Cognitive Linguistic Studies - Volume 2, Issue 1, 2015

This paper discusses the syntactic function of Nuclear Stress Rule (NSR) in Chinese; it is argued that the NSR is a central mechanism developed in the theory of prosodic syntax under which the interface effects between prosody and syntax are derived. It is shown that the NS not only carries the normal sentential stress but also manifests wide scope focus information. In answering questions and confusions raised in recent years, this paper provides some new facts with new analyses motivated by the Government-based Nuclear Stress Rule in Chinese.

This paper comprises a study of the somatic vocabulary associated with particular emotions (especially anger, shame and love) as they appear in Old Norse texts. Through a detailed analysis of the occurrences of these emotion expressions in different textual genres and periods, we investigate the way in which certain physiological manifestations were linked to a specific emotion in a certain type of text and period, and how certain changes in the usage of vocabulary came into being. We conclude that changes in the conceptualization of emotions in Old Norse written texts were mediated by new metaphors and metonymies imported into medieval Icelandic culture in the form of translated texts, both religious and secular.

This article examines two corpora composed of four discourse genres — oral interviews, written interviews, newspaper articles, and non-fiction books — to explore the ways in which ‘society’ is discussed metaphorically in current German and Brazilian discourse. It discusses culture-specific ‘mixed metaphors’ (Lakoff & Johnson 1980) which can be seen as ‘metaphorical scenarios’ (Musolff 2004) or ‘integration networks’ (Fauconnier & Turner 2002, 2008). The results reveal that the Brazilian metaphors tend to incorporate the idea that SOCIETY AS A PERSON has didactic and poetic functions to a high degree. By contrast, the German metaphors have a stronger relation to motion dynamics, frequently argumentatively analyzed from an observer’s point of view. Finally, this article demonstrates that Blending Theory must be extended by a semiotic-contextual view to integrate elements like ‘relevance space’ (Brandt & Brandt 2005), and to account for culture-dependent variation and the involved speech functions displayed by real speakers/writers and hearers/readers in specific communication situations.

Studies in Cognitive Linguistics show that metaphors are fundamental to the structuring of people’s thought and language (Sweetser 1990; Kövecses 2009). It is against this backdrop that this study discusses human body parts as metaphors of conceptualizing love in Gĩkũyũ. To achieve this objective, an interview schedule was administered to 48 respondents of different gender by the researcher assisted by four research assistants. The Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and the main principles of the Metaphor Identification Procedure Vrije Universiteit (MIPVU) (see Steen et al. 2010) were used in this study. The principles of the MIPVU were employed to find out whether the lexical items collected were metaphorical or not. Using three annotators and the researcher, the study identified 100 Metaphor Related Words (MRWs) as per the annotation guidelines adapted from the MIPVU procedures and three lexical units which were annotated as Discard From Metaphor Analysis (DFMA). From the MRWs, the study identified eight metaphors of human body parts which play an indispensable role in the conceptualization of love in Gĩkũyũ. Further, the study noted that gender is a vital variable that provides people with the prism through which they view love since males registered more lexical frequencies for LOVE IS A HUMAN BODY PART than females. The study concludes that metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics is not only a creative device, but an important mental facility and cognitive instrument.

This paper discusses the Akan body part yam ‘stomach’ and its metaphorical extensions. It will consider how most of the extensions have been conventionalised to the extent that there are no alternative means of expressing the concept, and look at the strong relationship between the stomach, the heart, the chest, the brain, and the womb in the expressions of emotion whether positive or negative. The paper argues that the word yam can be considered polysemic with various related senses, but that it is also used metonymically in referring to the SELF or one’s personality. The paper at the same time investigates how some of the ‘stomach’ expressions include the UP/DOWN and the HOT/COOL dimensions.

This paper is an attempt to develop a new mechanism for semasiologically identifying conceptual metaphors in a particular discourse (SCAICM). Based on Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) conceptual metaphor theory (CMT)’ and aided with corpus tools, the proposed method complements previously suggested mechanisms by Jaekel (1995, 1997, 2002), Steen (1999, 2007, 2010), Deignan (1999, 2008) and Stefanowitsch (2006). This mechanism attempts to suggest solutions to methodological problems associated with the previous mechanisms, such as the starting point, overlooking instances of potential metaphors, neglecting stretches of words, and covering larger corpora. The proposed method is assumed to account for all and every instance of potential conceptual metaphor in corpora under investigation and it combines qualitative with quantitative analysis interchangeably. The method is implemented to ongoing PhD research addressing conceptual metaphors in selected English translations of the Noble Qur’an (ETNQs).

Research on the interaction between emotion, cognition and language in the field of Artificial Intelligence has become particularly active along the last years. Lots of computational models of emotion have been developed. There are accounts stressing the role of canonical and mirror neurons as underlying the use of nouns and verbs. At the same time, neuropsychology is developing new approaches for modeling language, emotion and cognition inspired on the insights gained from robotics. The current landscape is thus a promising collaboration between several approaches: Social Psychology, Neuropsychology, Artificial Intelligence (mainly embodied), and even Philosophy, so that each field provides useful cues for the common goal of understanding social interactions (including the interactions with machines).The aim of this paper is to analyze and asses the current trends in psychology and neuroscience for studying the mechanisms of the neurocomputational cognitive-affective architecture related to the conceptualization and use of language.

This study seeks to determine the relative position of derivational affixes on the lexicon-grammar continuum in English. Its major claim is that the set of prefixes is rather more lexical and the set of suffixes rather more grammatical in nature. This hypothesis is supported by a battery of ten tests (nine linguistic and one psycholinguistic). All tests converge to the point where we can raise the possibility of a unified explanation. A theoretical account is offered which is grounded in both language structure and processing. It is erected on a temporal asymmetry between prefixes and suffixes and a logical (relational) asymmetry between stems and affixes. In conjunction with the immediacy-of-processing assumption, these asymmetries lead to a temporal precedence of (more) lexical over (more) grammatical material, hence the higher lexicalness of prefixes and the higher grammaticalness of suffixes. An extended focus on inflectional morphology locates inflectional suffixes at the grammatical end of the spectrum. Inflectional prefixes in languages other than English may find a place either between derivational prefixes and derivational suffixes or between derivational and inflectional suffixes.