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In these lectures, Arie Verhagen presents a version of cognitive linguistics that adheres to both the generalization and cognitive commitments that characterized the field from the start, and a biological commitment: understanding language as adaptive behavior of (human) organisms in the niche(s) that they inhabit. Drawing on the model of biological explanation (“Tinbergen’s four why’s”), Verhagen shows how proximate (individual level) and ultimate (population level) explanations apply to several features of language, shedding new light on basic notions like conventionality and entrenchment, norms/rules and habits, etc., and their causal connections. Topics include the relation between language, culture, and thinking, the role of language in social cognition and narrative, the evolution of sound structure and grammar, semantic change, and more.
In this volume, the issue of recursion is tackled from a variety of angles. Some articles cover formal issues regarding the proper characterization or definition of recursion, while others focus on empirical issues by examining the kinds of structur
Subjectification is a widespread phenomenon and has emerged as a most pervasive tendency in diachronic semantic change (Traugott) and in synchronic semantic extension (Langacker). Its importance is increasingly valued despite the fact that it is an area that has been treated differently by different scholars. One of the book's objectives is to generate a clearer understanding of the two major models of subjectivity, to see where they can meet but also where intrinsic differences present barriers to any integration. Another objective is to speculate on whether the notions of subjectivity and subjectification have reshaped our understanding of grammar. The goals of the volume are the following...
During most of the 20th century, the classical Saussurean distinction between language usage and language structure remained untranscendable in much linguistic theory. The dominant view, propagated in particular by generative grammar, was that there are structural facts and usage facts, and that in principle the former are independent of, and can be described in complete isolation from, the latter. With the appearance of functional-cognitive approaches on the scene, this view has been challenged. The view of structure as usage-based has had two consequences that make time ripe for a focused study of the interaction between usage and structure. Within the generative camp it has inspired a mor...
No detailed description available for "Linguistic Theory and the Function of Word Order in Dutch".
Constructions of Intersubjectivity shows that the meaning of grammatical constructions often has more to do with the human cognitive capacity for taking other peoples' points of view than with describing the world. Treating pragmatics, semantics, and syntax in parallel and integrating insights from linguistics, psychology, and animal communication, Arie Verhagen develops a new understanding of linguistic communication. In doing so he shows the continuity between languageand animal communication and reveals the nature of human linguistic specialization.Professor Verhagen uses Dutch and English data from a wide variety of sources and considers the contributions of grammar to the coherence of d...
In this book, Christopher Hart provides a comprehensive description of an applied form of Cognitive Linguistics in Cognitive Critical Discourse Analysis (Cognitive CDA). Cognitive CDA applies frameworks in cognitive linguistics in analyses of political texts and talk to highlight the ideological qualities and legitimating functions of conceptualisations associated with dominant discourse practices. Across the ten lectures, various frameworks in cognitive linguistics are applied, including cognitive grammar, conceptual semantics, conceptual metaphor theory and discourse space theory. Texts and talk from a variety of contexts and genres are analysed. In the final two lectures, Cognitive CDA is extended to multimodal data in the form of images and gestures.
Bringing together scholars from a broad range of theoretical perspectives, The Language of Argumentation offers a unique overview of research at the crossroads of linguistics and theories of argumentation. In addition to theoretical and methodological reflections by leading scholars in their fields, the book contains studies of the relationship between language and argumentation from two different viewpoints. While some chapters take a specific argumentative move as their point of departure and investigate the ways in which it is linguistically manifested in discourse, other chapters start off from a linguistic construction, trying to determine its argumentative function and rhetorical potential. The Language of Argumentation documents the currently prominent research on stylistic aspects of argumentation and illustrates how the study of argumentation benefits from insights from linguistic models, ranging from theoretical pragmatics, politeness theory and metaphor studies to models of discourse coherence and construction grammar.
The volume consists of ten studies that involve the use of corpus data relevant to research within a Cognitive Linguistics framework.