Course description

In this course we will explore some areas in recent Cognitive Linguistics research. Some topics we will explore include:

• conceptual blending
• embodiment
• experimental approaches to validating cognitive semantic theoretical ideas and claims
• corpus-based approaches and analyses
• lexicon and its relation to grammatical constructions

The above are not mutually exclusive.

Topics and readings are by negotiation of class. Other topic suggestions that have been proposed so far include the neuroscientific grounding of cognitive linguistic theory and theoretical constructs, and semantic typology.

Special attention will be given in the class to finding correspondences across the principle Cognitive Linguistic and generally cognitively-oriented approaches, which include:

• Conceptual Blending theory as developed by Fauconnier and Turner
• Cognitive Grammar as developed by Ronald Langacker
• Construction Grammar/Construction based approaches as developed by Charles Fillmore and Adele Goldberg
• Conceptual System theory as developed by Leonard Talmy

Other cognitively-oriented linguistic theories made reference to will include George Lakoff's Conceptual Metaphor Theory, William Croft's Radical Construction Grammar, Sydney Lamb's Relational Network Theory (formerly Stratificational Grammar), and possibly Joan Bybee's Network Theory. Also discussed are ideas held in common with functional linguistic approaches, including emergence (discussed by diverse researchers such as functionalist Paul Hopper and connectionists such as Jeff Elman); the importance of frequency (functionalists Bybee, Hopper and Givón; among cognitive linguists mainly Langacker stresses frequency, but more recently corpus linguists who are also cognitivists such as Cuyckens, Gries, etc. )

© 2008 Suzanne Kemmer
Last modified 3 Sept 08