Cognitive Linguistic Studies in Cultural Contexts

The book presents two fundamental theories that characterize the cultural-historical perspective in cognitive semantics: the Four-Level Theory of Cognitive Development (FLTCD) and the Sociocultural Theory of Lexical Complexes (STLC) as well as their application to the analysis of specific material. In particular, the book analyzes the sociocultural history of the MACHINE metaphor, specifically its use in the texts of René Descartes and Francis Bacon. The practical embodiment of STLC is demonstrated through the analysis of lexical complexes such as otkryvat' ‘to open,’ kamen' ‘stone,’ and intelligencija ‘intelligentsia.’ In the final chapter of the monograph, FLTCD and STLC are used for the diachronic analysis of semantic change. The monograph will be of interest to a wide range of linguists, psychologists, cultural anthropologists, and philosophers who consider language as a sociocultural phenomenon.

This ground-breaking book marks a milestone in the history of the newly developed field of Cultural Linguistics, a multidisciplinary area of research that explores the relationship between language and cultural conceptualisations. The most authoritative book in the field to date, it outlines the theoretical and analytical framework of Cultural Linguistics, elaborating on its key theoretical/analytical notions of cultural cognition, cultural schema, cultural category, and cultural metaphor. In addition, it brings to light a wide array of cultural conceptualisations drawn from many different languages and language varieties. The book reveals how the analytical tools of Cultural Linguistics can produce in-depth and insightful investigations into the cultural grounding of language in several domains and subdisciplines, including embodiment, emotion, religion, World Englishes, pragmatics, intercultural communication, Teaching English as an International Language (TEIL), and political discourse analysis. By presenting a comprehensive survey of recent research in Cultural Linguistics, this book demonstrates the relevance of the cultural conceptualisations encoded in language to all aspects of human life, from the very conceptualisations of life and death, to conceptualisations of emotion, body, humour, religion, gender, kinship, ageing, marriage, and politics. This book, in short, is a must-have reference work for scholars and students interested in Cultural Linguistics.

When the last speaker of a language dies, s/he takes to oblivion the memories, associations and the rich imagery this language community has once lived by. The cultural heritage encoded in conventional linguistic metaphors, handed down through generations, will be lost forever. This volume consists of fifteen articles about metaphors in endangered languages, from Peru to Alaska, from India to Ghana.

The empirical data demonstrate that the assumptions of contemporary cognitive linguistic theory about “universal” metaphors and the underlying cognitive processes are still far from plausible, since culture plays an important role in the formation of metaphors. Moreover, that theory has been based on knowledge of metaphors in some standard languages. Indigenous and other minority languages, especially mainly orally used ones, have been disregarded completely.

Besides researchers and students in linguistics, especially in metaphor and figurative language theory, this compilation provides food for thought for scholars in large fields of cultural studies, ranging from anthropology and ethnology to folkloristics and philosophy.

Languages and language varieties around the globe have been diminishing at an astonishing rate. Despite great efforts at language documentation, scholarship on metaphors and figurative units – often particularly fragile parts of language – has been largely neglected until recently. This book, like its predecessor Endangered Metaphors (CLSCC 2, 2012), focuses on disappearing metaphors and idioms from languages of diverse continents. Moreover, the book analyzes work from online social interaction, discusses topics such as language maintenance, educational practice and revitalization, as well as future directions for endangered metaphor studies. The book is highly innovative and produces new findings for linguistics and cultural studies: the more languages are examined, especially minority varieties distant from western languages, the more questionable becomes “universality” in the field of metaphor, with unique linguistic data across chapters, evidencing the non-universality of conceptual metaphors and calling for a revision of existing metaphor theories. The book will be of special interest to: linguistics (metaphor and phraseology research, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology), public policy, sociology; community activists and educators of language maintenance and revitalization.

Language Structure and Environment is a broad introduction to how languages are shaped by their environment. It makes the argument that the social, cultural, and natural environment of speakers influences the structures and development of the languages they speak. After a general overview, the contributors explain in a number of detailed case studies how specific cultural, societal, geographical, evolutionary and meta-linguistic pressures determine the development of specific grammatical features and the global structure of a varied selection of languages. This is a work of meticulous scholarship at the forefront of a burgeoning field of linguistics.

Contemporary linguistic forms are partially the product of their historical antecedents, and the same is true for cognitive conceptualization. The book presents the results of several diachronic corpus studies of conceptual metaphor in a longitudinal and empirical “mixed methods” design, employing both quantitative and qualitative analysis measures; the study design was informed by usage-based theory. The goal was to investigate the interaction over time between conceptualization and cultural models in historical English-speaking society. The main study of two linguistic metaphors of anger spans five centuries (A.D. 1500 to 1990). The results show that conceptualization and cultural models—understood as non-autonomous, encyclopedic knowledge—work together to determine both the meaning and use of a linguistic metaphor. In addition, historically a wide variety of emotion concepts formed a complex cognitive array called the Domain Matrix of emotion. The implications for conceptual metaphor theory, research methodology, and future study are discussed in detail.

Music is a widely enjoyed human experience. It is, therefore, natural that we have wanted to describe, document, analyse and, somehow, grasp it in language. This book surveys a representative selection of musical concepts in Chinese language, i.e. words that describe, or refer to, aspects of Chinese music. Important as these musical concepts are in the language, they have been in wide circulation since ancient times without being subjected to any serious semantic analysis. The current study is the first known attempt at analysing these Chinese musical concepts linguistically, adopting the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) approach to formulate semantically and cognitively rigorous explications. Readers will be able to better understand not only these musical concepts but also significant aspects of the Chinese culture which many of these musical concepts represent. This volume contributes to the fields of cognitive linguistics, semantics, music, musicology and Chinese studies, offering readers a fresh account of Chinese ways of thinking, not least Chinese ways of viewing or appreciating music. Ultimately, this study represents trailblazing research on the relationship between language, culture and cognition.