231141 Language in Mind and World – Cognitive Approaches to Linguistics (BS) (WiSe 2026/2027)

Cognitive linguistics is the subdiscipline of linguistics that investigates the interactions between the human mind, the body and how human language is used. In many cases, this reveals cognitive mechanisms underlying our everyday language we are so familiar with that we hardly notice them – but that can strongly influence the way we communicate, think and act. This is what we will be exploring in this seminar, exemplarily looking at prototype theory, conceptual metaphor and linguistic framing as three ways in which there is more to language than we normally assume. As is often the case in cognitive linguistic research, we will also look at these psychological mechanisms from a critical perspective, trying to understand how they can be exploited to subtly manipulate people via strategic language use.
The three main concepts will first be introduced by looking at seminal texts in cognitive linguistics, then participants will practice to identify and systematically describe them in language analysis exercises carried out in small groups. For each of the three topics, we will also read and discuss research papers that empirically investigate the phenomenon in question, either through analyzing texts or in specifically designed experiments. Our focus will be on reverse-engineering the methods and analysis techniques used, enabling participants to design similar research projects on a small scale. Developing project ideas and plans for gathering data will be an integral part of the class, with every participant carrying out a small empirical project with corresponding documentation (“Projekt mit Ausarbeitung”) to complete the course.
Please note that this seminar will take place in a block format after the end of regular classes. It will take up three full days in February, so please make sure that you will be able to be present during this time period.

Requirements for participation, required level

Having completed the other elements of the Basis3 module (i.e. "Introduction to English Linguistics" (Basis3.1) and "Introduction to Sociolinguistics" (Basis3.2)) before attending this seminar is highly recommended.