- Home
- e-Journals
- Review of Cognitive Linguistics. Published under the auspices of the Spanish Cognitive Linguistics Association
- Previous Issues
- Volume 21, Issue 1, 2023
Review of Cognitive Linguistics. Published under the auspices of the Spanish Cognitive Linguistics Association - Volume 21, Issue 1, 2023
Volume 21, Issue 1, 2023
-
Evolution is an arc along a timeline
Author(s): Cecilia Andornopp.: 9–34 (26)More LessAbstractGrowing evidence shows the role of teachers gestures not only in L2 learning (Stam & Tellier, 2021) but also in supporting learning in the L1 classroom (Alibali et al., 2014; Crowder, 1996; Wilson et al., 2014). The current study aims at contributing to this last perspective. Based on data from a 3rd grade plurilingual classroom in an Italian school, it observes the ‘catchments’ (McNeill, 2000) in teacher’s gesticulation during a cycle of lessons on “The origin of life”. The analysis identifies conceptual components based on the time is space metaphor associated with gestures, and observes their alignment with lexical items – either technical or common words (evolution, ages, ancestors, archaic; change, back, old) – in speech. The gesture-word association supports both the conceptualization of the notions and the acquisition of the related lexicon: gestures connect recurring concepts to their different verbalisations, ensuring a conceptually coherent representation over the lesson; they establish synonimic relations between technical and common words; and they can also work as memory triggers towards and between concepts and lexical units.
-
Bodily engagement in the learning and teaching of grammar
Author(s): Ferran Suñer, Jörg Roche and Liesbeth Van Vosselpp.: 35–63 (29)More LessAbstractCognitive Linguistics claims that language is not purely abstract and arbitrary, but meaningful and grounded in concepts arising from our embodied experiences (Oakley, 2007). The potential of using imagery and bodily representations to explain the conceptual motivation of grammar has been widely recognized in the context of language acquisition and teaching. This study investigates whether an increase of learners’ bodily engagement through the performance of bodily movements and locomotion produces even greater learning outcomes. To this end, we refer to Talmy’s (2000) Force Dynamic System to conduct a pretest-posttest interventional study with two groups of learners dealing with the German modal verb system. Whereas the first group watched multimedia animations (low bodily engagement), the second group was asked to perform bodily movements in line with the force-dynamic notions underlying the different modal verbs (high bodily engagement). The results show that both groups produced similar learning gains and that an increased bodily engagement could not be associated directly with a significantly better performance.
-
Fostering the learning of the Russian motion verbs system in Italian-speaking students
Author(s): Elena Comisso and Paolo Della Puttapp.: 64–85 (22)More LessAbstractThis study reports on the differential effectiveness of two pedagogical approaches to teaching L1-Italian students the Russian verbs of motion (глаголы движения, VoMs). The first is a Cognitive Linguistics, embodied approach, where the teacher used techniques such as image schemas, drawings and bodily activation to help the learners explore and understand the logic of VoMs. The second is a classic PPP approach, that works with mnemonic exercises, drills, and reproduction techniques, and that used classic metalinguistic terms to explain VoMs.
54 L1-Italian Russian students enrolled at the second year of University have been recruited in the study. Two groups were created: group A received a 160 minutes embodied treatment about VoMs, whereas group B received a 160 minutes classical PPP treatment on VoMs.
The informants have been tested in a classical pre, post and delayed-post test fashion with three different temporized tasks. Results show an accrued competence on VoMs of group A, that outperformed group B in all the tests. The relevance of these findings for L2 teaching will be discussed.
-
The role of metonymy in naming
Author(s): Petr Kospp.: 86–114 (29)More LessAbstractThe article deals with the role of metonymy in word-formation, specifically in naming extra-linguistic concepts. Its role is approached from an onomasiological perspective, i.e., the starting point in the analysis is the concept to be named. Within this approach, metonymy is seen as a cognitive process (in the dynamic sense) that is inherent in the act of coining any naming unit irrespective of its resulting form, as metonymy provides the perspective from which the concept is mentally accessed, and the morphological form is an outcome of the subsequent matching of the result of conceptualisation with a suitable constructional schema. This understanding of metonymy, however, does not lead to an unrestricted application of the term. The article suggests that if a consistent view of metonymy in coining words is applied, any formal restrictions on its use turn out to be irrelevant.
-
The proper names ‘Assad’, ‘ISIL’, ‘ISIS’, ‘Daesh’ and ‘European’ as metonymic blends in political discourse
Author(s): Tatiana Golubevapp.: 115–139 (25)More LessAbstractThe study investigated metonymic uses of the anthroponym ‘Assad’, the acronyms ‘ISIL’, ‘ISIS’, ‘Daesh’ and the toponymic adjective ‘European’ from a blending theory perspective. The corpus comprised British and American politicians’ speeches covering such topics as the activity of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the fight against ISIS, and Euromaidan. Analysis of the data revealed that the source domain of a metonymic expression which has certain cognitive salience in an utterance fuses with the target leading to the emergence of a blend. It was also found that the construction of a metonymic blend in proper names often requires activation of world knowledge which forms part of the conceptual structure of the source or target domains of a proper name.
-
The Factive, IHRC, and Cleft constructions in Korean
Author(s): Chongwon Park and Jaehoon Yeonpp.: 140–177 (38)More LessAbstractThis article aims to develop a Cognitive Grammar (CG) analysis of three grammatical constructions in Korean, all of which employ the bound noun kes. The data under examination includes the Factive, Internally Headed Relative Clause (IHRC), and Cleft constructions. We propose a uniform treatment of the three types of kes by arguing that it denotes a schematic noun that profiles a thing (noun) and has some role in the process of the adnominal clause. Different interpretations of these constructions arise due to different types of conceptualizations involved in each instance. In so doing, we point out that previous proposals that deal with kes are neither general enough to capture the commonalities observed in all three constructions nor can account for the new observations we present.
-
Meaning extensions of internet memes
Author(s): Ji-in Kang, Hanbeom Jung, A Young Kwon and Iksoo Kwonpp.: 178–209 (32)More LessAbstractThis paper explores the constructional properties of internet memes by conducting a case study of If 2020 was a(n) X (IYWX) memes within the framework of Viewpoint Spaces (Dancygier & Vandelanotte, 2017). By looking into constructional properties and viewpoint interactions at multiple conceptual levels evoked by the juxtaposition of text and an image, this paper aims to shed light on cases where extended meanings emerge as the cognizer’s expectation on the conventionalized use of the meme is flouted. IYWX memes reveal the meme maker’s stance toward the year 2020, either evaluative or depictive, with the help of the conditional construction and the pictorial presentation of X. This study also accounts for a third type, in which the de-conventionalized construal relies on the meme viewer’s expectation of the meme’s structure. This specific type is intriguing because it indicates that the conventional use of internet memes can be extended just as verbal constructions can.
-
A multidimensional approach to echoing
Author(s): Inés Lozano-Palaciopp.: 210–228 (19)More LessAbstractStemming from the use-mention distinction by the philosophy of language, Relevance Theory introduces the notion of echo in the context of the echoic mention theory of irony (cf. Wilson & Sperber, 2012). Since then, echoing has awakened multidisciplinary interest, mostly in connection to this figure of thought. Studies on echoing have provided a largely one-dimensional approach. Within cognitive modeling studies, echoing is elevated to the status of cognitive operation. Taking cognitive modeling as a starting point, the aim of the present article is to study echoing from a multidimensional perspective, focusing on its features, functions, and usages. Specifically, the present study addresses echoic implicitness, completeness, complexity, accuracy, and non-ironic echoes (i.e., parodic echoes, denotational and non-denotational echoes). All in all, this study introduces a higher degree of systematicity in the study of echoing in general and endows echo-based studies of irony with greater explanatory adequacy.
-
Exploring diachronic salience of emotion metaphors
Author(s): Gede Primahadi Wijaya Rajeg and I Made Rajegpp.: 229–265 (37)More LessAbstractThis paper analyzes metaphorical conceptualizations of happiness in the historical corpus of Classical Malay and in the corpus of present-day Indonesian, the national variety of Malay used in Indonesia. The aim is to explore the idea of diachronic salience and universal/variation in metaphorical conceptualizations between diachronic varieties of the same language. Token and type frequencies are used as measures of salience of the metaphors. Seven of the top-10 metaphors in Classical Malay with high token and type frequencies also make into the top-10 metaphors ranked by these measures in Indonesian, suggesting a relatively stable diachronic salience of the metaphoric cognitive models of happiness in these two Malay varieties. The shared metaphors are parts of larger networks of semantic domains, namely possession, location, motion, containment, and quantity. The metaphors are discussed in relation to themes reported in earlier cross-cultural psychological studies of the cultural folk models of happiness.
-
L2 English learners’ verb lexicalization of motion events
Author(s): Jeeyoung Jeon and Min-Chang Sungpp.: 266–292 (27)More LessAbstractThis study examines the effects of L2 proficiency and manner salience on English learners’ verb lexicalization of spontaneous motion events. Three proficiency groups of L1 Korean learners of L2 English were asked to describe spontaneous motion situations, and their use of verbs was compared to that of native English speakers. Results indicate that L2 learners’ verb lexicalization was heavily influenced by the typological patterns of their native language, but the development of target-like lexicalization patterns occurred even though it plateaued at a certain acquisitional phase. Moreover, it was found that the degree of adopting target-like lexicalization patterns varied by manner-of-motion types (i.e., high-salience manner such as swim versus low-salience manner such as walk) in all three learner groups, implying that the inherent salience of manner has an impact on L2 lexicalization of spontaneous motion.
-
A cognitive analysis on Spanish differential object marking based on a modified model of the Transitivity Hypothesis
Author(s): Sunghye Yangpp.: 293–316 (24)More LessAbstractThere are two approaches to Differential Object Marking (dom): The Ambiguity Thesis and the Transitivity Thesis. The Ambiguity Thesis states that a morphological mark for the direct object tends to be used when it possesses the prototypical properties of the subject, such as agenthood, animacy, definiteness or topicality. The Transitivity Thesis argues that languages tend to mark categories with high transitivity values morphologically, rather than lower values. In our study we combined these two approaches to create a systematic model, which is a modified version of the Transitivity Hypothesis of Hopper and Thompson (1980). We postulate that the minimal condition to use dom in Spanish is a cognitive profiling of the referent of the direct object. The degree of profiling can be considered as cognitive prominence and can distinguish from more prototypical uses of dom to less prototypical ones. Our model provides a plausible explanation not only regarding the hierarchical relation between dom properties, but also regarding some problematic uses of dom.
-
Review of Ladewig (2020): Integrating gestures: The dimension of multimodality in Cognitive Grammar
Author(s): Zhibin Peng and Muhammad Afzaalpp.: 317–322 (6)More LessThis article reviews Integrating gestures: The dimension of multimodality in Cognitive Grammar
-
Review of Lin (2019): Encoding motion events in Mandarin Chinese. A cognitive functional study
Author(s): Na Liu and Fuyin Thomas Lipp.: 323–330 (8)More LessThis article reviews Encoding motion events in Mandarin Chinese. A cognitive functional study
Most Read This Month

-
-
Surprise as a conceptual category
Author(s): Zoltán Kövecses
-
-
-
Figures and the senses
Author(s): Francesca Strik Lievers
-
- More Less