Cognitive linguistics is a trend in linguistics that explores the relationship between language and consciousness, the role of language in conceptualizing and categorizing the world, in cognitive processes and generalizing human experience, the relationship of individual cognitive abilities of a person with language and the forms of their interaction.
By categorization is meant the process of streamlining the knowledge gained, that is, the distribution of new knowledge according to certain rubrics existing in the human mind, and often given by the categories of language that this person carries. Conceptualization is the process of determining a set of cognitive signs (including categorical) of any phenomenon of the real or imaginary world, which allows a person to have, to keep in mind and replenish with any information any outlined concept and notion about this phenomenon and to distinguish it from other phenomena. [one]
In general, cognitivism is an aggregate of sciences, uniting studies of general principles governing thought processes. Thus, language is presented as a means of access to mental processes. It is in the language that the experience of humanity is fixed, its thinking ; language is a cognitive mechanism, a system of signs that specifically codifies and transforms information.
The object of cognitive linguistics is language as a mechanism of knowledge.
Content
The history of the formation and development of cognitive linguistics
The emergence of cognitive linguistics was due not only to the history of linguistics, but also - in a broader perspective - the development of cognitive research and the emergence of so-called cognitive science (English cognitive science; in the publications in Russian also the terms cognitive science and cohitology). [2]
The official βbirthβ of cognitive linguistics is timed to the International Linguistic Symposium held in spring 1989 in Duisburg (Germany) and which also became the First International Conference on Cognitive Linguistics. The participants of the symposium created the International Association of Cognitive Linguistics ( English International Cognitive Linguistics Association ), founded the journal Cognitive Linguistics and conceived a series of monographs of Cognitive Linguistics Research, which later published works of prominent representatives of this direction. However, essentially cognitive linguistics arose earlier, and the end of the 1980s. - this is the period not of its origin, but of its heyday, the time of publication of numerous works executed in the spirit of the corresponding ideology. [2]
In cognitive linguistics, we see a new stage in the study of complex relations between language and thinking, a problem largely characteristic of Russian theoretical linguistics. This study was initiated by neurophysiologists, doctors, and psychologists ( P. Brock , K. Vernicke , I. M. Sechenov , V. M. Bekhterev , I. P. Pavlov, and others). Neurolinguistics has emerged on the basis of neurophysiology ( L. S. Vygotsky , A. R. Luria ). It became clear that linguistic activity takes place in the human brain, that different types of linguistic activities (language acquisition, listening, speaking, reading, writing, etc.) are associated with different parts of the brain. [3]
The next stage in the development of the problem of the correlation of language and thinking was psycholinguistics, within the framework of which the processes of speech generation and perception, the processes of learning the language as a system of signs stored in human consciousness, the relationship of the language system and its use and functioning were studied (American psycholinguists H. Osgud , T. Sebeok , J. Greenberg , J. Carroll , et al., Russian linguists A. A. Leontiev , I. N. Gorelov , A. A. Zalevskaya , Yu. N. Karaulov, etc.). [3]
Thus, cognitive linguistics as an independent area of ββmodern linguistic science, separated from cognitive science. At the same time, the difference between cognitive linguistics and other cognitive sciences lies precisely in its material - it explores consciousness on the material of language (other cognitive sciences explore consciousness on its material), as well as in its methods - it examines cognitive processes, draws conclusions about the types of mental representations in human consciousness on the basis of applying to the language of the linguistics available to the actual linguistic methods of analysis, followed by cognitive interpretation of the research results. [3]
Key Directions
We can talk, at least, about the following directions in cognitive linguistics, which have been defined today (we call typical representatives of these directions):
cultural studies - the study of concepts as elements of culture based on data from various sciences. Such studies are usually de facto interdisciplinary, not exclusively related to linguistics, although they can be performed by linguists (which allows us to consider this approach in the framework of cognitive linguistics); language in this case acts only as one of the sources of knowledge about concepts (for example, data on the etymology of the word calling this concept are used to describe the concept);
linguoculturological - a study of concepts named by linguistic units as elements of national linguistic culture in their connection with national values ββand national peculiarities of this culture: the direction βfrom language to cultureβ;
logical - analysis of concepts by logical methods outside the direct dependence on their language form;
semantic-cognitive - the study of the lexical and grammatical semantics of a language as a means of accessing the content of concepts, as a means of modeling them from the semantics of language to the concept-sphere;
philosophical and semiotic - the cognitive foundations of the signs of nature are explored.
Each of these areas can be considered already quite established in modern linguistics, they all have their own methodological principles (they all combine primarily theoretical understanding of the concept as a unit of consciousness), and they all have their supporters among cognitive linguists, they are quite well-known scientific schools . [3]
Sections of Cognitive Linguistics
Cognitive linguistics is divided into three main sections:
- Cognitive semantics , primarily engaged in lexical semantics ;
- Cognitive grammar , dealing mainly with syntax, morphology and other areas of linguistics related to grammar;
- Cognitive phonology .
Cognitive aspects of cognitive linguistics include:
- Constructive Grammar and Cognitive Grammar ;
- Conceptual metaphor and conceptual confusion ;
- Conceptual organization : Categorization , Metonymy , Framework semantics , and Iconicity .
Cognitive linguistics, to a greater extent than generative linguistics, is trying to combine these areas into a coherent whole. Difficulties arise due to the fact that the terminology of cognitive linguistics has not yet been settled completely, because it is a relatively new area of ββresearch, and also because of contacts with other disciplines.
Developments of cognitive linguistics are becoming recognized ways of analyzing literary texts. Cognitive poetics has become an important part of modern stylistics. The best book on this discipline is Peter Stockwell's Cognitive Poetics [4] .
Cognitive linguists
- Charles Fillmore
- George lakoff
- Ronald langacker
- Leonard Talmi
- Alexander Kibrik
See also
- Cognitive semantics
- Cognitive science
- Cognitive psychology
- Cognitive psychotherapy
- Cognitive style
- Cognitive system
- The cognitive dissonance
- Sapir-Whorf conjecture
Links
1. On the types and structure of categories. Dziuba E.V.
2. Skrebtsova, T. G. Cognitive linguistics: A course of lectures. - SPb .: Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University, 2011. - 256 p. ISBN 978-5-8465-1037-1
3. Cognitive linguistics. Z. Popova Sternin I.A.
4. Shapochkin D.V. Method of cognitive analysis of discourse in linguistics // Bulletin of Chelyabinsk State University. 2013. β 10 (301). Philology. Art criticism. Issue 76. pp. 101β107.
5. Shapochkin D.V. Political Discourse: Cognitive Aspect / D.V.Shapochkin, Publishing House of Tyumen State University, Tyumen. - 260 s. (inaccessible link)
Notes
- β Dzyuba Elena Vyacheslavovna. ABOUT TYPES AND CATEGORY STRUCTURE // Bulletin of Nizhny Novgorod State Linguistic University named after N.A. Dobrolyubova: periodical print edition. - 2012. - Issue number 19. Language and culture. . - p . 21 . - ISSN 2072-3490 .
- β 1 2 Skrebtsova, T. G. Cognitive linguistics: Course of lectures .. - Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University, 2011. - P. 256. - ISBN ISBN 978-5-8465-1037-1 .
- β 1 2 3 4 Z.D.Popova, I.A. Sternin ,. Cognitive linguistics. Monograph .. - AST: "East-West", 2007. - 314 p. - ISBN 9785170451036 . - ISBN 9785478003463 .
- β Stockwell, Peter (2002). Cognitive Poetics: An Introduction . London and New York: Routledge.