Usage-Based Linguistics

Abstract

Since the beginning of modern linguistics—that is, since Ferdinand de Saussure’s Cours de Linguistique Générale—it has been a standard assumption of linguistic research that the study of the linguistic system, or “langue,” needs to be distinguished from the study of language use, or “parole.” In structuralist and generative linguistics, language, notably grammar, is seen as a self-contained system including discrete categories and combinatorial rules that are analyzed without reference to usage and development. This view of language has been challenged by the usage-based approach, in which grammar and usage are inextricably connected. In this approach, language is seen as a dynamic system of emergent symbolic units and flexible constraints that are shaped by general cognitive processes involved in language use. The usage-based approach has evolved from research in functional and cognitive linguistics combined with psycholinguistic research on sentence processing and language acquisition. The general goal of this approach is to develop a framework for the analysis of linguistic structure as it evolves from general cognitive processes such as categorization, analogy, automatization, and (joint) attention, which are not only relevant for language, but also for many other cognitive phenomena, such as vision, memory, and thought. In order to understand why linguistic structure is the way it is, usage-based linguists study language development, both in history and acquisition. On the assumption that language development is crucially influenced by the language user’s experience with particular linguistic elements, usage-based linguists have emphasized the importance of frequency of occurrence for the analysis of grammar. There is a wealth of recent results indicating that frequency has an enormous impact on the language users’ behavior in communication and information processing, and on the development of linguistic structure in acquisition and change.