The area of cognitive semantics

Having briefly set out the two key commitments of the cognitive linguistics enterprise, we now briefly map out the two, hitherto, best developed areas of the field. Cognitive linguistics practice can be roughly divided into two main areas of research: cognitive semantics and cognitive (approaches to) grammar. The area of study known as cognitive semantics is concerned with investigating the relationship between experience, the conceptual system, and the semantic structure encoded by language. In specific terms, scholars working in cognitive semantics investigate knowledge representation (conceptual structure), and meaning construction (conceptualization). Cognitive semanticists have employed language as the lens through which these cognitive phenomena can be investigated. Consequently, research in cognitive semantics tends to be interested in modelling the human mind as much as it is concerned with investigating linguistic semantics. A cognitive approach to grammar is concerned with modelling the language system (the mental ‘grammar’), rather than the nature of mind per se. However, it does so by taking as its starting point the conclusions of work in cognitive semantics. This follows as meaning is central to cognitive approaches to grammar.5 It is critical to note that although the study of cognitive semantics and cognitive approaches to grammar are occasionally separate in practice, this by no means implies that their domains of enquiry are anything but tightly linked –most work in cognitive linguistics finds it necessary to investigate both lexical semantics and grammatical organization jointly. As with research in cognitive semantics, cognitive approaches to grammar have also typically adopted one of two foci. Scholars such as Ronald Langacker (e.g., 1987, 1991a, 1991b, 1999) have emphasized the study of the cognitive principles that give rise to linguistic organization. In his theory of Cognitive Grammar, Langacker has attempted to delineate the principles that structure a grammar, and to relate these to aspects of general cognition. The second avenue of investigation, pursued by researchers including Fillmore and Kay (Fillmore et al., 1988; Kay & Fillmore, 1998), Lakoff (Lakoff & Thompson, 1975; Lakoff, 1987) Goldberg (1995, 2003/this volume) and more recently Bergen and Chang (2005/this volume) and Croft (2002), aims to provide a more descriptively and formally detailed account of the linguistic units that comprise a particular language. These researchers attempt to provide a broad-ranging inventory of the units of language, from morphemes to words, idioms, and phrasal patterns, and seek accounts of their structure, compositional possibilities, and relations. Researchers who have pursued this line of investigation are developing a set of theories that are collectively known as construction grammars. This general approach takes its name from the view in cognitive linguistics that the basic unit of language is a form-meaning pairing known as a symbolic assembly, or a construction (particularly in construction grammar accounts, see, e.g., Goldberg, 1995, for discussion).

Cognitive semantics is part of the cognitive linguistics movement. Semantics is the study of meaning. Cognitive semantics holds that language is part of a more general human cognitive ability, and can therefore only describe the world as it is organised within people's conceptual spaces.^[1] It is implicit that there is some difference between this conceptual world and the real world.

The main tenets of cognitive semantics are:

· That grammar is a way of expressing the speaker's concept of the world;

· That knowledge of language is acquired and contextual;

· That the ability to use language draws upon general cognitive resources and not a special language module.^[2]

As part of the field of cognitive linguistics, the cognitive semantics approach rejects the traditional separation of linguistics into phonology, syntax, pragmatics, etc. Instead, it divides semantics into meaning-construction and knowledge representation. Therefore, cognitive semantics studies much of the area traditionally devoted to pragmatics as well as semantics.

The techniques native to cognitive semantics are typically used in lexical studies such as those put forth by Leonard Talmy, George Lakoff, Dirk Geeraerts, andBruce Wayne Hawkins. Some cognitive semantic frameworks, such as that developed by Talmy, take into account syntactic structures as well.

21. How does Mandler describe the process of forming image schemas?

Mandler (2004) describes the process of forming image schemas in terms of a redescription of spatial experience via a process she labels perceptual meaning analysis. As she notes, ‘[O]ne of the foundations of the conceptualizing capacity is the image schema, in which spatial structure is mapped into conceptual structure’ (Mandler, 1992, p. 591). She further suggests that ‘Basic, recurrent experiences with the world form the bedrock of the child’s semantic architecture, which is already established well before the child begins producing language’ (Mandler, 1992, p. 597). In other words, it is experience, meaningful to us by virtue of our embodiment, that forms the basis of many of our most fundamental concepts. Again, this basis must be very broad, and it underspecifies the semantic spatial categories that children acquire (see Bowerman & Choi, 2003/this volume). Nevertheless, image schema theory represents an important attempt to relate conceptual structure to the nature of embodiment. Thus, it most transparently reflects the thesis of embodied cognition, and the first guiding principle of cognitive semantics which holds that conceptual structure is embodied.

22. How can meaning be divided in formal linguistics by the traditional view?

The traditional view in formal linguistics holds that meaning can be divided into a dictionary component and an encyclopaedic component. According to this view, it is only the dictionary component that properly constitutes the study of lexical semantics: the branch of semantics concerned with the study of word meaning. In contrast, encyclopaedic knowledge is external to linguistic knowledge, falling within the domain of ‘world knowledge’. Of course, this view is consistent with the modularity hypothesis adopted within formal linguistics, briefly mentioned earlier.

23. What is an encyclopedic approach to meaning?

In contrast, cognitive semanticists typically adopt an encyclopaedic approach to meaning. There are a number of assumptions which constitute this approach to semantics, which we briefly outline here.

i) There is no principled distinction between semantics and pragmatics.

ii) Encyclopaedic knowledge is structured.

iii) Encyclopaedic meaning emerges in context.

iv) Lexical items are points of access to encyclopaedic knowledge.

v) Encyclopaedic knowledge is dynamic.

i) There is no principled distinction between semantics and pragmatics First, cognitive semanticists reject the idea that there is a principled distinction between ‘core’ meaning on the one hand, and pragmatic, social or cultural meaning on the other. This means that cognitive semanticists do not make a sharp distinction between semantic and pragmatic knowledge. Knowledge of what words mean and knowledge about how words are used are both types of ‘semantic’ knowledge.

Cognitive semanticists do not posit an autonomous mental lexicon which contains semantic knowledge separately from other kinds of (linguistic or non-linguistic) knowledge. It follows that there is no distinction between dictionary knowledge and encyclopaedic knowledge: there is only encyclopaedic knowledge, which subsumes what we might think of as dictionary knowledge.

ii) Encyclopaedic knowledge is structured The view that there is only encyclopaedic knowledge does not entail that the knowledge we have connected to any given word is a disorganized mess. Cognitive semanticists view encyclopaedic knowledge as a structured system of knowledge, organized as a network. Moreover, not all aspects of the knowledge that is, in principle, accessible by a single word has equal standing. For example, what we know about the word mango includes information concerning its shape, colour, smell, texture and taste. This holds whether we like or hate mangos, and so on.

iii) Encyclopaedic meaning emerges in context Encyclopaedic meaning arises in context(s) of use, so that the ‘selection’ of encyclopaedic meaning is informed by contextual factors. For example, recall our discussion of safe earlier. We saw that this word can have different meanings depending on the particular context of use. Safe can mean ‘unlikely to cause harm’ when used in the context of a child playing with a spade. Alternatively safe can mean ‘unlikely to come to harm’, when used in the context of a beach that has been saved from development as a tourist resort. Compared with the dictionary view of meaning, which separates core meaning (semantics) from non-core meaning (pragmatics), the encyclopaedic view makes very different claims. Not only does semantics include encyclopaedic knowledge, but meaning is fundamentally ‘guided’ by context. Furthermore, the meaning of a word is ‘constructed’ on line as a result of contextual information. From this perspective, fully-specified preassembled word meanings do not exist, but are selected and formed from encyclopaedic knowledge, which is called the semantic potential (Evans, 2006) or purport (Croft & Cruse, 2004; Cruse, 2000) of a lexical item.

iv) Lexical items are points of access to encyclopaedic knowledge The encyclopaedic approach views lexical items as points of access to encyclopaedic knowledge (Langacker, 1987). Accordingly, words are not containers that present neat pre-packaged bundles of information. Instead, they selectively provide access to particular parts of the vast network of encyclopaedic knowledge.

v) Encyclopaedic knowledge is dynamic Finally, while the central meaning associated with a word is relatively stable, the encyclopaedic knowledge that each word provides access to is dynamic. Consider the lexical concept car. Our knowledge of cars continues to be modified as a result of our ongoing interaction with cars, our acquisition of knowledge regarding cars, and so on (see Barsalou, e.g., 1999).

Date: 2016-01-03; view: 2226