Cognitive linguistics

Cognitive linguistics is a school of linguistics and cognitive science, which aims to provide accounts of language that mesh well with current understandings of the human mind, and is generally opposed to the more syntactocentric approaches to meaning in generative linguistics. Cognitive Linguistics is divided into two main areas of study: cognitive semantics, dealing mainly with lexical semantics, and cognitive approaches to grammar, dealing mainly with syntax, morphology and other traditionally more grammar-oriented areas. The two areas are going through a reunification these days, as cognitive linguists realize that you cannot look at one without the other. The guiding principle behind this area of linguistics is that language use must be explained with reference to underlying mental processes that apply not only to language but to many other aspects of human cognition.

Related Topics:
Linguistics - Cognitive science - Generative linguistics - Cognitive semantics - Lexical semantics - Cognitive approaches to grammar

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Aspects of cognition that are of interest to cognitive linguists include:

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• Construction grammar and cognitive grammar, c.f. Adele Goldberg, Ronald Langacker and Bill Croft.
• Conceptual metaphor and conceptual blending, heavily influenced by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Mark Turner, Gilles Fauconnier
• Conceptual organization: Categorization, Metonymy, Image schemas, Frame semantics, Iconicity, and Force Dynamics, c.f. Leonard Talmy, Charles J. Fillmore and Dirk Geeraerts.
• Construal and Subjectivity, c.f. Arie Verhagen and Ronald Langacker.
• Gesture, c.f. David McNeill, Eve Sweetser and sign language, c.f. Scott Liddell and Sarah Taub.
• Linguistic relativism, c.f. Lera Boroditsky and Stephen Levinson.
• Cognitive neuroscience, c.f. Seana Coulson and Tim Rohrer.
• Humor interpretation, c.f. Benjamin Bergen.

Related work that interfaces with many of the above themes:

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• Computational models of metaphor and language acquisition, c.f. Jerome Feldman, Terry Regier and Srinivas Narayanan.
• Psycholinguistics research Michael Tomasello, Raymond Gibbs, Michael Ramscar, Michael Spivey, Teenie Matlock
• Conceptual semantics, pursued by generative linguist Ray Jackendoff is related because of its active psychological realism and the incorporation of prototype structure and images.

Cognitive linguistics, more than generative linguistics, seek to mesh together these findings into a coherent whole. A further complication arises because the terminology of cognitive linguistics is not entirely stable, both because it is a relatively new field and because it interfaces with a number of other disciplines.

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Cognitive linguistics: Further reading ►