239751 Cognitive Linguistics (S) (SoSe 2013)

The purpose of this course is to provide a general orientation in Cognitive Linguistics, an understanding of its central themes, goals and assumptions. Following cognitive theoreticians we will examine how language users depend on their knowledge of concepts and domains denoted by words to make correct judgements and inferences pertaining to meaning and enabling them to appropriately categorise words and concepts as well as the relationships these entertain with each other.

At the end of the semester, students will

1° Understand the assumptions underlying cognitive approaches to grammar and semantics
- Construal
- Prototype and salience
- Semantic networks (Filmore1977, 1982)
- Profiles/Bases/Domains (Langacker 1987, Lakoff 1987)
- Frame semantics (Filmore 1977)

2° - Be familiar with the principles of categorization with respect to prototype structures and definitional structures (Rosch 1975, Lakoff & Johnson 1980, Langacker 1987, Taylor 2002)
- Conceptual projection (the relationship between Conceptual Metaphor Theory / Conceptual Metonymy
- Classical theory of categorization
- Prototype theory

Bibliography

Croft, William & D. Alan Cruse. 2004. Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fillmore, Charles. 1977. Scenes-and-frames semantics. In A. Zambolli (ed.), Linguistic Structure Processing. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company, pp. 55 – 82.
Fillmore, Charles. 1982. Frame semantics. In The Linguistic Society of Korea (eds), Linguistics in the morning calm. Hanshin: Seoul, pp. 111-137.
Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Langacker, Robert. 1987. Foundations of cognitive grammar: Theoretical Descriptions (I) and Practical Applications (II). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Rosch, E. 1975. Cognitive representations of semantic categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 104, 192-233.
Taylor, John. 2002. Cognitive Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University.
Tyler, A. & V. Evans 2001. Reconsidering prepositional polysemy networks: the case of over. Language, 77(4), 724-765. Reprinted in B. Nerlich, L. Todd, V. Herman and D.D. Clarke (Eds.) (2003), Polysemy: Flexible patterns of meaning in mind and language ( pp. 95-160). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.