Knowra Cognitive linguistics Cognitive linguistics Cognitive linguistics studies language as grounded in general cognitive processes, including categorization, embodiment, and conceptualization. It treats linguistic structure as reflecting how people perceive, think, and organize experience.
Categorization : The mental process of grouping entities by perceived similarities and differences. Cognitive linguistics explains word meanings and grammatical patterns through how people form and use categories.
Frame semantics : A theory of meaning in which words evoke structured scenes of participants, relations, and background knowledge. It shows how understanding a word depends on the conceptual scene it evokes.
George Lakoff : An American linguist known for work on conceptual metaphor, categorization, and cognitive grammar. His metaphor research helped establish the approach’s account of thought and language.
Generative grammar : A family of theories that models language as a structured cognitive system with innate or formally specified principles. Its emphasis on autonomous grammatical structure contrasts with cognitive linguistics’ grounding in general cognition.
Conceptual metaphor theory : A theory that explains many linguistic metaphors as expressions of systematic mappings between conceptual domains. It turns cognitive-linguistic claims about metaphor into a research program.
Conceptual metaphor : A mapping in which one conceptual domain is understood through another, shaping thought and language. It shows how abstract meanings draw on concrete experience.
Mental spaces : Temporary conceptual structures built during discourse to represent situations, viewpoints, and possibilities. They model how language prompts listeners to construct and connect imagined situations.
Ronald Langacker : An American linguist who developed Cognitive Grammar, a usage-based theory of linguistic structure and meaning. His framework is one of cognitive linguistics’ foundational accounts of grammar.
Formal semantics : The study of meaning using formal systems, often modeling truth conditions and compositional interpretation. Its focus on formal interpretation differs from cognitive linguistics’ emphasis on conceptualization and experience.
Cognitive Grammar : Ronald Langacker’s model of grammar, in which linguistic units pair symbolic structures with conventionalized meanings. It develops a detailed account of grammar as symbolic and usage-based.
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