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- Volume 4, Issue, 2017
Cognitive Linguistic Studies - Volume 4, Issue 2, 2017
Volume 4, Issue 2, 2017
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What happens to the basic level in language?
Author(s): Gábor Győripp.: 171–193 (23)More LessIt is a common assumption that basic level categories are cognitive units that share perceptual and linguistic characteristics at the same time. They are taken to be perceptual and functional gestalts designated by words that have a special status with regard to lexical development in children and frequency of occurrence and usefulness in everyday communication. Despite this connectedness of the two aspects of the basic level they do not go hand in hand. The perceptual side of basic level categorization is primary to language and exists independently of it. Basic level categories emerge naturally in the human perceptual-cognitive system as a result of our biological make-up in order to facilitate a proper functioning and orientation in our environment. The linguistic side relies on perception but is at the same time determined by several other factors. Basic level designations do not directly represent perceptual information because they contain additional conceptual knowledge reflecting cultural conceptualizations. This dissociation between the two sides can be seen on the one hand in the inconsistencies between perceptual qualities of entities and the way in which these entities are grouped together in linguistic basic level categories. On the other hand it is revealed through crosslinguistic discrepancies in category boundaries as delineated by words that are considered basic level terms and seemingly correspond in their semantics. An explanation of these phenomena requires that we do not handle the basic level as one phenomenon in which the perceptual and linguistic aspects merge but keep the two sides of the basic level apart while paying attention to their specific connections and influences on each other.
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Leader metaphors in Ekegusii language
Author(s): Aunga Solomon Onchoke and Xu Wenpp.: 194–215 (22)More LessThis is a cognitive linguistic study of a cultural-specific metaphor of a leader in Ekegusii, an African Bantu language in Kenya. A descriptive research design was used whereby the natives were asked to identify and explain the Ekegusii leader metaphorical terms and phrases, describe the social cultural values and to account for the cognitive mapping processes involved. The data collected were analyzed using the Cognitive Metaphor Theory (CMT) of Lakoff and Johnson (1980) . The results show that a leader in Ekegusii is conceptualized as a plant, animal, object or the behavior the leader exhibits (also act as X domains). It was also found out that context, values, attitude of the speaker and cultural knowledge play a major role in interpreting and understanding Ekegusii leader metaphors. The study concludes by suggesting further research of metaphors in African and other languages to enable comparisons.
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A crosslinguistic study into culturally motivated resemblances and variations in transferred epithet metaphors in Chinese and English
Author(s): Yi Sun, Yishu Yang and Monika Kirner-Ludwigpp.: 216–248 (33)More LessIt has been postulated that a cognitive approach may lend itself well to the study of transferred epithets, as this traditional rhetoric device possesses all the essences of metaphor from the perspective of Cognitive Linguistics. Transferred epithet metaphors are gradually cognitively cultivated upon human beings’ repetitive and recursive experiences of the real world and it has been well established that they cannot be separated from culture’s limitations or reformulation. The coupling between experientialism and culture in transferred epithet metaphors necessitates the establishment of a double paradigm to comprehensively and profoundly delve into the twofold restraints.
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Metonymy in human interaction
Author(s): José Antonio Jódar-Sánchezpp.: 249–272 (24)More LessHuman communication is based on mutual interaction between participants. Much of this communication is linguistic in nature. Language is structured by grammar and grammar is inherently metonymic ( Langacker 2009 ). Thus, language and interaction must be metonymic. In this article, I explore the metonymic basis of human interaction in both its linguistic and non-linguistic aspects. First, I make a distinction between linguistic and cultural metonymy. Both have a conceptual basis. The former, extensively studied from the view of cognitive linguistics, has a linguistic source. The latter, found in fields as diverse as art, theater, and film, does not necessarily have a linguistic source. The broader concept of cultural metonymy seems to structure human interaction. Second, I delineate distinguishing factors between the two types of metonymies. Those are the nature of the source and the (mis)match in the intentionality of producer and perceiver. Third, I make an overview and provide real examples of what aspects of human interaction are metonymic. Its elements, including the content of the message, the identity, proxemics, and kinesics of the participants, and the context of the interaction, can be metonymic. Its processes, namely those of language production and reception, are as well inherently metonymic. Overall, I show that metonymy, understood as relatedness or association, pervades human interaction and plays an important role in its success.
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When tense meets constructional meaning
Author(s): Naoki Kiyamapp.: 273–292 (20)More LessConstruction Grammar, one of the major frameworks in Cognitive Linguistics, has been successful in providing accounts of a wide range of empirical data. The approach has recently placed great emphasis on low-level generalizations, and some studies have argued that a constructional meaning is often associated only with a specific lexical item. Therefore, by investigating in detail the form [copula be + Adj. + enough + to-infinitive], the present study proposes that the combinatorial potential of the intensifier enough and the derived constructional meanings are sensitive to tense, thus emphasizing the importance of ‘item- and tense-specific constructions’.
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Judgments under emotioncy’s influence
Author(s): Reza Pishghadam and Hannaneh Abbasnejadpp.: 293–312 (20)More LessFollowing a number of studies on discovering the controlling dormant forces in linguistic biases, this study attempts to introduce the concept of emotioncy as a driving force in explicating the causes of prejudice manifested through biases in speech. To this end, two scales for measuring individuals’ bias and their emotioncy levels were devised and validated through Rasch measurement. A total number of 341 participants were asked to take the scales. Afterward, structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to investigate the probable relationships between sub-constructs of the scales. The results indicated that as individuals’ emotioncy level increases, the bias level decreases. In other words, involvement slides people toward being less judgmental and thus less biased in language, while exvolvement leads people toward using more abstract words, and therefore more biased language. In the end, implications of the findings were discussed in the realm of judgment and decision making.
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Compiling a cognition-based thematic monolingual lexicon
Author(s): Esra’ Moustafa Abdelzaherpp.: 313–329 (17)More LessThis study falls within the scope of cognitive lexicography which uses cognitive linguistic theories in lexicographic practice. The main objective of the study is to create a cognition-based monolingual thematic lexicon. The lexicon tests the validity of using cognitive linguistics, which uses language to reveal the human perception of a concept, in defining controversial multidisciplinary concepts. To that end, violence is selected as a case study and FrameNet is recruited as a cognitive linguistic resource. Cambridge Smart Thesaurus and WordNet are used as secondary resources to FrameNet. English TenTen corpus is employed to authenticate the findings before placing them in the lexicon. A twelve-frame lexicon is the result of the study. The constructed lexicon linguistically includes more than 250 violence-expressing word senses, defined and placed within their violence-associated frames. Some frames are cited from FrameNet without modification, while others are conceptually and linguistically modified. More important, some violence-specific frames are newly-reported. Evidently, studying how physical violence is linguistically expressed displays how the concept is structured in the human cognition. Thus, an empirical cognition-based definition of violence is suggested. This meets the challenge of the multiple sociological, psychological, political and criminological definitions. Moreover, a comprehensive definition of violence is recommended to include both its associated frames and expressing words.
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English transitive particle verbs
Author(s): Han Luopp.: 330–354 (25)More LessAdopting the Cognitive Linguistic (CL) framework, this study focuses on the particle placement phenomenon of English transitive particle verbs and its relationship with idiomaticity. Construal is argued to play a key role in determining which order a transitive particle verb should take. When a caused motion event or state change event is construed sequentially, the discontinuous order is taken to emphasize the final resultant state of the object. When the holistic construal is taken to view the same situation, the continuous order is adopted to profile the object or the interaction between the subject and the object. The holistic construal requires two conditions. First, the particle has a dynamic sense. It can designate both the process and the endpoint of motion. Second, the final state denoted by the particle is directly caused by the action denoted by the verb. In contrast, the sequential construal is allowed as long as a causal link can be established between the two participants under discussion or between the verb and the state change of one participant. In addition, the present study argues that the particle placement of idiomatic particle verbs depends on the processes in which the particle verb has developed its idiomaticity. If the idiomatic meaning develops from the inference associated with the sequential construal, the discontinuous order is preferred. On the other hand, if the idiomatic meaning is based on the holistic construal, the continuous order is then preferred. Moreover, item-by-item analyses of particle verbs that only allow one order listed in the Collins COBUILD Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs provide corpus-based support to the CL view of the relationship between construal, particle placement, and idiomaticity proposed in this study.
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Frames of reference and the encoding of spatial location in Mandarin Chinese
Author(s): Keding Zhangpp.: 355–376 (22)More LessThis article attempts to account for how the static spatial relations of location between objects are encoded in Mandarin Chinese with Levinson’s notions of frames of reference and Talmy’s concept of Figure-Ground relations as theoretical guidance. Space is relational in nature, and spatial relations are embodied concepts that are at the heart of our conceptual system. That’s why they cannot be seen in the way physical objects are observed. Accordingly, I am inclined to propose that spatial relations are not natural entities in the physical world, but abstract ones that are construed and conceptualized subjectively by human beings. In accordance with the relational nature of space, Mandarin Chinese speakers usually encode the abstract spatial relation X Spatially Relates To Y into a linguistic representation as X V Y (P) where P is optional, when a pure static spatial relation of location between objects is construed, or into a linguistic representation as X VP zài Y P where VP stands for verbs of posture, when the object being located is conceived as being spatially related in a certain manner with respect to the reference object. Usually, such linguistic representations as X V Y (P) and X VP zài Y P are usually realized in Mandarin Chinese as two types of locative constructions: spatial relation constructions of containment/enclosure and spatial relation constructions of proximity/adjacency. What’s more, though locative constructions are related in some way to existential constructions in Mandarin Chinese, they are actually distinct from each other in three ways from a cognitive linguistics perspective: (i) they encode different spatial relations, (ii) they reveal different Figure-Ground relations, and (iii) there is a difference in definiteness of the two nominals involved.
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Uncanny resemblance
Author(s): Alessandro Cavazzana and Marianna Bolognesi
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