Cognitive linguistics

The Cognitive Linguistics sees itself as a research branch of linguistics, which can be subsumed under the cognitive science and the end of the 1950s originated in the United States. One of her most well-known representative is the American linguist George Lakoff, who developed a generative semantics as replica on the generative grammar of Noam Chomsky on its basis. Although the study of language has always been the goal of linguistics, but it was in the course of the debate about behaviorism, which was reduced to a stimulus-response model, inter alia, language ( represented mainly by Burrhus Frederic Skinner ) and advocated by Noam Chomsky Universal Grammar necessary to develop new models for the explanation of language acquisition and use. The advent in the 1950s, cognitive science and artificial intelligence research led to the fact that linguists did together with colleagues from different disciplines think about the cognitive structure of the human being and its connection to language. Important basic requirement for Developing cognitive models for speech processing / language acquisition are that a model can be adequate only if it is given that language is learnable ( Occam / Lernbarkeitskriterium ) and preferably easy to use that language ( processing criterion).

Cognitive Linguistics strives for explanations that are compatible with the contemporary knowledge about the brain and mind of man, and possibly deepen this yet.

The rationale behind this research branch of linguistics states that in terms of both their structure and language learning and use in terms of human thought must be explained in general. The focus of the considerations so are all those processes that are associated not only with the language itself, but also with all other aspects of human intelligence.

Research directions

The cognitive linguistics can be divided into three subregions, the present approach each other as the linguists have understood their mutual dependence on each other:

  • Cognitive semantics, which mainly deals with the lexical semantics
  • Cognitive theories of grammar, mainly deals with syntax, morphology, and other more grammatically oriented areas
  • Cognitive phonology

Some aspects of thinking that are relevant to the cognitive linguistics of importance, include:

  • Construction grammar and cognitive grammar
  • Conceptual metaphors
  • Conceptual organization: Categorization, Metonymy, icons, etc.
  • Construction of reality and subjectivity
  • Gestures
  • Sign languages
  • Linguistic relativity
  • Cognitive Neuroscience

Some of the works that deal with these topics:

  • Computational models of metaphor and language acquisition
  • Psycholinguistics
  • Conceptual semantics, as it was examined by the generative linguist Ray Jackendoff, may be added here too, since it deals with psychological realism and the integration of prototypes and images (see prototype semantics)

Even more than those named, cognitive linguistics tries to blend all these directions into a coherent whole. Difficulties arise, inter alia, that the terminology of cognitive semantics can be only partially described as stable. This is partly due to the fact that here there is a relatively young scientific discipline, and on the other by the number of interfaces that exist between it and other areas.

Insights from cognitive linguistics are increasingly accepted as ways of analyzing literary texts. For example, the cognitive poetics has become an important part of modern stylistics.

Stimulus–response model Generative linguistics Stylistics (field of study)
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