{"id":722,"date":"2010-06-14T22:00:34","date_gmt":"2010-06-14T20:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=722"},"modified":"2010-05-26T09:48:23","modified_gmt":"2010-05-26T07:48:23","slug":"cognitive-linguistics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=722","title":{"rendered":"Cognitive linguistics"},"content":{"rendered":"
Cognitive linguistics: <\/strong>Basic readings. <\/em>Ed. by Dirk Geeraerts<\/strong>. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006. Pp. 485. <\/em>ISBN 9783110190854<\/a>. $35.<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Ioana-Rucsandra Dascalu<\/strong><\/a>, University of Craiova<\/em><\/p>\n

The book Cognitive linguistics: Basic readings<\/em> is a collection of articles divided into twelve chapters (as well as an introduction and an epilogue) edited by Dirk Geeraerts. Cognitive linguistics, as an autonomous domain of linguistic study, must be distinguished from generative grammar. The main focus of this volume is on meaning, on how it is processed and stored, and on the way it transforms the outside world (4). The twelve subthemes of this volume reflect the essential issues of this field. Moreover, the contributors are well-known authorities who provide the foundation of this theoretical collective work.<\/p>\n

In Ch.1, \u2018Introduction to concept, image, and symbol\u2019 (29\u201368), Ronald W. Langacker<\/strong> takes a stand against the traditional trends in analyzing language, which he replaces with cognitive grammar: a description of language that uses cognitive processes. Like the lexicon, grammar is imagic\u2014for example, when using a particular construction or grammatical morpheme we select an image that corresponds appropriately for our communicative purposes. As Langacker declares, this perspective is completely new and innovating, formulating a cognitively realistic and linguistically well-motivated framework.<\/p>\n

In Ch. 2, \u2018Grammatical construal: The relation of grammar to cognition\u2019 <\/em>(69\u2013108), Leonard Talmy<\/strong> analyzes language as being made-up of two parts: the grammatical and the lexical. These two parts are distinguished by the notion of open-class items\u2014that is, classes of items that are \u2018quite large and readily augmentable relative to other classes\u2019 (70) and closed-class items\u2014that is, classes of items that are \u2018relatively small and fixed in membership\u2019 (70). Other categories such as dimension (e.g. space and time; 78), state of dividedness (83), and degree of extension (85) are also related to the grammar and lexicon.<\/p>\n

In Ch. 3, \u2018Radial network: Cognitive topology and lexical networks\u2019(109\u201340), to demonstrate the inadequacy of feature analyses and the necessity of new cognitive typologies, Claudia Brugmann<\/strong> and George Lakoff<\/strong> discuss a polysemous word\u2014the English preposition over<\/em>, and all of its meanings (e.g. above-across, above, covering senses, and metaphorical senses). Brugmann and Lakoff conclude that features are not enough for a proper linguistic description and that networks are needed to characterize the multiple senses of polysemous words.<\/p>\n

In Ch.4, \u2018Prototype theory\u2019 (141\u201366), Dirk Geeraerts<\/strong> provides an overview of prototype theory, a cognitive trend in linguistics with growing success since the early 1980s as a reaction to the componential model of linguistic analysis. The notion of a prototype is described by reference to the analysis of necessary and sufficient attributes that have both a family resemblance and degrees of category membership that are blurred at the edges.<\/p>\n

Ch. 5, \u2018Schematic network\u2019 (167\u201384), deals with multi-sense words and the types of relations established between their forms and meanings. Words are ambiguous when a single phonological form has two or more meanings (e.g. bank<\/em>\u2014financial institution vs. bank<\/em>\u2014land at river edge). Words are vague when two or more meanings are united as nondistinguished subcases of a more general meaning (e.g. aunt<\/em>\u2014father\u2019s sister vs. aunt<\/em>\u2014mother\u2019s sister). The verb paint<\/em> is analyzed as a case of polysemy.<\/p>\n

One of the most well-known issues of cognitive linguistics is metaphor and the differences in its traditional\u00a0definitions. According to the contributors, metaphor is a figure of speech that represents an object through similarity to another object and the recent classification as a matter of thought and conceptualization. Everyday conventional language is not metaphorical, however: One can commonly find many metaphors of time, space, and purpose. The use of personification and proverbs is also interpreted by reference to the metaphors they are made up of.<\/p>\n

In their chapter entitled \u2018The cognitive psychological reality of image schemas and their transformations\u2019 (239\u201368), Raymond W. Gibbs<\/strong> and Herbert L. Colston<\/strong> analyze image schemas that arise from our daily experience (e.g. perceptual interactions, bodily actions, manipulations of objects), which involve auditory, kinesthetic, and bodily aspects. This exploration of image schemas combines criteria from cognitive linguistics and psycholinguistics as well as cognitive and developmental psychology.<\/p>\n

Charles J. Fillmore\u2019s<\/strong> chapter deals with \u2018Frame semantics\u2019 (373\u2013400) whose central item\u2014the frame\u2014refers to a <\/em>\u2018system of concepts related in such a way that to understand any one of them you have to understand the whole structure into which it fits\u2019 (373).<\/p>\n

The twelve chapters of this book, along with the introduction and the epilogue, are a great guide to the most important themes of cognitive linguistics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cognitive linguistics: Basic readings. Ed. by Dirk Geeraerts. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2006. Pp. 485. ISBN 9783110190854. $35. Reviewed by Ioana-Rucsandra Dascalu, University of Craiova The book Cognitive linguistics: Basic readings is a collection of articles divided into twelve chapters (as well as an introduction and an epilogue) edited by Dirk Geeraerts. Cognitive linguistics, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":723,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions\/723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}