AN OVERVIEW OF COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS

In this section, a general and brief overview of Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Semantics which is studied under Cognitive Linguistics will be provided with a special focus on CMT in order to make the reader be more familiar with the main tenets and the theoretical background of this research.

2.1.1. Main Tenets of Cognitive Linguistics

Cognitive Linguistics began to develop as a new approach to the study of languages in the eighties as a reaction to formal approaches to language, such as Generative Grammar which claims that “(1) language is an innate and autonomous cognitive faculty; (2) to know a language is to know its grammar, which consists of a finite number of combinatory rules; (3) syntax (form) is the main focus of linguistic analysis (and thus semantics (meaning) is largely overlooked)” (Ferez, 2008, p.11). This formative movement which tended to investigate language in terms of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, etc., separately was rejected by the cognitive linguists who agreed that there must be a holistic approach towars the study of language.

In the nature of Cognitive Linguistics, there lies two key commitments which are the generalization commitment and the cognitive commitment. The generalization commitment holds that there are common structuring principles in all aspects of language such as phonology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics and one of the functions of linguistics is to identify these common and general principles (Evans & Green, 2006, p. 28). Cognitive commitment, in a related manner, supports that “language and linguistic organisation should

reflect general cognitive principles rather than cognitive principles that are specific to language” (p. 41). These two commitments reprove the holistic approach of this field.

As a philosophical stance, Cognitive Linguistics adopts experientialism which is a world view supporting that all the human beings have access to the world through their bodily experiments (Malmkjaer, 2010, p. 61). The experientialist approach of cognitive linguistics can also be observed from the important starting points of cognitive linguistic thinking. They were the empirical studies of the nature of conceptual categories conducted by the anthropologists Berlin and Kay (1969) through which they determined the basic colour terms in the languages of the world and the psychologist Rosch who extended the study of Berlin and Kay to other types of categories including geometrical shapes, furniture, vehicle, etc. (Ungerer & Schmidt, 2006, pp. 611-612). These universalist approaches to language were agreed to lay the foundations of Cognitive Linguistic studies.

For experientialists, the external world is not fully independent from our perceptions and our everyday interactions which gives birth to the central idea in cognitive linguistics: embodiment which is elaborated deeply in 2.1.2.

2.1.2. Embodiment

According to the experientialist point of view, mind cannot be studied in isolation from the body, or human embodiment which is contrary to the view supported by rationalists who are on the side of the dual nature of mind and body developed by the French philosopher Descartes in the seventeenth century (Evans & Green, 2006, p. 44). In a general sense, embodiment “collapses the duality of mind and body, then, essentially by infusing body with mind”

(Strathern, 1996, p. 181). Furthermore, it can be stated that embodiment puts a heavy burden on the body in cognition, as also emphasized by Yu: “the body being in the mind, the body grounding the mind, the body extending the mind, the body enacting the mind, the body informing the mind, the body schematizing

the mind, the body shaping the mind” (2009, p. 27).

In Embodiment and Cognitive Science, Gibbs (2006, p. 9) outlined the

‘embodiment premise’ as follows:

People’s subjective, felt experiences of their bodies in action provide part of the fundamental grounding for language and thought. Cognition is what occurs when the body engages the physical, cultural world and must be studied in terms of the dynamical interactions between people and the environment. Human language and thought emerge from recurring patterns of embodied activity that constrain ongoing intelligent behaviour. We must not assume cognition to be purely internal, symbolic, computational, and disembodied, but seek out the gross and detailed ways that language and thought are inextricably shaped by embodied action.

As Gibbs also suggested, while embodiment is related to the physical and biological body, the embodied “is always some set of meanings, values, tendencies, orientations, that derived from the sociocultural realm” (Strathern, 1996, p. 197); therefore, it is not just the physical. As some cognitive linguists and cognitive scientists would call it, it is socioculturally-situated embodiment (qtd. in Yu, 2009, p. 28).

Relatedly enough, Geeraerts pointed out (2006, p. 5):

First, we are embodied beings, not pure minds. Our organic nature influences our experience of the world, and this experience is reflected in the language we use. … Second, … we are not just biological entities: we also have a cultural and social identity, and our language may reveal that identity, i.e. languages may embody the historical and cultural experience of groups of speakers (and individuals).

Moreover, Gibbs argued that “all cognition is embodied in cultural situations”

(1999, p. 156). Such statements have been proved with the help of the findings of the studies on cognitive linguistics which have shown that the mind is embodied in the culture of a specific linguistic community. The thoughts, perceptions, and feelings of someone are largely effected by the sociocultural experiences of him/ her.

2.1.3. Cognitive Semantics

As a branch of Cognitive Linguistics, Cognitive Semantics studies language, especially in terms of “the semantic and conceptual structure underlying it, as a window into the mind and culture” (Yu, 2009, p. 28).

A number of principles that characterized the cognitive semantic approach were described by Evans & Green (2006, p. 157):

a. Conceptual structure is embodied: “Cognitive semanticists set out to explore the nature of human interaction with and awareness of the external world, and to build a theory of conceptual structure that is consonant with the ways in which we experience the world” (p. 157). In short, our conceptual system arises from our bodily experiences.

b. Semantic structure is conceptual structure: The meanings conventionally associated with words and other linguistic units such as bound morphemes, constructions, etc. are equated with concepts (p. 157).

c. Meaning representation is encyclopedic: “Words do not represent neatly packaged bundles of meaning (the dictionary view), but serve as ‘points of access’ to vast repositories of knowledge relating to a particular concept or conceptual domain” (p. 160). In order to grasp the meaning of an utterance, the encyclopedic knowledge relating to the specific situation is consulted.

d. Meaning construction is conceptualisation: Meaning is not fixed but a matter of construal and conventionalisation. “Meaning is a process rather than a discrete ‘thing’ that can be ‘packaged’ by language. Meaning construction draws upon encyclopaedic knowledge, as we saw above, and involves inferencing strategies that relate to different aspects of conceptual structure, organisation and packaging” (qtd. in Evans & Green, 2006, p. 162).

Associated with the main idea that conceptual structure is largely based on the bodily experience, many studies within the framework of cognitive semantics have focused on investigating conceptual metaphors and metonymies, that can be traced back to the Lakoff and Johnson’s seminal book Metaphors We Live By (1980).

2.1.4. Conceptual Metaphor Theory

With the advent of cognitive perspectives of metaphors in 1980s, the long standing idea supporting that metaphors are one of the components of stylistic language was abandoned. Since then, more and more researchers have focused on the metaphors as a tool in humans’ communication.

The cognitive linguistic view of metaphor consists of a variety of components interacting with each other which are source and target domains (or frames), experiential basis, linguistic expressions, mappings, entailments, and blends, and cultural models (Kövecses, 2005, p. 5). Specifically, conceptual metaphors, expressed in the formula A IS B, consist of a source and a target domain. As Kövecses (2010, p. 27) put forward:

Source domains include the human body, animals, plants, buildings, machines, games and sports, heat and cold, light and darkness, movement and many others. Target domains can be put into categories such as psychological and mental states and events (emotion, morality), social groups and processes (economy, human relationships) personal experiences and events (time, life, death).

Therefore, it can be inferred that the source is generally a more physical domain whereas the target a more abstract one. In Metaphors We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson revealed the metaphorical structure of human mind and stressed that meaning making is a process of structuring abstract concepts in terms of more concrete concepts (1980, p. 109). They emphasized that “Our concepts structure what we perceive, how we get around in the world, and how we relate to other people. Our conceptual system; thus, plays a central role in defining our everyday realities” (p. 3). They provided many examples one of which is the conceptual metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR. In the statements like ‘He attacked every weak point in my argument’, ‘Your claims are indefensible’, and ‘I demolished his argument’, the source domain WAR has entities such as position, combatant, allies, etc., while the target domain has entities such as opinion, debate participant, agreement, etc., and people are directed to talk and think about the target domain ARGUMENT in terms of the source domain WAR (p. 4). On the other hand, they mentioned the possibility that there may be

different cultures in which arguments are not thought in terms of war, but viewed as a dance (p. 5); therefore, in such cultures, instead of ARGUMENT IS WAR, the underlying conceptual metaphor is ARGUMENT IS DANCE (p. 5). As the experiences and perceptions of individuals in different cultures vary, their conceptualizations or their relating abstract things with the concrete ones change accordingly.

In Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics the importance of culture in the studies on metaphor is emphasized by asserting that in such studies there is the requirement of “an explicit acknowledgment of culture and its important, perhaps defining role in shaping embodiment and, consequently metaphorical thought” (Gibbs & Steen, 1997, p. 153). Relatedly, Lakoff and Johnson discussed the relationship between culture and metaphor as follows: "The most fundamental values in a culture will be coherent with the metaphorical structure of the most fundamental concepts in culture" (1980, p. 22). Relatedly enough, they also point out that the experiences are:

… never merely a matter of having a body of a certain sort; rather, every experience takes place within a vast background of cultural presuppositions. … Cultural assumptions, values, and attitudes are not a conceptual overlay which we may or may not place upon experience as we choose. It would be more correct to say that all experience is cultural through and through, that we experience our “world” in such a way that our culture is already present in the very experience itself (p. 57).

As it was also asserted by Gibbs (1999, p. 155) “embodied metaphor arises not from within the body alone, and is then represented in the minds of individuals, but emerges from bodily interactions that are to a large extent defined by the cultural world”, the conceptual metaphors and metonymies emerge from the bodily experiences and they are shaped by culture.