Placing Words: Culture, Cognition, and Context in Lexicographic Practice

Abstract

AbstractThis paper explores the utility of a more culturally contextualized approach to the cognitive lexicography framework developed by (Ostermann, 2015). Cognitive lexicography: A new approach to lexicography making use of cognitive semantics. Walter de Gruyter.) through a critical examination of its interfaces with ethno-lexicography, critical lexicography, and other considerations of the intersections between cognitive linguistics and lexicographic practice. This perspective—described as ethnocognitive lexicography—is rooted in the observation that culture interacts with cognition and with language in ways that are not easily separable for speakers of a language or others who make use of lexicographic productions. It does not assume that one of these systems determines the contours of the others but instead posits that the dynamics among cognitive, cultural, and linguistic systems are interactive in ways that shape both cultural and linguistic perception and practice. Capturing these interconnections in lexicographic materials requires grounding in the cognitive dimensions of language—particularly in the domain of semantics—and combines lexical data with ethnographic information relevant to the cultural context(s) of the data and a critical, use-driven approach to lexicographic recording. Exploring the parameters of this process and its potential applications forms the core of this paper. The concepts highlighted in this discussion have been implicated in academic commentary for a decade or more, but the contexts and combinations in which they appear here are innovative. They serve to illustrate how different synthetic perspectives may point to interesting new approaches. Color terms in Miskito, a Misulmalpan language spoken in Honduras and Nicaragua, are considered as a case study.KeywordsLexicographyEthnographyCognitive Linguistics