Cognitive Linguistics in the Year 2017

One of the achievements of the historical-philological tradition prevailing in the nineteenth century was the distinction between the usual and occasional meanings, attention to semantic variability and the introduction of the notion of context. Even though most of the work in historical-philological semantics has become inaccessible to a contemporary international audience, the role of this tradition can hardly be underestimated in the development of cognitive linguistics (Geeraerts 2010).

Cognitive Linguistics draws our attention to the psychological foundations of language. More specifically, cognitive linguists take the view that linguistic structure is motivated by conceptual representation and communicative function, thereby placing the representational function of language at the centre of its concerns (Sinha 2010). Furthermore, the perception of space and physical objects is claimed to be most relevant to the analysis of linguistic categories. Mental processes play the decisive role in the shaping of language data as they segment the reality into more manageable units and control our senses. Space perception – the main source of conceptual structure – rests on the sense of vision, but other senses also find their reflection in the linguistic representation.

The way we as humans are able to recognize objects and events in the world around us, the way we interact with the surrounding environment and the way we orient ourselves in space and time is often referred to as cognition. The relationship between language and cognition is a central research focus in cognitive linguistics. Although the linguistic interest in the mind mechanisms of language was initiated by Chomsky, Generative Grammar postulated the separation of language and cognition. Chomsky emphasized the importance of syntax and believed that language learning is independent of cognition, at the same time advocating the idea of inborn or innate language mechanisms called nativism. In Cognitive Linguistics, in turn, Chomsky’s idea about a special module in the mind devoted to language and the separation between language and cognition was rejected. From the Cognitive Linguistics perspective, language is claimed to form an integral part of human cognition.

The idea of embodied cognition implies that the properties of certain categories, or even the categories themselves, are a consequence of the nature of human biological capacities and of the experience of functioning in a physical and social environment. Lakoff (1987:265) claims that “conceptual structure is meaningful because it is embodied, that is, it arises from, and is tied to, our preconceptual bodily experience. In short, conceptual structure exists and is understood because preconceptual structures exist and are understood. Conceptual structure takes its form in part from the nature of preconceptual structures.”

A bulk of Cognitive Linguistic research has been devoted to elucidating conceptual structure and cognitive abilities as they are seen to apply to language and as they can be inferred from the linguistic data. A major aspect of human cognitive ability is the conceptualization of the experience and the reality around us by means of the linguistic form and also the conceptualization of the linguistic knowledge we possess. Cognitive capacities that play a fundamental role in the organization of language include conceptual metaphor, analogy, recursion, viewpoint, perspective, figure-ground organization and conceptual integration (Fauconnier and Turner 2002). To put it differently, cognitive linguistics goes beyond the visible structure of language and investigates the considerably more complex backstage operations of cognition that create grammar, conceptualization, discourse, and thought itself.

Language accumulates cultural wisdom, but at the same time culture cannot exist without language. Language shapes and is shaped not only by cognition, but by culture as well. For a cognitive linguist, language and culture are inseparable. Cultural concepts are embedded in language, and the architecture of each language contains culturally-specific features. These include both lexical and grammatical characteristics. Ronald Langacker maintains that “the advent of cognitive linguistics can be heralded as a return to cultural linguistics. Cognitive linguistic theories recognize cultural knowledge as the foundation not just of lexicon, but central facets of grammar as well” (Langacker 1994:31).

To sum up, Cognitive Linguistics is well-suited to research on a variety of linguistic subjects. This claim is also proved by the scope and variety of the subject matter of the following chapters in this volume. Furthermore, the cognitive paradigm offers a number of advantages over some other linguistic frameworks, particularly in relation to the range of language phenomena it can address and in relation to researchers’ need to communicate their results. We strongly believe that research presented in this volume can be easily made accessible to wider audiences. Analogically, the subject matter of many of the contributions suggests that they can be very useful in a number of applied fields such as pedagogy or translation. We should not forget, however, that neither cognitive linguistics nor any other framework is entirely comprehensive and gives full answers to all possible problems. This is simply impossible.

The present volume comprises sixteen chapters pertaining to various problems of language description couched in terms of recent advances of the theory of Cognitive Linguistics. The opening chapter by Agnieszka Mikołajczuk titled “Complex concept of DUMA (‘pride’) in Polish – from a lexicographic approach to discourse analysis” is an attempt at reconstructing the complex concept of DUMA ‘pride’ in Polish. The author starts her considerations from justification for the research and literature overview claiming that pride is one of the emotions that recently seems to gain currency in Poland. Having delineated methodological background and sources of data, Agnieszka Mikołajczuk proceeds to lexicographic and discourse analysis of selected text samples excerpted from Polish newspapers. The results of the research conducted show that the analysed samples of newspaper texts illustrate the activation of all basic models of DUMA ‘pride’, that is reactive, dignified and hubristic, with the last two being far more productive than the first one. One of the main conclusions the author arrives at is that the way in which the concept in hand is depicted in the press departs considerably from its portrayal in lexicographic sources especially as far as potential and obligatory variants of PRIDE are concerned.

The contribution by Aneta Dłutek focuses on standard business metaphors in English and Polish. Specifically, the author examines some potentially parallel metaphorical patterns present in the analysed languages. First, the concept of metaphor is defined as a human linguistic tool, and then its place and importance in business language is emphasized, which is followed by a detailed analysis of (selected) metaphors in business English and their Polish equivalents. Being set within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the chapter offers a discussion and examination of metaphorical expressions extracted from three lexical areas, that is economics, management and legal language and its aim is to identify mappings employed to conceptualize particular ideas in both English and Polish and to search for potentially similar metaphorical patterns. One of the important conclusions emerging from the contrastive English-Polish analysis is that a number of analysed phrases are considered to be equivalents, though the metaphorical mappings that can be established are definitely culture dependent and hence different for English and for Polish.

The chapter by Ewa Gieroń-Czepczor is another insightful contribution to the research into Polish public discourse. It starts from a few comments on language and social cognition followed by the discussion of the impact of metaphor on discourse and a detailed analysis of selected animal metaphors used in the language of politics. The author supports her findings with a number of citations which indicate the potential of the farm animals domain used in order to disparage opponents regardless of the demands of verbal etiquette. One of the conclusions emerging from the research is the claim that the choices within the rural life domain, specifically the workings of the traditional rural community and its members, reveal a shared perception of social and institutional hierarchies.

In another chapter titled “Indo-European *steh2- between etymology and cognition”, Marianna Pozza offers a thought-provoking interpretation of the change of the Indo-European root *steh2- ‘to stand/make stand’ that at some point in its history started to be associated with the meaning ‘soul’, which itself seems to be etymologically linked to the semantics of two possible Hittite corradical lexemes: ištanana- ‘altar’ and ištanzan- ‘soul’. The evidence discussed by the author shows that in a number of languages, the base verb, continuing Indo-European *steh2- ‘to stand/make stand’, is connected with preverbs which, in specifying the “concrete localization”, allow a figurative abstract interpretation finding its raison d’être precisely in the original localizing concreteness. The analysis of the form ištanzan- is based on the semantic shift/metaphor linking the concept of ‘to stand’ with the more abstract concept of ‘to think, have in mind’.