Cognitive Linguistics Croft&Cruse

1: Introduction: what is cognitive linguistics?

Three hypotheses guide Cognitive Linguistics:

• Language is not an autonomous cognitive facility

• Grammar is conceptualization

• Knowledge of language emerges from language use

• [These three hypotheses present alternatives to generative syntax and truth-conditional semantics]

Language is not an autonomous cognitive facility

• Corollaries:– Linguistic knowledge – the knowledge of

meaning and form – is conceptual structure. This means that semantic, syntactic, morphological, and phonological representation is conceptual.

– The cognitive processes that govern language are the same as other cognitive abilities. The component cognitive skills are not unique to language.

Language is not an autonomous cognitive facility

• Implications for research:– Cognitive linguistics aims to demonstrate that

language can be adequately modeled using general conceptual structures and cognitive abilities

– There is a serious attempt to ensure that cognitive linguistic models comport well with results of research in cognitive psychology

Grammar is conceptualization

• Conceptual structure cannot be reduced to a truth-conditional correspondence with the world. Human beings conceptualize their experience, and all aspects of conceptual structure are subject to construal. Grammatical inflections and constructions play a major role in construing experience.

Knowledge of language emerges from language use

• Categories and structures in semantics, syntax, morphology and phonology are built up from our cognition of specific utterances on specific occasions of use.

• [I would argue that this is both an inductive and an abductive process, not just inductive…]