scholarly journals Cognitive linguistics and metaphor research: past successes, skeptical questions, future challenges

Author(s):  
Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr

An important reason for the tremendous interest in metaphor over the past 20 years stems from cognitive linguistic research. Cognitive linguists embrace the idea that metaphor is not merely a part of language, but reflects a fundamental part of the way people think, reason, and imagine. A large number of empirical studies in cognitive linguistics have, in different ways, supported this claim. My aim in this paper is to describe the empirical foundations for cognitive linguistic work on metaphor, acknowledge various skeptical reactions to this work, and respond to some of these questions/criticisms. I also outline several challenges that cognitive linguists should try to address in future work on metaphor in language, thought, and culture.

Author(s):  
Natalia Lutai ◽  
Tetiana Besarab

The article emphasizes the fact that within the past decades there has been a significant interest to studying of metaphors, the main reason awakening it is associated with studies conducted in the field of cognitive linguistics. Many scientists who are engaged in cognitive linguistics consider the metaphor not only as a part of the language, but as well as a fundamental part of the way of human thinking, reasoning and imagination. To some extent this statement has been confirmed by a huge number of empirical studies carried out in this area of ​​linguistics recently. The main purpose of this article is to describe the empirical foundations of cognitive linguistic research related to metaphors, to acknowledge various critical remarks regarding works on essential issues in this area, as well as weaknesses in the concept of metaphor represented by cognitive linguists, Plus, some urgent challenges that are to be resolved to define the subsequent research concerning the part of metaphors in language, thinking and culture have been enlightened. It has been pointed out that cognitive linguists, like scientists from any other academic field, are limited in their work owing to the empirical methods they use, for example, when discussing specific theories of language and thinking.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Dynel

Abstract This article is meant to give a state-of-the-art picture of cognitive linguistic studies on humour. Cognitive linguistics has had an immense impact on the development of humour research and, importantly, humour theory over the past few decades. On the one hand, linguists, philosophers and psychologists working in the field of humour research have put forward proposals to explain the cognitive processes underlying specifically humour production and reception (e.g. the incongruity-resolution framework and its refinements). On the other hand, humour research has drawn on theories and concepts advanced in contemporary cognitive linguistics taken as a whole (e.g. mental spaces, conceptual blending, salience or conceptual metaphor). The different notions and approaches originating in these strands of research are in various ways interwoven in order to give new insights into the cognitive workings of humour.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xu Wen ◽  
Kun Yang ◽  
Fangtao Kuang

As a new paradigm of linguistics, Cognitive Linguistics has made great achievements over the past 30 years or so. In order to make the latest trends of Cognitive Linguistic research known, this paper presents the outstanding achievements and prominent characteristics of Cognitive Linguistics in various dimensions. In contrast to some other linguistic theories, Cognitive Linguistics has more conspicuous advantages in its theories and other aspects. Cognitive linguistics can offer not only an account of linguistic phenomena but also that of a wide variety of social and cultural phenomena. Therefore, Cognitive Linguistics is not only a school of linguistics but a cognitive social science or a cognitive semiotics, which has lots of implications for various fields or disciplines in the age of big data.


2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 313-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mario Brdar ◽  
Rita Brdar-Szabó

AbstractIn a recent paper published in this journal, Laura Janda makes a number of claims about metonymy, specifically about metonymy in word-formation as part of grammar. In a nutshell, what she says is that suffixed nouns such as Russian saxarnica (from saxar ‘sugar’) ‘sugar bowl’, Czech břicháč (from břicho ‘belly’) ‘person with a large belly’, or Norwegian baker ‘baker’, are metonymic extensions from saxar ‘sugar’, břicho ‘belly’, and bake ‘bake’, respectively. It is our contention that this claim about metonymy being involved in word-formation phenomena such as suffixation is misconceived and leads to an overuse of the term ‘metonymy’. We first comment on Janda's views on cognitive linguistic research on metonymy in grammar and word-formation, and then evaluate the evidence that she provides to support her central claim – from some general claims about metonymy and grammar to the way she identifies metonymy in word-formation. Finally, we point out a series of problems ensuing from the concept of word-formation metonymy. The analytical parts of Janda's article are in our view a more or less traditional cross-linguistic inventory of suffixation patterns that do not exhibit metonymy as such. However, some genuine metonymies that crop up among her examples are glossed over. In other words, we claim that her analysis ignores metonymies where they appear and postulates metonymies where they do not exist.


Author(s):  
Serena Lee-Cultura ◽  
Michail Giannakos

Abstract Embodied interaction describes the interplay between the brain and the body and its influence on the sharing, creation and manipulation of meaningful interactions with technology. Spatial skills entail the acquisition, organization, utilization and revision of knowledge about spatial environments. Embodied interaction is a rapidly growing topic in human–computer interaction with the potential to amplify human interaction and communication capacities, while spatial skills are regarded as key enablers for the successful management of cognitive tasks. This work provides a systematic review of empirical studies focused on embodied interaction and spatial skills. Thirty-six peer-reviewed articles were systematically collected and analysed according to their main elements. The results summarize and distil the developments concerning embodied interaction and spatial skills over the past decade. We identify embodied interaction capacities found in the literature review that help us to enhance and develop spatial skills. Lastly, we discuss implications for research and practice and highlight directions for future work.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Ambrus

Nowadays a huge amount of communication is performed in an online environment. This tendency facilitated the realization of certain digital elements specific to online interfaces. Generally speaking, it can be stated that a new genre appeared in the past few years – the memes, which are a combination of pictorial and textual elements, created and shared online. Richard Dawkins and Susan Blackmore, who provided the traditional meme definition, argue that a meme is what travels from brain to brain. Digital meme has a narrower interpretation, since it focuses on the textual-pictorial elements. According to the Cognitive Linguistic point of view, the conceptual metaphors, metonymies and blends are used in our everyday conceptualization processes (based on Lakoff and Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By, 1980 and Fauconnier–Turner’s The Way We Think, 2002). So it can be assumed that these digital elements also operate exploiting cognitive devices like metaphors and blends. Yet many questions arise: how can memes be categorized? Can a prototypical meme be identified? How do cognitive processes take place in the conceptualization? What is the source of humor? Based on the analysis performed, it can be concluded that there are prototypical memes, but different aspects have to be taken into account; and that the complexity of cognitive processes a meme operates with is strongly related to the viability of the topic that a particular meme is related to.


2021 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Makrides ◽  
Leon Baranowski ◽  
Lucas` Hawkes-Frost ◽  
Jennie Helmer

The field of paramedicine has undergone significant change and modernisation over the past 50 years. Presently there are no consistent terms or lexicon used across the profession to describe different levels of advanced practice. This inconsistency risks creating confusion as the professionalisation of paramedic practice continues. As well, many empirical studies support the claim that communication and the importance of managing language actively plays a crucial role in supporting change and in shaping the new paradigm. Therefore, the way one uses communication, and the deliberate choice of words to describe advance practice, will support change in the desired direction. This article explores these terms and their attendant influences on perceptions of practice to argue for change towards the standardised use of the term ‘advanced care paramedic’ across the Anglo-American paramedic system.  


2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (5) ◽  
pp. 623-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tetsuhiro Harimoto ◽  
Tal Danino

The engineering of living cells and microbes is ushering in a new era of cancer therapy. Due to recent microbiome studies indicating the prevalence of bacteria within the human body and specifically in tumor tissue, bacteria have generated significant interest as potential targets for cancer therapy. Notably, a multitude of empirical studies over the past decades have demonstrated that administered bacteria home and grow in tumors due to reduced immune surveillance of tumor necrotic cores. Given their specificity for tumors, bacteria present a unique opportunity to be engineered as intelligent delivery vehicles for cancer therapy with synthetic biology techniques. In this review, we discuss the history, current state, and future challenges associated with using bacteria as a cancer therapy.


XLinguae ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 52-63
Author(s):  
Ariadna Strugielska ◽  
Katarzyna Piątkowska

This paper demonstrates that although linguistic competence (LC) is an essential dimension of the Common European Framework of Reference (Council of Europe, 2001; 2018), it is defined in an inconsistent way resulting from combining elements of formal and functional approaches. Thus, rather than interconnected, linguistic competence emerges as dichotomized and in need of an approach that could reconcile incompatibilities in the way(s) LC is characterized in the document. We propose that a cognitive linguistic perspective built on the schematic commitment is a viable approach to re-defining LC.


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