Cognitive Grammar Research Articles

World-switch and mind style inThe Barracks:a cognitive approach to ideology

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to take a close look at John McGahern’s mind style through the language of the heroine Elizabeth Reegan and other characters, in his 1963 novelThe Barracks. Specifically, attention will be drawn to how the linguistic choices shape the figurative language to cast the author’s controversial views on the religion-pervaded puritan Irish society that he knew so well. This will be done from two different perspectives. One perspective is through the breast cancer afflicted heroine, who asserts herself as a free thinker and a woman of science, in a society where priests have a strong influence at all social levels, and most women settle for housekeeping. The other is also through Elizabeth, together with other minor characters, who dare question some of the basic well-established ideological assumptions, in a series of examples where the author skilfully raises two parallel dichotomies, namely, FAITH versus REASON, and DARKNESS versus LIGHT. At a linguistic level, the present analysis relies on precepts from Frame Semantics, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, and Cognitive Grammar. These insights prove a most useful method of approach to a narrative text while unearthing the author’s ideological world view.

On the Coordinate Expression “A and B” from the Perspective of Cognitive Grammar

The coordinate expression of “A and B” formed by the coordinate conjunction “and” shows a variety of syntactic features and semantic relations. Based on the research of scholars at home and abroad the paper argues that the cognitive grammatical research outweighs other theoretical views on the researches of the internal motivations of complex phenomena. It further points out that A and B are parallel in grammar and semantics，and “A and B” is polysemous.

A Cognitive Grammar account of sentence types in English

This paper provides new insights into sentence types in English, based on Cognitive Grammar. The paper applies three of its theories of meaning to sentence types. One theory is that a linguistic expression is polysemous, having more than one function. On this basis, the paper argues that a sentence type has a wide range of functions that gather around a central function. Another theory is that the meaning of a linguistic expression is best understood in terms of the domain to which it belongs. On this basis, the paper argues that sentence types form sets in which they highlight not only similarity but also difference. A further theory is that the use of a linguistic expression is governed by the particular construal imposed by the speaker on its content. On this basis, the paper argues that the use of a sentence type results from the particular construal the speaker chooses to describe a situation. The aim of the paper is to present a new conception of sentence types, using the tools of Cognitive Grammar. A sentence type has been found to be polysemous in nature, associated with pragmatic functions, and the result of construal imposed on its content. (Kirkuk University)

O semanticocentrismo de Ronald Langacker

Para Ray Jackendoff, os modelos linguísticos desenvolvidos por Noam Chomsky distorcem a natureza da linguagem devido a seu “sintaticocentrismo”. Por esse termo, Jackendoff entende a premissa adotada por Chomsky desde o modelo padrão da gramática gerativa (Aspectos da teoria da sintaxe) até o Programa Minimalista de que o componente sintático é proeminente em relação aos componentes fonológico e semântico, que seriam tão somente interpretativos. O próprio Jackendoff, no entanto, também observa que desde ao menos os anos 1970 muitos pesquisadores cometeram o erro oposto ao de Chomsky por negar à sintaxe um papel gramatical relevante. Considerando-se esse quadro, analisa-se neste artigo a gramática cognitiva de Ronald Langacker, na qual a sintaxe é substituída pela semântica como componente linguístico central. O objetivo é mostrar como Langacker contrapôs o sintaticocentrismo chomskiano com uma espécie de “semanticocentrismo”. Ao fazê-lo, conforme se detalha neste trabalho, acabou por também deturpar gravemente a constituição da linguagem.

How Saussure is misinterpreted in Cognitive Grammar

Abstract As the father of modern linguistics, Ferdinand de Saussure influences all aspects of linguistic development with no exception of Cognitive Grammar. A scrutiny of how Saussure is understood in Cognitive Grammar indicates that Saussurean linguistics is misinterpreted in terms of five core ideas: (1) langue, rather than parole, is given highest priority; (2) the internal relation of “signifier-signified” counts as the pairing of “form-meaning”; (3) “arbitrariness” is contradictory to “symbolicity”; (4) “arbitrariness” means “unmotivatedness”; (5) arbitrariness is not the inherent nature of morphological and syntactic structures. This paper is intended to reassess these five ideas and argue that they depart further from Saussure’s thought.

Ecological validity in the study of language

Having its seat in both realms, the subjective and the intersubjective, as a product of human mind, society and culture, language appears to be the most complex phenomenon in the known Universe. It displays multiple layers of organization in its spoken and written manifestations, none of which can be ignored at the expense of any other, in communication, ideation and information processing. Therefore language, being an organic system of utmost complexity, requires holistic and organic methodology. Such methodology requires meeting the criterion of ecological validity. In the realm of psychological research, Gilliam Cohen, a cognitive psychologist, advocates “a return to real-life situations”, such as “remembering real faces, shopping lists, scenes, etc.” She demonstrated a reaction against “rigorous and artificial” psychological experiments, based on “nonsense syllables or words out of context”.[1] Similarly, ‘ecological validity’ in linguistics requires a naturalistic treatment of linguistic data, real usage instances stemming from field work and/or the study of discourse/texts. Both observation and experimentation in linguistic research require naturalistic methods, where the so-called ‘simplicity should not be sought at the expense of factuality’. In this sense, explorations into real texts within the Systemic-Functional Grammar framework, field work in the Anthropological Linguistics tradition, or the usage-based model proposed in Cognitive Grammar, all meet the criterion of ecological validity. This paper is bound to grasp some of the questions inherent within multiple spectra organically resting among the constellations that reflect philosophical, psychological and linguistic points of reference. These points of reference also emerged organically and naturally throughout the history of their evolution, in their own terms, as they evolved in their ‘ecosystems’ of ideas. In this way we hope to provide a broad realm for reflection on language and linguistic methodology, allowing to see unity through diversity, thus creating mutual affiliations of a parallel, convergent and complementary character, in the vein of an organic whole. First, we shall take a bird’s eye view on ontological and epistemological questions regarding any kind of exploration within the Universe of natural phenomena. Next, we shall take a general view on linguistic enquiry in the 20th century. Finally, we shall survey key approaches to language articulating overall aspects of structural, functional, generative and cognitive orientations.[1] Cohen, 1977:6

Null se constructions in Brazilian and European Portuguese: Morphosyntactic deletion or emergence of new constructions?

Abstract Se constructions designate a set of polysemous constructions along a transitivity continuum marked by the clitic se that perform various functions: reflexive/reciprocal, middle, anticausative, passive, and impersonal. A counterpart of these constructions without the clitic – the null se construction – is also attested. Based on an extensive usage-feature and profile-based analysis, and using multivariate statistical methods, we analyze, considering Cognitive Grammar, the conceptual, structural, and lectal factors that determine the choice between overt and null se constructions. The results of the study show that the null constructions are far more frequent in Brazilian (BP) than in European Portuguese (EP). In BP, the focus on the moment of change is a crucial factor for the overt/null variation in reflexive/reciprocal, middle, anticausative, and impersonal constructions. If the moment of the change of state is profiled, the overt se construction is usually produced. If the moment of change is not profiled, the null se construction is preferred. External factors also play a role in the variation. Register is an important predictor for the observed variation of the anticausative construction, and the only predictor for the overt/null variation in the case of the passive construction. In EP, the null se variant is mainly limited to anticausative constructions. In all cases of null constructions, there is a shift to an absolute construal, which has an impact on the way that the transitivity continuum is conceptualized.

Disentangling Subject and Anacoluthon NPs in Topic: A Cognitive Grammar and Gestalt Psychology based approach

In this paper we analyze NPs in Topic which can be either the subject of the verb in Comment, or autonomous items usually called anacolutha. It explores how these different NPs are mapped according to spontaneous speech data. Departing from Langacker's proposal (2001), in which the Topic and the subject act as trajectors of different scopes, it is argued that such a concept is adequate to the empirical data, since it allows the possibility of co-occurrence and intertwining of both categories in speech. In addition, we also investigated the difference in the cognitive processing of subject and anacoluthon NPs in Topic building upon the concepts of baseline and elaboration (LANGACKER, 2016). As the concepts of subject and Topic in the approach of Cognitive Grammar derive, in part, from the Gestalt psychology notions of Figure and Ground, the anacoluthon in Topic can be referred to as the Figure and the illocutionary force of the Comment would be the Ground. The only difference in relation to the visual elements is that, since they displaces through the space axis, the Figure and the Ground can be inverted depending on where the focus of attention is turned. However, as the speech is unfolded along the time axis, reversion is not possible, in such a way that an Anacoluthon in Topic will always be the Figure and the Comment will always be the Ground.

COGNITIVE AND COMMUNICATIVE APPROACHES TO TEACHING GRAMMAR IN ESP CLASSES

COGNITIVE AND COMMUNICATIVE APPROACHES TO TEACHING GRAMMAR IN ESP CLASSES

The Japanese ‘X wa Y o shiteiru’ pattern as simple stative expressions

This paper discusses the Japanese ‘X wa Y o shiteiru’ form, which represents the simple state or property of an object. After illustrating the basic features of the linguistic pattern, the paper examines how the pattern is formed by focusing on the conceptualizer’s cognition regarding objects. To conclude, the paper argues that the simple stative interpretation of the pattern derives from the process of subjectification proposed in the field of cognitive grammar.

Marking one’s own viewpoint: The Finnish evidential verb+kseni ‘as far as I understand’ construction

AbstractThis article examines evidentiality in the frame of inferential adverbs in written interaction from the perspective of Finnish, a language that does not have evidentiality as a grammatical category. The analysis focuses on six adverbs, such as käsittääkseni ‘as far as I understand’ and tietääkseni ‘to my knowledge, as far as I know’. Evidentiality and epistemic modality intertwine in their semantics, as these adverbs represent a writer’s access to information, but also indicate her evaluation of its reliability. First, this article offers a description of the interactional functions of these adverbs such as marking a writer’s opinion in contrasts, expressing slight hedging in order to anticipate corrections, to allow space for other opinions, or to create irony. Second, in the framework of cognitive grammar, the analysis focuses on the meaning of the evidential verb+kseni construction and the effect of different verb stems on it. These adverbs share similar functions in texts, which is due to their flexible constructional meaning. While varying from lexeme to lexeme, specific evidential and epistemic dimensions can either be foregrounded and relevant in a situation or remain backgrounded and not activated.

A Cognitive Grammar Perspective on Temporal Conceptualization in SLA

Abstract This article shows how cognitive grammar and cognitive linguistics theory offer a fruitful paradigm within which the process of second language acquisition can be examined. The aim is to describe and examine the benefit of using notions developed within the CG and CL frameworks to the study of crosslinguistic influence, especially conceptual transfer, in multilinguals. In recent years, the growth of empirical research concerning the contribution of cognitive-inspired theories to the study of second language acquisition and multilingualism has grown extensively. This article illustrates the possible contribution of CL to SLA by focusing on one particular line of inquiry: that of construal. Specifically, it examines how the notions developed within cognitive grammar theory can be useful tools for the analysis and comparison of conceptualization patterns of events, thus giving rise to transfer effects stemming from the way a person construes and conceptualizes events. The starting hypothesis is that conceptual transfer effects in the use of the target grammar, in this case the transfer effects in the TIME domain, may originate from the conceptualization patterns that the multilingual has acquired as a speaker of another L1. Previous transfer research has obtained evidence to suggest that patterns of L1 conceptualizations may be transferred into learners’ L2 through patterns that are similar to their L1. The utilization of central tools within cognitive grammar in order to unmask conceptual differences represents an important contribution to the state of the art of crosslinguistic influence research.

The Use of Nominal Subordinate Clause as a Syntactic Complexity Measure by Some National University of Lesotho Students

The paper explores the use of nominal subordinate clause as a syntactic complexity measure in some examination scripts of the National University of Lesotho (NUL) fourth year students. The study is based on the employment of the interpretivist paradigm as well as descriptive and case study designs. Data was collected from the students’ essays in the (2016/2017) examination papers and analysed qualitatively, following the Transformational Generative Grammar (TGG) and the Cognitive Grammar (CG), both of which formed the theoretical frameworks for the study. The paper shows that NUL students have a reasonably high level of syntactic complexity with the use of nominal subordinate clause.

Literary meaning as character conceptualization: Re-orienting the cognitive stylistic analysis of character discourse and Free Indirect Thought

Abstract This article establishes the theoretical bases for a more direct and detailed exploration of fictional minds in cognitive stylistics. This discipline usually analyzes narrative discourse in terms of how readers process language and conceptualize narrative meaning, treating literary language more or less explicitly as a window into readers’ mental experiences. However, it is also possible to treat literary language as a window into characters’ minds, which, in spite of their obvious fictionality, could enhance the potential for cognitive linguistic analysis to inform our understanding of the human mind and consciousness more generally. This article explores the nature of linguistic meaning in different speech and thought presentation techniques primarily through the lens of Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar, ultimately prioritizing the representational semantics of Free Indirect Thought. It proposes a more precise understanding of the concept of ‘conceptualizer’ which would validate a type of mind style analysis that is more narrowly focused on illuminating the underlying mental activity of fictional characters instead of readers. It demonstrates this type of focus with a brief analysis of a passage from Charles Jackson’s The Lost Weekend.

A multimodal cognitive approach to aid the conceptualization of Spanish utterances with ‘se’

AbstractMost native speakers of Spanish are intuitively able to construct correct structures with the marker ‘se’. On the other hand, non-native speakers, even those at advanced proficiency levels, have difficulties producing most constructions with ‘se’. This is hardly surprising as the marker ‘se’, one of the most common words in Spanish, can convey highly pragmatic nuances with a variety of functions that are still much debated among linguists. This study analyses some of the most used functions of the marker in the oral production of 18 Peninsular Spanish speakers from a multimodal Cognitive Grammar approach, identifying how gestures might be employed by speakers to create or clarify meaning. Our results confirm that gestures are used differently depending on the function of the marker. Middle voices where ‘se’ marks high levels of subject involvement and/or energy co-occur with related gestures, while middle voices or impersonal structures, where the involvement and/or energy is low, co-occur more often with unrelated gestures, if any.

Helden oder Staatsverräter? Zur sprachlichen Konstruktion vom Bild der ukrainischen Maidan-Aktivisten im deutschen, polnischen und russischen Mediendiskurs – eine kognitive Studie

Cognitive linguistics pays particular attention to the interrelations between language, subjective conceptualisations and intersubjective manifestations of knowledge, providing descriptive tools for the analysis of how the choice of linguistic means is determined by individual, as well as by culture-specific conceptual patterns. In this paper we analyse the linguistic construal of Ukrainian Maidan activists in six German, Polish and Russian daily newspapers. The analysis focuses on culture-specific differences between the linguistic strategies used in the Western and Middle European media discourse in the EU member states, as well as the Eastern European discourse in Russia. The research is based on two theoretical frameworks: cognitive ethnolinguistics and cognitive grammar.

New insights into English count and mass nouns – the Cognitive Grammar perspective

The article deals with two of the long-standing problems in English linguistics: whether it is possible that each noun can have both count and mass senses, and the problem of determining a complete list of the regularities of count-to-mass and mass-to-count changes. While there have been numerous attempts to solve each of these problems, this article shows the results of applying Cognitive Grammar to them.The analysis covers a set of concrete nouns representative of English – sixty nouns with different ontological properties and all frequencies of occurrence. These are nouns that are classified by dictionaries as solely count and solely mass. Because of its usage-based character, the analysis scrutinises over 1,700 real-life utterances produced by native speakers of English. The analysis shows that even such nouns possess senses whose properties are the reverse of the properties of the nouns’ basic senses. A thorough examination of the nouns’ basic and extended senses leads to certain grammatical regularities of count-to-mass and mass-to-count changes. The analysis not only systematises the grammatical regularities determined so far and solves many problems that can be noticed about them, but also proposes novel regularities.

Imediaticidade Pragmática e Uso do Presente do Indicativo em Manchetes e Subtítulos Jornalísticos

Este artigo examina o uso do Presente do Indicativo em manchetes e subtítulos de jornais online em português, sob a perspectiva da Gramática Cognitiva. A análise tem o objetivo de investigar os mecanismos cognitivos e pragmáticos associados ao uso do Presente do Indicativo para referência a eventos passados, contrastando-o com usos do Passado no mesmo contexto. A investigação parte da noção de imediaticidade epistêmica, referente ao presente simples em inglês (LANGACKER, 2001, 2009), expandindo-a para propor a noção de imediaticidade pragmática, relacionada à realização do ato de fala de noticiar. Os resultados indicam que o uso do Presente do Indicativo predomina nas manchetes, e que a combinação temporal mais frequente é MANCHETE (Presente do Indicativo) – SUBTÍTULO (Pretérito).

Construções nominais de referência genérica: uma abordagem experimental em gramática cognitiva

Sob a ótica da Gramática Cognitiva (LANGACKER, 1987; 1991), este trabalho investiga o polo semântico de duas construções nominais de referência genérica do português brasileiro: [Artigo + Nome Singular] (“O gato é voluntarioso”) e [Ø + Nome Singular] (“Gato é voluntarioso”). Propõe-se que, apesar da identidade extensional, as duas construções não são semanticamente equivalentes. Especificamente, sustenta-se que o padrão com artigo, mas não o padrão sem artigo, facultaria a conceptualização de um conjunto de tipos não perfilados no interior de um Espaço de Tipo. Para verificar essa hipótese, desenvolveu-se um experimento de julgamento de aceitabilidade no qual os participantes avaliaram a naturalidade de sentenças contendo SNs singulares genéricos em contextos contrastivos nas condições com e sem artigo definido. Os resultados mostraram diferença significativa de aceitabilidade entre as duas condições (p = 0,0014), o que fornece evidências em favor da hipótese de que os padrões construcionais investigados, de fato, evocam representações mentais distintas.

A Cognitive Grammar Approach to the English Grammatical Number Category

A Cognitive Grammar Approach to the English Grammatical Number Category