Meaning in Mind and Society: A Functional Contribution to the Social Turn in Cognitive Linguistics

Peter Harder

Published by De Gruyter Mouton 2010

Meaning in Mind and Society

A Functional Contribution to the Social Turn in Cognitive Linguistics

Peter Harder

Volume 41 in the series Cognitive Linguistics Research [CLR]

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110216059

Overview
Contents

About this book

Meaning is embodied - but it is also social. If Cognitive Linguistics is to be a complete theory of language in use, it must cover the whole spectrum from grounded cognition to discourse struggles and bullshit. This book tries to show how.

Cognitive Linguistics knocked down the wall between language and the experiential content of the human mind. Frame semantics, embodiment, conceptual construal, figure-ground organization, metaphorical mapping, and mental spaces are among the results of this breakthrough, which at the same time provided cognitive science as a whole with an essential human dimension. A new phase began when Cognitive Linguistics started to see itself as part of the wider movement of 'usage-based' linguistics. Bringing about an alliance between mind and discourse, it complemented the conceptual dimension that had been dominant until then with a 'use' dimension - thereby living up to the explicit 'experiential' commitment of Cognitive Linguistics. This outward expansion is continuing: The focus on 'meaning construction', which began with the theory of blending, highlights emergent, online effects rather than underlying mappings. Cognitive Linguistics is integrating the evolutionary perspective, which links up individual and population-based features of language. The empirical obligations incurred by this expansion have led to greatly increased attention to corpus and experimental methods, especially in relation to sociolinguistic and language acquisition research.

The book describes this development and goes on to discuss the foundational challenge that it creates for Cognitive Linguistics as it begins to cover issues that are also central to types of discourse analysis focusing on social processes of determination. The book argues for a synthesis based on a renewed Cognitive Linguistics, which can accommodate everything from bodily grounding to deconstructible floating signifiers in an integrated complete picture, which also covers the roles of arbitrariness and structure.

Author / Editor information

Peter Harder, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Reviews

"Overall, the book is a main contribution to CL studies and research on
socio-cultural and socio-political niches. The technical style and highly
scientific argumentation make this book especially apt for linguists and
scholars interested not only in cognitive studies but also in philosophical and
sociolinguistic studies. In sum, Harder's work represents a way of furthering
the limits of linguistics, semantics, and also "Begriffsgeschichte", or
conceptual history (cf. Koselleck 2002), through its social turn and new
functional features of conceptual levels of both mind and meaning."
Avi Weizmann in Linguist List 23.2341

Topics

Frontmatter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	I
Contents Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	VII
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1. The heartland of Cognitive Linguistics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	14
Chapter 2. From conceptual representations to social processes: aspects of the ongoing social turn Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	58
Chapter 3: Social constructions and discourses Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
Chapter 4. The foundations of a socio-cognitive synthesis: social reality as the context of cognition Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	138
Chapter 5. Meaning and flow: the relation between usage and competency Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
Chapter 6. Structure, function and variation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	222
Chapter 7. Meaning and social reality Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	303
Chapter 8. Multi-ethnic societies: discourses vs. social cognitive linguistics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	408
Chapter 9: Summary and perspectives Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	443
Backmatter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	463

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
Audience: Cognitive-Functional Linguists, Students as well as Professionals
Pages
- Front matter: 11
- Main content: 516
Keywords: Cognitive linguistics; pragmatics; discourse analysis

eBook

Published: September 24, 2010
ISBN: 9783110216059

Hardcover

Published: September 17, 2010
ISBN: 9783110205107