Cognitive Linguistic Studies - Volume 1, Issue 1, 2014

A construction grammar approach is presented to changes to language as a system that is both communicative and cognitive (Traugott and Trousdale 2013). Constructionalization is defined as the development of formnew-meaningnew pairs and constructional changes as changes to features of constructions. The approach requires focus on form and meaning equally. Constructionalization is shown to encompass and go beyond both grammaticalization and lexicalization, which are conceptualized as on a continuum. The framework favors thinking in terms of analogizing to sets and schemas as well as of gradual (micro-step) reanalyses. The ability to see how networks, schemas, and micro-constructions are created or grow and decline, as well as the ability to track the development of patterns at both substantive and schematic levels, allows the researcher to see how each micro-construction has its own history within the constraints of larger patterns, most immediately schemas, but also related network nodes.

Cognitive Linguistics has demonstrated the applicability of a conceptual approach to the understanding of political issues, cf. Lakoff (2008) and many others. From a different perspective, critical discourse analysis has approached political concepts with a focus on issues involving potentially divisive features such as race, class, gender and ethnic identity. Although discourses are not identical to conceptual models, conceptual models are typically manifested in discourse, and discourses are typically reflections of conceptualizations, a theme explored e.g. in Hart and Lukes (2007). As argued in Harder (2010), however, both the analytic stance of critical discourse analysis (based on the hermeneutics of suspicion), and the cognitivist stance of Lakoff (2008) are too narrow: The understanding of political language requires a wider framework of social cognitive linguistics. Essential features of such a framework are a basis in collaborative intersubjectivity and the inclusion of causal factors in the social domain that impinge on conceptualization. This enables politically salient conceptualizations to be understood in the light of different types of input to conceptualization, rather than solely in terms of conceptual models or discourses. This is especially important in cases that involve conflictive political issues such as national and ethnic identity. The article reports on a historical project with a linguistic dimension in my department (PI Stuart Ward, cf. Ward 2004), which aims to throw light on the interplay between conceptual, geopolitical and social factors in shaping the ongoing change in the role and nature of ‘Britishness’. A key question for this article is: What are relations between conceptual models and macro-social, causal factors in shaping the intersubjective status of Britishness?

This paper focuses on the analysis of the different motifs that shape the linguistic expression of shame and guilt in Old English. Through the fine-grained analysis of the whole set of shame and guilt expressions recorded in a corpus of Old English texts, a network of literal and figurative conceptualizations for each emotion is proposed. On the basis of these expressions, I argue here that body-related expressions (either metonymic or metaphoric) occupy a very secondary role in the Anglo-Saxon imagery of shame and guilt. In clear contrast with this view of shame and guilt as instruments of social control, the Christianization of England implied the spread of new shame-related values and the growing use of a new set of embodied conceptualizations for the two emotions under scrutiny here, most of which have become common figurative expressions of shame and guilt in later varieties of English. The new expressions (e.g. SHAME IS REDNESS IN THE FACE and SHAME IS SOMETHING COVERING A PERSON) illustrate the shift towards a progressive embodiment of the new emotional standards brought by Christianization. According to these standards, rather than an external judgment or reproach, shame and guilt involve a negative evaluation of oneself. Furthermore, I argue here that these onomasiological changes are informing us on the lexical choices of Old English speakers and on the sociolinguistic factors that conditioned the development of new emotional styles (i.e., the different ways feelings were expressed and, surely, felt) in Anglo-Saxon England.

Bodily experiences (BE) are often theorized by cognitive linguists as sources of meaning making, encoded and projected at the levels of grammar, semantics, and discourse. For example, Conceptual Metaphor Theory regards embodied image schemas (Johnson 1987) and, more recently, live simulations of embodied experiences (Gibbs 2013) as vital to the emergence and understanding of conceptual metaphors. Interestingly however, BE also feature as targets or topics in certain discourse contexts, which leads to underexplored scenarios where BE is simultaneously a source and a target of meaning making. This paper presents examples of metaphors in psychotherapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as a case in point. In psychotherapy, experientially concrete sources are often used to conceptualize abstract issues such as emotions and subjective experiences. In the case of PTSD, however, bodily experiences turn out to be both potential source concepts as well as target topics of therapeutic discussion, a phenomenon seldom discussed in cognitive linguistics. I examine psychotherapy transcripts involving victims of the 2010–12 earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, discuss how this source-target simultaneity of BE is exploited for therapeutic ends, and highlight three strands of implications pertaining to cognitive, discursive, and strategic aspects of metaphor use in psychotherapy. I conclude with a more programmatic statement about psychotherapeutic discourse as a productive site of inquiry for applied cognitive linguistics and applied metaphor research.

In the view of cognitive linguistics, abstract concepts are often understood through more concrete domains of experience, and the resulting conceptual metaphors deeply influence the way people think of and reason about them. Over the past few decades, several interesting studies have been published about this feature in the realm of politics, where the power of speech is greatly felt. One of the most basic concepts of this realm is that of the state, sometimes equated with the country people live in. This paper discusses similarities and differences in the conceptualization of the state in Chinese political discourse on one hand, and Hungarian political discourse on the other, as they are reflected in the source domains used as vehicles of understanding. The discussion is based on corpus research findings, but the analysis relies both on individual intuition of the authors, members of these two cultures (yielding quality analysis), and on frequency counts in the texts of the corpora (quantity analysis). The functions of culture in shaping metaphors and choosing a specific source domain are also taken into consideration in this contrastive study of the two languages.

This paper analyses the conventional metaphorical expressions of anger in Akan, a Kwa language spoken in Ghana, West Africa, in order to identify conventional conceptual metaphors of the concept in the language. Native and relatively monolingual speakers of Akan in semi-rural and rural Ghana participated in focus group discussions to generate a corpus of 23,800 words from which metaphorical expressions of anger were drawn. The analysis reveals that Akan conceptualisations of anger are based on both general metonymic and metaphorical principles that are grounded in fundamental human experiences including physiological and socio-cultural experiences. The major conventional conceptual metaphors identified in Akan are: ANGER IS A HOT FLUID IN A CONTAINER, ANGER IS A GROWING WEED, ANGER IS A BURDEN, ANGER IS A DANGEROUS THING, ANGER IS A DISEASE and ANGER IS FOOD. While Akan conceptualisation of aspects of anger are similar in some ways to Lakoff’s prototypical anger scenario, i.e., akin to the retribution stage of the prototypical anger scenario in English, it is important to mention that stages 3 and 4 of the prototypical anger scenario in English may be of no consequences at all in what appears to be the prototypical anger scenario in Akan.

The current study describes aphasia in a deaf user of Indian Sign Language (ISL). One congenitally deaf adult with LHD was evaluated for signs of aphasia. The tools used were Aphasia Diagnostic Battery in Indian Sign Language (ADB in ISL), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) investigation, linguistic, and neurobehavioral profile. The results of all investigative procedures revealed signs and symptoms consistent with non-fluent aphasia specifically Broca’s aphasia. The data from ISL in brain damaged individual further emphasize the role of left hemisphere in sign language processing.