Riassunto esame linguistica inglese,docente Sandford, libri consigliati Cognitive Linguistics Croft, Cruse e Metaphor: A Practical Introduction, Zoltan Kovecses

Riassunto esame linguistica inglese,docente Sandford, libri consigliati

Cognitive Linguistics Croft&Cruse e Metaphor: A Practical Introduction-

Zoltan Kovecses

• Cognitive Linguistics

• Approach to the study of language that began to emerge in the 1970s (as a reaction against the

dominant generative paradigm) and has been increasingly active since the 1980s. Now endowed with

an int. soc

• Interprets l. in terms of concepts. It’s an approach to l. that is based on our exp. Of the world and the

way we perceive and conceptualize it.

Three hypotheses guide Cognitive Linguistics:

• Language is not an autonomous cognitive faculty. It’s opposed to generative grammar.

• Grammar is conceptualization. Vs truth-conditional semantics= meaning is reducible to their truth

conditions.

• Knowledge of language emerges from language use. Vs both

[present alternatives to generative grammar and truth-conditional semantics]

• LANGUAGE IS NOT AN AUTONOMOUS COGNITIVE FACULTY

Corollaries:

1. Linguistic knowledge – the knowledge of meaning and form – is conceptual structure. This

means that semantic, syntactic, morphological, and phonological representation is also

conceptual.

2. The cognitive processes that govern language are the same as other cognitive abilities visual

perc, reasoning, motor activity. The component cognitive skills are not unique to language.

• Major Implications for research:

1. There is a serious attempt to ensure that cognitive linguistic models comport well with

results of research in cognitive psychology.

C. linguists appeal at least in principle to psychological models :memory (inspires l. m. of the organization

of l knowledge into frames/domains), perception, attention, categorization

• LANGACKER’S SLOGAN: GRAMMAR IS CONCEPTUALIZATION

Conceptual structure cannot be reduced to a simple truth-conditional correspondence with the world.

A major aspect of c. ab. Is the concep. of the experience to be communicated→Human beings

conceptualize their experience, and all aspects of conceptual structure are subject to construal, in

particular Grammatical inflections and constructions play a major role in construing experience.

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• KNOWLEDGE OF LANGUAGE EMERGES/ARISES 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.

this is both an inductive and an abductive process

• FRAMES, DOMAINS, SPACES: THE ORGANIZATION OF CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURE

• Structural semantics analyzes, describes the semantic relations among words, including hyponymy and antonymy.

1. Concepts are broken down into semantic features⇒ STALLION [EQUINE, MALE], MARE [EQUINE, FEMALE

2. Concepts are ultimately defined by their truth conditions: under which one can say that a concept does, or does no

appropriately apply to a situation.

• But certain concepts belong together because they are associated in experience.

concept of RESTAURANT is associated with a number of concepts such as CUSTOMER, BILL, EATING

⇨the

WAITER. It’s not related to them by hyponymy, antonymy or other structural semantic relations, but by ordinar

human experience.

Cognitive linguistics looks at different ways of organizing concepts;

• One of the most influental proposals is THE FRAME SEMANTICS’ MODEL DEVELOPED BY FILLMORE (1985



can be defined as the semantics of under standing. It is the opposite to truth-conditional semantics;

There are significant phenomena that cannot be captured in a model of structural semantics:

Riassunto esame linguistica inglese,docente Sandford, libri consigliati

Cognitive Linguistics Croft&Cruse e Metaphor: A Practical Introduction-

Zoltan Kovecses

• So Cognitive linguistics is a departure from:

– 1. Structural semantics (with semantic features) -- meanings of boy, girl, spinster is more than a featu

analysis of MALE/FEMALE, ADULT/YOUNG and UNMARRIED

The difference between Boy and Girl / Man and Woman can be analyzed in terms of the features MALE/FEMALE

ADULT/YOUNG(Structural semantics) . But our understanding of these concepts is more complex than this paradigm o

features contrasts implies.

For many people the term Girl is used for female humans at a higher age than the term Boy is used for male humans.

⇨ • SO in a FRAME SEMANTIC ANALYSIS man, boy, … EVOKE FRAMES including not just the biological sexu

distinction but also differences in beahavior, attitudes towards the sexes.

• 

Many lexical items contain semantic asymmetries that cannot be captured by features but lend themselves to

frame semantic account:

• Tall vs short for vertical extent for humans;

• High vs low for vertical distance from a bottom line;

But:

• Tall vs low for the vertical dimension of a building;

From this it follows that it is practically impossible to come to terms with a unitary definition of different contexts for ‘hig

vs ‘tall’ as well as for ‘short’ vs ‘low’;

•Instead, with ‘frame semantics’ we can easily have a frame for humans, a frame for buildings and so on

• Semantics also define words according to the truth conditions they establish

– no unitary definition captures distinctions between live and alive

• In a frame semantics analysis they are associated in different ways to 3 different frames: LIFE: those are liv

lobster; those lobster are alive. PERSONALITY: her manner is very alive. MODE OF PERFORMANCE: h

performance was live.

Frame Semantics shares some properties with ‘Lexical Field Theory’ (Fillmore 1985);

the two differ in the way they group words that are associated in experience:

• Lexical Field Theory: words are defined according to other words in the same lexical field;

• Frame Semantics: words are defined according to the frame itself:

Ex. Lexical Field Theory: 3

• ‘large’ as opposite to ‘jumbo’, economy giant’, family size’ in the frame ‘Soapflakes’;

• ‘Large’, then, describes the smallest size in the field; Conversely, ‘large’ is the largest size in the field ‘Cheesburger’ o

‘French Fries’: small – medium –large;

• Frame Semantics gives the word ‘large’ the same definition as ‘Lexical Field Theory’ but in the latter the approac

followed by the former is problematic if a speaker has no knowledge of neighbouring words.

TRUTH-CONDITIONAL MODELS VS FRAME SEMANTICS MODELS

1.John regretted signing the letter

• Entailment= John’s regret;

• Presupposition= John signed the letter;

• But if John did not sign the letter, (1) has no truth-condition;

2.John didn’t regret signing the letter;

• In (2), the entailment is negated but the presupposition is not;

• But (2) there is anoyher interpretation, namely that the letter was not signed since he didn’t regret doing it.

The problems can be easily solved with a ‘frame- semantics’ model because:

• The concept ‘Regret’ includes in its frame the accomplishment of an action towards which the regretter has his/he

regret

If the action is absent,under standing of the positive sentence fails;

• In case of negation, instead, either the whole frame or the concept can be negated;

• In the former case also the action leading to the feelings of regret, that is to say, the act of signing the letter,

negated;

• In the latter case, the feeling of regret is negated but the action of signing the letter is preserved;

• COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS/FRAME SEMANTICS DEFINES WORDS IN RELATION TO THEIR

FRAME

• Deictic expressions require a frame to be interpreted, since they refer to the speech act: tense, person, spati

deixis (this, here), and definite/indefinite: the basically indicates mutually known, a doesn’t.

• Many concepts require a context, cannot be understood a part from the intensions of participants, or social an

cultural behavior: vegetarian requires a meat-eating culture as context.

• Meaning is embedded in human experience , so the meaning of restaurant is related to CUSTOMER, WAITER

ORDERING, EATING, BILL

Riassunto esame linguistica inglese,docente Sandford, libri consigliati

Cognitive Linguistics Croft&Cruse e Metaphor: A Practical Introduction-

Zoltan Kovecses

• The experiential structure can be known as: frame, schema, script, global pattern, pseudo-text, [idealized] cognitiv

model, experiential gestalt, base, scene

• A word allows the speaker and hearer to focus their attention on only part of an entire frame. No one word give

the full structure of the frame.

– RISK frame. Elements: Chance (uncertainty about the future), Harm, Victim…None of the syntact

constructions in which the verb risk occurs, include all or even most of the elements of the RISK frame.

– My dad wasted most of the morning on the bus, which makes reference to relationships, working day, tim

as a commodity, and the fact that the bus was in service

CONCEPTS: PROFILE-FRAME ORGANIZATION

Word symbolizes, denotes concepts. A concept is defined by profile and base.

• Radius is a line segment OF THE CIRCLEðone can understand radius only against a background understanding o

the concept CIRCLE. These 2 concepts are related.

• The meaning of a linguistic unit must specify both the profile and its base

• THE PROFILE: refers to the concept symbolized by the word in question

• FRAME: coherent region of human knowledge, of conceptual space.

• RADIUS is a profile against the base (=domain=frame) of CIRCLE.

• A BASE is that knowledge or conceptual structure that is presupposed by the profiled concept.

• A DOMAIN is a semantic structure that functions as the base for at least one concept profile

Some consequences of the profile-frame/domain distinction

• Three allied theories that can be understood as types of a frame/domain:

– Artificial intelligence: a script is a frame/domain for a sequence of events: PURIFIED presupposes in i

frame a prior impure state of the entity which is then changed by some process.

– Cognitive psychology: “theory theory” states that categorization is based not on perceptual features b

on theories of biological kinds and artifacts: HAMMER, hammers are defined by the fact that they a

manufactured by human beings for a particular function.

– Sociology: describe differences in the community or social domain of use of a word. INNOCENT

profiled in a frame in which innocence and guilt are the result of judgments in a trial, outside that LEGA

DOMAIN, INNOCENT is profiled against a frame in which innocence and guilt are defined by whether th

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person committed the crime or not.

• Some concepts appear to denote the same thing but profile it against a different frame :

– LAND/ GROUND: the dry surface of the earth. LAND is profiled against SEA, but GROUND is profile

against AIR

– STINGY( avaro) is profiled against GENEROSITY, but THRIFTY(parsimonioso) is profiled again

WASTEFULNESS

– FETUS is profiled against MAMMAL⇨in the debate of abortion, the use, the choice of this term, th

frame makes abortion appear less morally repugnant, since it’s accepted that animals can be killed fo

certain purpose. UNBORN BABY is profiled against HUMAN⇒ more repugnant, since killing humans

accepted only under restricted circumstances.

– The differences in framing the entity orientates the hearer towards the political stance on abortion adopte

by the speaker.

How an experience is framed is a matter of construal: it depends on how a speaker conceptualize the experience t

be communicated

• Polysemy can be understood as a multiplicity of frames/domains for a single item

– Example: MOUTH can be profiled against BODY, BOTTLE, CAVE, RIVER

• The range of frames/domains available for a given item may be language-specific -- this is a way in whic

languages differ, and can make items “untranslatable” by including cultural references

– Example: Czech mlsat

– LOCATIONAL AND CONFIGURATIONAL PROFILES

Locational: HERE, MONTE BIANCO profile a location in SPACE, here is defined with the respect to the position of th

speaker; monte bianco, another mountain in another location is not monte bianco. TALL/SHORT profile a particul

location on a scalar domain.

Configurational: a configuration is independent of its specific location in space. It does not depend on position.

• RECTANGLE (is profiled in the space domain) is the number and configuration of line segments forming the side

MOUNTAIN is a typographical configuration that can be located anywhere.

• Units of measurements , such as foot,inch=profile configurations, an inch is the same interval no matter th

locations.

SCOPE OF PREDICATION the relevant part of the frame for defining a concept. -- NIECE presupposes kinshi

relations, but you need only part of the system in order to understand it.

Riassunto esame linguistica inglese,docente Sandford, libri consigliati

Cognitive Linguistics Croft&Cruse e Metaphor: A Practical Introduction-

Zoltan Kovecses RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN DOMAINS

• there can be chains of profile-frame/domain relationships: RADIUS is profiled against CIRCLE which is profile

against SPACE.⇨A concept that functions as frame/domain for other concepts is itself a profile for anothe

conceptual frame/domain.

Whether a domain is considered basic or abstract depends on one’s theory of the mind.

• Langacker (1987) Basic domains -- grounded in embodied human experience vs. abstract domains (‘SPACE

⇨

‘TIME’; ‘FORCE’; ‘COLOR’; ‘FORCE’; emotional states, processes, etc )

all aspects of cognition are shaped by aspects of the body. The aspects of cognition include high lev

mental constructs (such as concepts and categories) and human performance on various cognitive task

). Embodiment is the way in which human (or any other animal's

(such as reasoning or judgment

psychology arises from the brain's and body's physiology.

Concept:general idea derived or inferred from specific instances or occurrences.Something formed in the mind; a thought

r notion.

• A concept may be profiled in many domains simultaneously – the combination of domains simultaneous

presupposed by a concept =domain matrix

– HUMAN BEING must be defined relative to the domains of physical objects, living things, an

volitional agents, emotion, mind e cc…

– PERSON is profiled against the abstract domain of HUMAN BEING. The concept of HUMAN BEING

in turn profiled against the domain matrix of LIVING THING+MIND ( human beings are living thing

with certain mental states and abilities.. LIVING THING is in turn profiled against the domains o

PHYSICAL OBJECT and LIFE…

IDEALIZED COGNITIVE MODELS

The knwoledge represented in the frame is itself a conceptualizazion of experience that often does not match realit

• The frame/domain of a word may represent an idealized version of the world that does not include all possib

real-world situations=ICM

BACHELOR: profiled against ADULT, UNMARRIED, MALE the frame does not accommodate the variety o

actual social statuses found in the real world. Consider the Pope, Tarzan, and adult male living with his girlfriend,

male homosexual....

The ICM for ADULT must include reference to living arrangements, relationship to parents, occupation

⇨

activity, UNMARRIED must include a life history sequence in which there are not lasting sexual relationships an

then there is the marriage. MALE must also include sexual orientation.

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We have to call on our Encyclopedic knowledge in order to properly understand a concept.

⇨ • A word meaning is therefore a perspective of our knowledge of the world, choosing a word is a way of construin

the relationship between the experience to be communicated and the interlocutor’s existing knowledge.

• MOTHER: the real world has many cases where only parts of the cluster model for mother can be applied

particular individuals:

• Stepmother fits the NURTURANCE and MARITAL models but none of the others such as GENETIC or BIRTH.

• Foster mother fits the NURTURANCE model but none of the others.

MENTAL SPACES

• The notion of mental space replaces the notion of possible worlds

• A mental space is a cognitive structure that can represent beliefs and hypothetical situations

• Base space is usually present reality, the mutually known world of the interlocutors.

• Space builders are linguistic expressions that build links between base space and other mental spaces

• Words and constructions evoke semantic frames but also build space.

there must be a mapping between the elements of base .s. and build .s.

• Mental spaces include roles and values

– A role is a linguistics description describing a category

– A value is an individual that can be described by that category

• Roles and values can have counterparts across different mental spaces=ACCESS PRINCIPLE, a value in on

space can be described by the role its counterpart in another space has:

• “In 1929, the lady with white hair was blonde”.

• , the value in 1929-space is the blonde ,is described with the role of the lady with white hair in present-day space.

• REFERENTIAL OPACITY.

• “Oedipus wants to marry his mother”

• It is true under one reading, his mother is the person we know is O. mother; is false if his mother is the person

believes is his mother. This distinction is due to the fact that O does not know that Jocasta is his mother. In ment

space,O belief space, the value J does not fill the role his mother, although she does in reality space.

Riassunto esame linguistica inglese,docente Sandford, libri consigliati

Cognitive Linguistics Croft&Cruse e Metaphor: A Practical Introduction-

Zoltan Kovecses

• THE PRINCIPLE OF THE PRESUPPOSITION FLOAT:

presuppostions are situations that are part of the frame of a concept, but are not asserted.

A presupposition floats up from a built space to its base space (when it is not asserted),