Knowing a Language – Cognitive Linguistics Overview

Functions of Language

  • Core Idea: Language serves two overarching purposes – symbolic (encoding thought) and interactive (facilitating communication).

The Symbolic Function

  • Language = set of symbols ("bits of language") that pair a form (sound, orthography, sign) with a meaning.
  • A symbol is more precisely a symbolic assembly (Langacker): a conventional form–meaning pairing.
    • Form examples: [k\æt], cat, a sign-language gesture.
    • Meaning: the concept CAT, not any individual cat.
  • Concepts are mental representations that arise from percepts (sensory information):
    • Perceptual data (shape, colour, taste, smell…) → integrated into a coherent mental image → labelled with a concept, e.g. PEAR.
  • Therefore, linguistic meaning links to a projected reality (Jackendoff): an internal construal of external reality, not the external object itself.
  • Prompt View (Fauconnier; Turner):
    • Language offers only minimal instructions or prompts.
    • Full conceptualisation is richer and is built on encyclopaedic knowledge.
    • Illustration – “The cat jumped over the wall”:
    • Word jump is vague re. trajectory.
    • Preposition over is polysemous (across, above-close, above-distant…).
    • Yet speakers default to an arc trajectory that starts on one side and ends on the other (Figure 1.3d) by invoking background knowledge:
      • Cats clear obstacles rather than bungee-jump.
      • Gravity ensures landing on the opposite side.
      • Walls are impenetrable; cats know this, etc.
  • Language has finite words and limited conventional meanings; thought is relatively unbounded.

The Interactive Function

  • Language = tool for transmission and decoding between speaker & hearer (Figure 1.4).
  • Speech acts: utterances that do things.
    • “I now pronounce you man and wife.”\text{“I now pronounce you man and wife.”} → legally & socially changes reality.
    • Imperatives: “Shut the door!”\text{“Shut the door!”}
  • Expressivity / Affect – choice of words signals attitude & social information.
    • The eminent linguist vs the blonde bombshell.
    • Shut up! vs I’m terribly sorry to interrupt…
  • Framing / Scene building (Fillmore): expressions evoke frames.
    • How do you do? → formal-first-meeting frame.
    • Once upon a time… → fairy-tale frame.

Systematic Structure of Language

Evidence for Systematicity

  • Language = inventory of conventional units (morphemes, words, phrases, sentences).
  • Idiomatic constructions illustrate stored chunks:
    • He kicked the bucket → idiom ‘he died’.
    • Change of object (kicked the mop) removes idiomatic meaning.
    • Passive (The bucket was kicked by him) loses idiom.
    • Ungrammatical order (Bucket kicked he the) shows importance of word order.
  • Constructions (Goldberg, Kay & Fillmore): form–meaning pairings at any level, including idioms and larger patterns (e.g. What’s X doing Y construction with incongruity meaning).

Systematic Structure of Thought

  • Hypothesis: linguistic patterns mirror conceptual organisation.
  • Examples (11):
    • TIME → MOTION: Christmas is fast approaching.
    • QUANTITY → VERTICALITY: Shares have gone up.
    • AFFECTION → PROXIMITY: close friendship.
  • Lakoff & Johnson: abstract domains structured by concrete experience (Conceptual Metaphor Theory).

What Linguists Do

Goals

  • Uncover, describe, model linguistic systems (descriptive adequacy).
  • Relate language to cognition (esp. conceptual structure) – part of cognitive science.

Methodology

  • Primary data: ordinary language use.
  • Speaker intuitions: judgements of grammaticality & meaning.
    • Acceptable: He kicked the bucket.
    • Acceptable but literal only: He kicked the mop.
    • Unacceptable: bucket kicked he the (4 starred variants in (12)).
  • Converging evidence: linguistic facts must align with broader cognitive findings.
    • Figure–Ground distinction: The cat is on the chair (figure prominence) is preferred to ?The chair is under the cat.

Cognitive Representation in Language

Talmy’s Lexical vs Grammatical Subsystems

  • Lexical subsystem:
    • Open-class words/morphemes.
    • Provide rich content (people, things, actions, properties).
    • Large, rapidly evolving inventory.
  • Grammatical subsystem:
    • Closed-class words/morphemes (articles, tense markers, pronouns, etc.).
    • Provide schematic / structuring meaning: number, tense, definiteness, statement vs question, etc.
    • Small, stable, resistant to change.
  • Illustration – The hunter tracked the tigers → altering closed-class items changes structure (question, tense, definiteness) without changing core event; altering open-class items yields entirely different events.
  • Grammaticalisation: historical process by which open-class items become closed-class (to be treated in Chapter 21).

Recap / Key Points

  • Studying language = studying patterns of conceptualisation.
  • Language has symbolic & interactive roles.
  • Meanings are constructed: words serve as prompts for encyclopaedic knowledge.
  • Language exhibits systematic patterns (constructions) that reflect cognitive structures (conceptual metaphors, figure–ground, etc.).
  • Linguistic theory must achieve descriptive adequacy and align with converging evidence from other cognitive sciences.
  • Cognitive representation involves two interacting subsystems: lexical (open-class) and grammatical (closed-class).

Numerical & Formal References

  • Word-order permutations for a 7-word sentence: 7!=5 0407! = 5\,040.
  • Figure references: 1.1 (symbolic assembly), 1.2 (levels of representation), 1.3 (jump trajectories a–d), 1.4 (speaker–hearer model), 1.5 (cat/chair figure–ground).

Examples, Metaphors, Scenarios

  • Jump over the wall scenario (trajectory ambiguity).
  • Fly in soup joke: ambiguity of What’s X doing Y vs plain interrogative.
  • Wedding vow as performative speech act.
  • Greeting & fairy-tale openers as frame-invoking expressions.

Ethical / Practical Implications

  • Understanding language-thought link offers “glimpses into hitherto hidden aspects of the human mind … what it is to be human.”
  • Psychologically plausible models of language can inform AI, education, language disorder diagnosis, etc.

Connections to Other Lectures / Fields

  • Relationship to cognitive psychology (figure–ground, perception).
  • Place within cognitive science alongside neuroscience, philosophy, AI.
  • Later chapters will compare cognitive linguistics with formal and functional frameworks.

Further Reading (from transcript)

  • Intro linguistics: Dirven & Verspoor (2004); Fromkin et al. (2002); Trask (1999).
  • Intro cognitive science: Bechtel & Graham (1999); Cummins & Cummins (1999); Green (1996).
  • Cognitive linguistics overviews: Lakoff (1987); Geeraerts & Cuyckens (2005); Janssen & Redeker (1999); Goldberg (1996); etc.
  • Works tied to this chapter’s issues: Evans (2004a); Fillmore et al. (1988); Lakoff & Johnson (1980); Langacker (1999a); Talmy (2000);
    Tyler & Evans (2003).

Exercises Mentioned

  • 1.1 Linguistic encoding – draw motion paths for sentences using throw + out of.
  • 1.2 Constructions – test idiom flexibility (e.g. threw in the towel).
  • 1.3 Word order – enumerate grammatical permutations of a 7-word sentence.
  • 1.4 Conceptual domains – identify domains behind metaphoric uses (idea, time, depression, Stock Market crash, argument foundation), then create sentences for domains THEORIES, LOVE, ARGUMENT, ANGER, KNOWING.
  • 1.5 Figure & ground – choose natural descriptions for visual scenes (goldfish in bowl, etc.).
  • 1.6 Open vs closed class – modify sentence The supermodel was putting on her lipstick to observe effects of changing closed-class vs open-class items.