functions typical of geographical information systems.

Conceptual metaphor theory

2008 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 168-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoltán Kövecses
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
Standard Theory ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Conceptual Metaphor Theory ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cognitive Metaphor ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
Basic Level

Despite its popularity in and outside cognitive linguistics, cognitive metaphor theory (CMT) has received a wide range of criticisms in the past two decades. Several metaphor researchers have criticized the methodology with which metaphor is studied (emphasizing concepts instead of words), the direction of analysis (emphasizing a top-down instead of a bottom-up approach), the category level of metaphor (claiming its superordinate status instead of basic level), the embodiment of metaphor (emphasizing the universal, mechanical, and monolithic aspects instead of nonuniversal, nonmechanical, and nonmonolithic aspects of embodiment), and its relationship to culture (emphasizing the role of universal bodily experience instead of the interaction of body and context). In the paper, I respond to this criticism largely based on my own research and propose a view on these issues that can successfully meet these challenges and that can be regarded as an alternative to the “standard theory.”

scholarly journals Metaphors to Survive by: Mimicry as Biometaphors, Embodiment of Sign and Cognitive Tools (not only) in Animals?

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-43
Author(s):  
Róbert Bohát
Keyword(s):  
Animal Cognition ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Tools ◽  
Response Behavior ◽  
Theoretical Comparison ◽  
Cognitive Metaphor ◽  
As Species ◽  
Metaphor Theory

Abstract Can Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT) be applied productively to the study of mimicry in zoosemiotics and ethology? In this theoretical comparison of selected case studies, I would like to propose that biological mimicry is a type of biosemiotic metaphor. At least two major parallels between cognitive metaphors in human cognition and mimicry among animals justify viewing the two phenomena as isomorphic. First—from the semiotic point of view—the argument is that both metaphor and mimicry are cases of semiotic transfer (etymologically: metaphor) of the identity / sign of the source onto the perceived identity / sign of the target. This identity transfer, in turn, triggers appropriate changes in the response (behavior) of the surrounding (human or animal) interpreters (e.g. predators). Semiotically, the mimicry turns the body of its bearer into a sign of something else, resulting in the interpreters’ (e.g. predators’) perception of species X as species Y—hence, a type of embodied sign and cognitive metaphor. Second, ecologically, a species occupying one niche (e.g. a moth: non-venomous, herbivorous primary consumer) is perceived and identified as an occupant of a different niche (e.g. a hornet: venomous, omnivorous predator). Thus, a potential predator’s Umwelt is affected by its perceiving a hornet moth as “a hornet” where there is, in fact, a moth, and its response to this stimulus will not be predation but avoidance. In terms of CMT, we could call this a biosemiotic metaphor (bio-metaphor), e.g. “A MOTH IS A HORNET” or “PREY IS A PREDATOR”. Further correspondences between mimicry and metaphor include the fact that this bio-metaphorical identification by mimicry does not typically require a “perfect” resemblance between the source and the target sign (or species); this seems to correspond to the prototype categorization in CMT where categories are “open-ended” and only a partial similarity is sufficient for metaphorical identification (compare Lakoff, Johnson 1980; Rosch 1983). Such an identification of mimicry as metaphor could be based on Prodi’s argument that “hermeneutics is not a late product of culture, but the same elementary movement of life that is born because something obscurely interprets something else” (Eco 2018: 350; Kull 2018, 352—364). Inasmuch as animal Umwelten are interconnected inter alia by this natural hermeneutics, the trans-disciplinary approach to the study eco-zoosemiotic interpretants on the basis of metaphor-mimicry isomorphism could open new opportunities in comparative studies of semiosis in human and animal cognition and interactions.

scholarly journals Understanding the Living Conditions of Chinese Urban Neighborhoods through Social Infrastructure Configurations: The Case Study of Tianjin

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 3243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xuan Sun ◽  
Weikai Wang ◽  
Tao Sun ◽  
Ya Wang
Keyword(s):  
Urban Neighborhoods ◽  
Living Conditions ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Social Infrastructure ◽  
Human Needs ◽  
Residential Communities ◽  
The Social ◽  
Different Types ◽  
The City

Under the unprecedented wave of urbanization and pace of economic development, the living conditions of residents have been unevenly changed in Chinese cities. To understand the diversified living conditions in Chinese urban neighborhoods from the supply-side point of view, new spatial and residential data were gathered to investigate the social infrastructure configurations around the residential communities. Using Tianjin as a case study, the research focuses on six important categories of human needs: education, healthcare, leisure, culture, entertainment, and transportation. Based on the cumulative accessibility measurements of 25 types of facilities, the social infrastructure configurations within neighborhoods are statistically and spatially analyzed and compared. The study discovered that: (1) despite the great diversity of living conditions in the city, the neighborhoods that have better services and strong associations with entertainment and education are prominent; (2) the neighborhoods with advantageous living conditions in different aspects tend to cluster at different places; (3) the neighborhoods of different types of communities, belonging to different administrative districts, or in different urban zones, all have distinctive characteristics in living conditions.

A variational approach to deliberate metaphors

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis Tay
Keyword(s):  
Popular Science ◽  
Linear Analysis ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
The Social ◽  
Metaphor Theory ◽  
Psychological Point ◽  
Political Speeches ◽  
Log Linear ◽  
Functional Analyses

While Deliberate Metaphor Theory is controversial from a psychological point of view, its advocates propose that the communicative notion of ‘deliberateness’ is valuable for structural-functional analyses of metaphors in the social world. Nevertheless, the inter-relationships between the linguistic, conceptual, and communicative dimensions of metaphor highlighted by Deliberate Metaphor Theory, and how these may vary across different discourse contexts, remains underexplored. This paper examines deliberate metaphor across four contrasting discourse categories of psychotherapy talk, news articles, popular science articles, and political speeches. 800 metaphor units were randomly sampled and coded under the variables DIRECT (direct/indirect), NOVEL (novel/conventional), DELIB (deliberate/non-deliberate), and CATEGORY. In the first part of the study, a hierarchical log-linear analysis identified three significant interaction effects: DELIB*DIRECT, CATEGORY*NOVEL*DIRECT, and CATEGORY *NOVEL*DELIB (χ2(7) = 0.0, p = 1). While generally reflecting the inter-relatedness of the three dimensions, the three-way interactions point towards underexplored patterns of variation which are discussed with respect to contrasting discourse objectives. In the second part of the study, six categories of deliberate metaphor features were inductively identified: elaboration, signal, analogy, stark novelty, topic-triggering, and repetition. They demonstrate diverse strategic ways in which ‘deliberateness’ is constructed across the four discourse categories.

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