Cognitive linguistics

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The Cognitive Linguistics is a part of cognitive science that deals with cognitive aspects of language comprehension , the speech production and language acquisition deals. The main research areas of cognitive linguistics include categorization in natural languages ​​( prototypes , polysemy , metaphors ), the interface between syntax and semantics , the foundation of language in experience and perception, and the relationship between language and thinking.

Cognitive linguistics has its origins in the 1980s as a countermovement to Generative Grammar according to Noam Chomsky . Representatives of cognitive linguistics criticized the formally oriented syntax and the neglect of semantics by the generativists. In addition, in contrast to Chomsky, the representatives of cognitive linguistics assume that language is not an autonomous module of the human brain, but part of general cognitive abilities. The best known representatives of cognitive linguistics include George Lakoff , Leonard Talmy and Ronald Langacker .

Cognitive linguistics is not based on a closed theory in linguistics, but rather combines a variety of approaches.

Basic assumptions of cognitive linguistics

Representatives of cognitive linguistics assume that the structure and learning of language can only be generally explained in connection with human thinking. According to cognitive linguistics, language is not a special module in the brain, but there is a close connection between language and thinking. Cognitive linguistics therefore focuses on the relationship between language and general, non-language-specific cognitive principles, such as: B. Categorization.

Cognitive linguistics also refuses to regard syntax as a module that is largely independent of semantics, as does Generative Grammar. Instead, it assumes a close connection between syntax and semantics. Therefore, a research focus of cognitive linguistics is semantics, especially the investigation of linguistic meanings that are closely related to conceptual structures. Linguistic phenomena of particular interest include metaphors and metonymies. Cognitive linguistics also assumes that meanings are to a large extent anchored in human experience and culturally determined.

When it comes to language acquisition, too, the representatives of cognitive linguistics differentiate themselves from the generativists, because they reject an innate, specific language acquisition mechanism. Instead, they assume that language acquisition is based on general cognitive skills, such as B. is also represented by Jean Piaget and his successors.

History of Cognitive Linguistics

The beginnings of cognitive linguistics are usually cited in the 1980s, the decade in which the following fundamental books were published: Women, Fire and Dangerous Things by George Lakoff, Foundations of Cognitive Grammar by Ronald Langacker, and The Body in the Mind by Mark Johnson. In 1989 the International Cognitive Linguistics Association was founded , and in 1990 the journal Cognitive Linguistics was established .

However, the origins of linguistics as a cognitive discipline go back further into the past. Relationships between language and cognition were already discussed in the 18th century by John Locke , Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Étienne Bonnot de Condillac . In the first half of the 20th century, the work on linguistic universals and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and its further developments should be mentioned as further important precursors of cognitive linguistics, even if cognitive linguistics does not accept the results of this work without reservation. Other important precursors are works by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay as well as Eleanor Rosch on color categories. What all these early approaches have in common is that they seek to explore the relationship between language and cognition. Furthermore, the emerging cognitive science and artificial intelligence research in the 1950s led researchers from various disciplines to think about the cognitive structure of the human brain and its connection to language.

An important milestone in the 20th century was Chomsky's classification of linguistics as part of cognitive science (" cognitive turn "). He criticizes approaches that deal with linguistic data without relating them to the human mind or the human brain. Chomsky's mentalistic linguistic theory moved the study of language and mind to the center of linguistic research and can therefore also be regarded as a forerunner of cognitivistic approaches in linguistics, even if today's representatives of cognitive linguistics expressly distance themselves from him.

The actual cognitive linguistics or cognitive grammar began with the research of Langacker and Lakoff in the 1980s. Their research built on the lexical variant of generative semantics Charles J. Fillmore from the 70's and operate under the name since the 90s under the name Cognitive Linguistics (Engl. Cognitive Linguistics ). Cognitive linguistics emerged as a countermovement to Chomsky's generative grammar. The most important approaches include the work on metaphors by Lakoff, the space and process semantics by Leonard Talmy , the cognitive grammar by Ronald Langacker and the construction grammar .

Recent developments include a. Attempts to develop a cognitive phonology in addition to the previously preferred semantic and grammatical approaches. Findings from cognitive linguistics are increasingly accepted as ways of analyzing literary texts. For example, the cognitive poetics of Peter Stockwell made an important contribution to modern stylistics.

Cognitive Linguistics and Generative Grammar

Depending on how cognitive linguistics describes counts the generative grammar to Chomsky either as part flow to the cognitive linguistics, or Cognitive Linguistics is defined as a counter-flow to the generative grammar.

Some publications make z. B. a distinction between a modular and holistic approach in cognitive linguistics. Chomsky's Generative Linguistics is seen as a modular approach to cognitive linguistics: although language is an important part of cognition here, it is an independent module in information processing. In the holistic approach of cognitive linguistics, an independent linguistic module is expressly denied, but language and language development are based on general cognitive principles. To distinguish the (holistic) approach in the wake of work Lakoff, Langacker and Talmy from other cognitivist approaches, even the spelling Cognitive linguistics (English. Cognitive Linguistics ) vs. cognitive linguistics (English. cognitive linguistics ) is used.

Many introductions to cognitive linguistics focus exclusively on the holistic approach and define cognitive linguistics as a countermovement to generative linguistics. The same applies to the definitions of cognitive linguistics of the German Society for Cognitive Linguistics and the International Cognitive Linguistics Association.

Research content in cognitive linguistics

Cognitive linguistics can be broken down into the sub-areas of cognitive semantics, cognitive grammar and cognitive phonology.

Cognitive semantics

The cognitive semantics deals e.g. B. with questions such as categorization, a fundamental cognitive ability, and language influence each other. When it comes to categorization, cognitive semantics can draw on results from cognitive psychology on linguistic universals and prototype semantics . An exemplary study in cognitive semantics is the analysis of the preposition over by Claudia Brugman, who was able to show that the preposition over is polysemous , but that the different meanings of the preposition can more or less be arranged around a prototypical meaning.

Central themes in cognitive semantics, which George Lakoff and the philosopher Mark Johnson established, are the analysis of metaphors and metonymies. The preoccupation with metaphors is motivated by the basic assumption that metaphors help to map more difficult to understand concepts and experiences onto more easily understandable, physically tangible concepts and experiences. Examples of such metaphors are for example Argument is war (dt. Arguing / arguing is war ) or time is money .

Further approaches in cognitive semantics are the frame semantics from Fillmore and the space and process semantics from Talmy.

Cognitive grammar and construction grammar

The most important cognitivistically oriented grammatical theories are the cognitive grammar of Ronald Langacker and the construction grammar, as z. B. is represented by the linguists Charles J. Fillmore and Paul Kay and Adele Goldberg . In construction grammars, the basic unit is a “construction” that combines syntactic, morphological and phonological information with semantic and pragmatic restrictions. In contrast to generative grammar, in which syntax is a formal module that functions independently of semantics, construction grammars are always related to semantics. In construction grammars, the transition between lexical information and syntax is fluid - constructions rank on a continuum between idioms, formulaic expressions and on the other end freely formulated sentences of different complexity.

Similar to the representatives of construction grammar, Langacker assumes that human languages, including their grammars, are inherently symbolic in nature, that is, they consist of phonological and semantic units as well as links between them. Langacker also assumes that linguistic structures are motivated by general cognitive processes.

Cognitive Phonology

By concentrating on semantics, phonology is a relatively neglected field in cognitive linguistics. However, there are some efforts to use principles from cognitive grammar for phonology, such as the use of the schema term to describe the distribution of allophones in English or the valence term to describe the structure of syllables .

outlook

One requirement of cognitive linguistics is to link its findings with the results from psycho- and neurolinguistics and to prove its theories through behavioral experiments (psycholinguistics) and brain imaging. Among other things, it is claimed that linguistic structures reflect brain structures. Linking the results of cognitive linguistics with findings from cognitive psychology and neurolinguistics was only partially realized in the beginning, because the studies of the 1980s and 1990s mainly used the linguistic intuition of the native speaker (introspection) as a source for linguistic examples, without a use of psycholinguistic or neurolinguistic methods. Since the 2000s, however, the number of studies that use empirical methods and results has increased, including corpus linguistic analyzes, psycholinguistic experiments that measure reactions and reaction times to linguistic input, and imaging methods such as magnetic resonance tomography .

See also

literature

Introductions

  • Antonio Barcelona, ​​Javier Valenzuela: An overview of cognitive linguistics . In: Mario Brdar (Ed.): Cognitive Linguistics: Convergence and Expansion . Benjamin, Amsterdam 2011, ISBN 978-90-272-2386-9 , pp. 17-44.
  • Vyvyan Evans, Melanie Green: Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction . Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh 2006, ISBN 0-7486-1832-5 .
  • Gert Rickheit, Sabine Weiss, Hans-Jürgen Eikmeyer: Cognitive Linguistics. Theories, models, methods . UTB, Tübingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8252-3408-9 .
  • Hans-Jörg Schmid, Friedrich Unger: Cognitive linguistics . In: James Simpson: The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics . Routledge, London / New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-415-49067-2 , pp. 611-624.
  • Monika Schwarz: Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics , 3rd edition, A. Francke, Tübingen / Basel 2008, ISBN 978-3-8252-1636-8 .
  • Martin Thiering: Cognitive Semantics and Cognitive Anthropology. An introduction. De Gruyter Studium 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-044515-2 .
  • Wolfgang Wildgen: Cognitive grammar . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019600-9 .

Anthologies

  • Dirk Geeraerts (Ed.): Cognitive Linguistics: Basic Readings . Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-11-019085-4 .
  • Dirk Geeraerts (Ed.): The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-973863-2 .
  • Jeanette Littlemore and John R. Taylor (Eds.): The Bloomsbury Companion to Cognitive Linguistics . Bloomsbury Academic, London / New York, 2014. ISBN 978-1-4411-9509-8 .

Central works of cognitive linguistics (selection)

  • Adele E. Goldberg: Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1995, ISBN 978-0-226-30085-6 .
  • George Lakoff: Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1987, ISBN 978-0-226-46803-7 .
  • George Lakoff, Mark Johnson: Metaphors We Live By . University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1980, ISBN 978-0-226-46801-3 . (German life in metaphors: construction and use of language images . From the American translation by Astrid Hildenbrand. Carl-Auer-Systeme Verlag, Heidelberg 1998, ISBN 978-3-89670-108-4 .)
  • Ronald W. Langacker: Foundations of Cognitive Grammar: Theoretical Prerequisities . Stanford University Press, Stanford 1987, ISBN 978-0-8047-1261-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Dirk Geeraerts, Hubert Cuyckens: Introducing Cognitive Linguistics . In: Dirk Geeraerts (Ed.): Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-973863-2 , pp. 4 .
  2. ^ A b Antonio Barcelona, ​​Javier Valenzuela: An overview of cognitive linguistics . In: Mario Brdar (Ed.): Cognitive Linguistics: Convergence and Expansion . Benjamin, Amsterdam 2011, ISBN 978-90-272-2386-9 , pp. 18 .
  3. ↑ Monika Schwarz: Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics . 3. Edition. A. Francke, Tübingen / Basel 2008, ISBN 978-3-8252-1636-8 , pp. 41 .
  4. ↑ Dirk Geeraerts, Hubert Cuyckens: Introducing Cognitive Linguistics . In: Dirk Geeraerts (Ed.): Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-973863-2 , pp. 3 .
  5. ↑ a b About us . In: German Society for Cognitive Linguistics . September 15, 2014 ( dgkl-gcla.de [accessed May 21, 2018]).
  6. ↑ Dirk Geeraerts, Hubert Cuyckens: Introducing Cognitive Linguistics . In: Dirk Geeraerts (Ed.): Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2010, ISBN 978-0-19-973863-2 , pp. 5 .
  7. ^ Antonio Barcelona, ​​Javier Valenzuela: An overview of cognitive linguistics . In: Mario Brdar (Ed.): Cognitive Linguistics: Convergence and Expansion . Benjamin, Amsterdam 2011, ISBN 978-90-272-2386-9 , pp. 17 .
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Wildgen: Cognitive Grammar . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019600-9 , pp. 8-17 .
  9. ↑ Monika Schwarz: Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics . 3. Edition. A. Francke, Tübingen / Basel 2008, ISBN 978-3-8252-1636-8 , pp. 17 .
  10. ↑ Wolfgang Wildgen: Cognitive Grammar . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019600-9 , pp. 19 .
  11. ↑ Wolfgang Wildgen: Cognitive Grammar . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019600-9 , pp. 21 .
  12. ^ John R. Taylor, Jeannette Littlemore: Introduction . In: John R. Taylor, Jeannette Littlemore (Eds.): The Bloomsbury Companion to Cognitive Linguistics . Bloomsbury Academic, London / New York 2014, ISBN 978-1-4411-9509-8 , pp. 15 .
  13. ↑ Monika Schwarz: Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics . 3. Edition. A. Francke, Tübingen / Basel 2008, ISBN 978-3-8252-1636-8 , pp. 56 .
  14. ↑ Monika Schwarz: Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics . 3. Edition. A. Francke, Tübingen / Basel 2008, ISBN 978-3-8252-1636-8 , pp. 48 .
  15. ^ Home - Cognitive Linguistics. Retrieved May 21, 2018 .
  16. ↑ Martin Thiering: Cognitive Semantics and Cognitive Anthropology. An introduction. De Gruyter Studium, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-044515-2 .
  17. ^ Antonio Barcelona, ​​Javier Valenzuela: An overview of cognitive linguistics . In: Mario Brdar (Ed.): Cognitive Linguistics: Convergence and Expansion . Benjamin, Amsterdam 2011, ISBN 978-90-272-2386-9 , pp. 25-27 .
  18. ↑ Wolfgang Wildgen: Cognitive Grammar . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019600-9 , pp. 77 .
  19. ^ Antonio Barcelona, ​​Javier Valenzuela: An overview of cognitive linguistics . In: Mario Brdar (Ed.): Cognitive Linguistics: Convergence and Expansion . Benjamin, Amsterdam 2011, ISBN 978-90-272-2386-9 , pp. 23-25 .
  20. ^ John R. Taylor, Jeannette Littlemore: Introduction . In: John R. Taylor, Jeannette Littlemore (Eds.): The Bloomsbury Companion to Cognitive Linguistics . Bloomsbury Academic, London / New York 2014, ISBN 978-1-4411-9509-8 , pp. 3 .
  21. ↑ Wolfgang Wildgen: Cognitive Grammar . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019600-9 , pp. 189-190 .
  22. ^ John R. Taylor, Jeannette Littlemore: Introduction . In: John R. Taylor, Jeannette Littlemore (Eds.): The Bloomsbury Companion to Cognitive Linguistics . Bloomsbury Academic, London / New York 2014, ISBN 978-1-4411-9509-8 , pp. 14 .
  23. ↑ Wolfgang Wildgen: Cognitive Grammar . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019600-9 , pp. 22-23, 194-196 .
  24. ↑ Monika Schwarz: Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics . 3. Edition. A. Francke, Tübingen / Basel 2008, ISBN 978-3-8252-1636-8 , pp. 238-239 .
  25. ^ Antonio Barcelona, ​​Javier Valenzuela: An overview of cognitive linguistics . In: Mario Brdar (Ed.): Cognitive Linguistics: Convergence and Expansion . Benjamin, Amsterdam 2011, ISBN 978-90-272-2386-9 , pp. 33 .
  26. ^ John R. Taylor, Jeannette Littlemore: Introduction . In: John R. Taylor, Jeannette Littlemore (Eds.): The Bloomsbury Companion to Cognitive Linguistics . Bloomsbury Academic, London / New York 2014, ISBN 978-1-4411-9509-8 , pp. 15-19 .