Abstract
Usage-based approaches to language stress that a speaker’s mental grammar arises from and is shaped by language use and that the resulting mental representations include rich contextual linguistic and non-linguistic information. Yet, despite the fact that sociolinguistic research has pointed out the great importance of social and physical context factors as well as individual styles that speakers draw on to create their linguistic identities in authentic language use, usage-based Construction Grammar approaches have so far not paid enough attention to these phenomena. While the growing field of Cognitive Sociolinguistics has already tried to incorporate a wide variety of sociolinguistic phenomena into their cognitive analyses, most Construction Grammar approaches usually only include sociolinguistic parameters (such as text type, register or dialect) as independent variables in their analyses. In this paper, I argue that such an approach ignores recent sociolinguistic insights into the active stylization of individuals by dynamic linguistic acts of identity. In this paper, I will show the importance of these insights by focussing on English football chants. First, I will illustrate how football chants can be analysed as linguistic constructions that are constrained by complex social and physical context factors. In a next step, I will then argue that the complex social and physical context constraints as well as the potential to function as linguistic acts of identity are not only relevant for these types of constructions, but also need to be taken into account in usage-based Construction Grammar analysis in general.
Works Cited
Argyle, Michael, Adrian Furnham and Jean Ann Graham (1981). Social Situations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511558283Search in Google Scholar
Arnovick, Lelie K. (1999). “Flyting and Sounding the Agonistic Insult.” Leslie K. Arnovick, ed. Diachronic Pragmatics: Seven Case Studies in English Illocutionary Development. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 15–40.10.1075/pbns.68Search in Google Scholar
Barðdal, Jóhanna (2008). Productivity: Evidence from Case and Argument Structure in Icelandic. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/cal.8Search in Google Scholar
Barðdal, Jóhanna (2011). “Lexical vs. Structural Case: A False Dichotomy.” Morphology 21.1, 619–654.10.1007/s11525-010-9174-1Search in Google Scholar
Barlow, Michael and Suzanne Kemmer (2000). Usage Based Models of Language. Stanford: CSLI Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Baron-Cohen, Simon (1991). “Precursors to a Theory of Mind: Understanding Attention in Others.” Andrew Whiten, ed. Natural Theories of Mind: Evolution, Development and Simulation of Everyday Mindreading. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 233–251.Search in Google Scholar
Bell, Allan (1984). “Language Style as Audience Design.” Language in Society 13, 145–204.10.1017/S004740450001037XSearch in Google Scholar
Bergen, Benjamin and Nancy Chang (2013). “Embodied Construction Grammar.” Thomas Hoffmann and Graeme Trousdale, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 168–190.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195396683.013.0010Search in Google Scholar
Bergs, Alexander (2008). “Shall and shan’t in Contemporary English.” Graeme Trousdale and Nikolas Gisbourne, eds. Constructional Approaches to English Grammar. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 113–144.10.1515/9783110199178.2.113Search in Google Scholar
Boas, Hans C. and Ivan Sag, eds. (2012). Sign-Based Construction Grammar. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Bosch, Peter and Carla Umbach (2007). “Reference Determination for Demonstrative Pronouns.” Dagmar Bittner and Natalia Gargarina, eds. Intersentential Pronominal Reference in Child and Adult Language (ZAS Papers in Linguistics 48). Zentrum für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS), 39–51.10.21248/zaspil.48.2007.353Search in Google Scholar
Bosch, Peter, Graham Katz and Carla Umbach (2007). “The Non-Subject Bias of German Demonstrative Pronouns.” Monika Schwarz-Friesel, Manfred Consten and Mareile Knees, eds. Anaphors in Text: Cognitive, Formal and Applied Approaches to Anaphoric Reference. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 145–164.10.1075/slcs.86.13bosSearch in Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope and Stephen C. Levinson (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511813085Search in Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary and Kira Hall (2010). “Locating Identity in Language.” Carmen Llamas and Dominic Watt, eds. Language and Identities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 19–28.10.1515/9780748635788-006Search in Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. (2010). Language, Usage and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511750526Search in Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan L. (2013). “Usage-Based Theory and Exemplar Representations of Constructions.” Thomas Hoffmann and Graeme Trousdale, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 49–69.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195396683.013.0004Search in Google Scholar
Colleman, Timothy (2010). “Lectal Variation in Constructional Semantics: ‘Benefactive’ Ditransitives in Dutch.” Dirk Geeraerts, Gitte Kristiansen and Yves Peirsman, eds. Advances in Cognitive Sociolinguistics. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter Mouton, 191–221.10.1515/9783110226461.191Search in Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas (1988). Dialect in Use: Sociolinguistic Variation in Cardiff English. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.Search in Google Scholar
Croft, William (2001). Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198299554.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Croft, William (2007). “Intonation Units and Grammatical Structure in Wardaman and in Crosslinguistic Perspective.” Australian Journal of Linguistics 27, 1–39.10.1080/07268600601172934Search in Google Scholar
Croft, William (2009). Toward a Social Cognitive Linguistics. Vyvyan Evans and Stephanie Pourcel, eds. New Directions in Cognitive Science. New York: John Benjamins, 395–420.10.1075/hcp.24.25croSearch in Google Scholar
Croft, William and D. Alan Cruse (2004). Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511803864Search in Google Scholar
de Clerck, Bernard and Timothy Colleman (2013). “From Noun to Intensifier: Massa and massa’s in Flemish Varieties of Dutch.” Language Sciences 36, 147–160.10.1016/j.langsci.2012.04.005Search in Google Scholar
de Smet, Hendrik (2012). “The course of actualization.” Language 88.3, 601–633.10.1353/lan.2012.0056Search in Google Scholar
de Vogelaer, Gunther (2010). “(Not) Acquiring Grammatical Gender in Two Varieties of Dutch.” Dirk Geeraerts, Gitte Kristiansen and Yves Peirsman, eds. Advances in Cognitive Sociolinguistics. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter Mouton, 167–190.10.1515/9783110226461.167Search in Google Scholar
Diessel, Holger (2006). “Demonstratives, Joint Attention and the Emergence of Grammar.” Cognitive Linguistics 17, 463–489.10.1515/COG.2006.015Search in Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope (2012). “Three Waves of Variation Study: The Emergence of Meaning in the Study of Sociolinguistic variation.” Annual Review of Anthropology 41, 87–10.10.1146/annurev-anthro-092611-145828Search in Google Scholar
Fried, Mirjam (2008). “Constructions and Constructs: Mapping a Shift between Predication and Attribution.” Alexander Bergs and Gabriele Diewald, eds. Constructions and Language Change. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 47–79.Search in Google Scholar
Fried, Mirjam (2009). “Plain vs. Situated Possession in a Network of Grammatical Constructions.” William McGregor, ed. Expression of Possession. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 213–248.10.1515/9783110213232.213Search in Google Scholar
Friedrich, Paul (1972). “Social Context and Semantic Feature.” John Gumperz and Dell Hymes, eds. Directions in Sociolinguistics. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 270–301.Search in Google Scholar
Geeraerts, Dirk, Gitte Kristiansen and Yves Peirsman, eds. (2010). Advances in Cognitive Sociolinguistics. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter Mouton.10.1515/9783110226461Search in Google Scholar
Giles, Howard, Justin Coupland and Nikolas Coupland, eds. (1991). Contexts of Accommodation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511663673Search in Google Scholar
Ginzburg, Jonathan and Ivan A. Sag (2000). Interrogative Investigations: The Form, Meaning and Use of English Interrogatives. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Search in Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving (1967). Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. New York, NY: Doubleday Anchor.Search in Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele E. (2003). “Constructions: A New Theoretical Approach to Language.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7.5, 219–224.10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00080-9Search in Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele E. (2006). Constructions at Work: The Nature of Generalization in Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Gries, Stefan Thomas (2003). Multifactorial Analysis in Corpus Linguistics: A Study of Particle Placement. London and New York: Continuum Press.Search in Google Scholar
Grondelaers, Stef, Dirk Speelman and Dirk Geeraerts (2007). “A Case for a Cognitive Corpus Linguistics.” Monica Gonzalez-Marquez, Irene Mittelberg, Seana Coulson and Michael J. Spivey, eds. Methods in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 149–169.10.1075/hcp.18.12groSearch in Google Scholar
Grondelaers, Stef, Dirk Speelman and Dirk Geeraerts (2008). “National Variation in the Use of er ‘there’: Regional and Diachronic Constraints on Cognitive Explanations.” Gitte Kristiansen and René Dirven, eds. Cognitive Sociolinguistics: Language Variation, Cultural Models, Social Systems. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 153–203.10.1515/9783110199154.2.153Search in Google Scholar
Herrmann, Theo (1982). Sprechen und Situation: Eine Psychologische Konzeption zur Situationsspezifischen Sprachproduktion. Berlin: Springer.10.1007/978-3-662-13022-3Search in Google Scholar
Hickmann, Maya, Henriette Hendriks, Françoise Roland and James Liang (1996). “The Marking of New Information in Children’s Narratives: A Comparison of English, French, German and Mandarin Chinese.” Journal of Child Language 23, 591–619.10.1017/S0305000900008965Search in Google Scholar
Hilpert, Martin (2013). Constructional Change in English: Developments in Allomorphy, Word Formation, and Syntax. (Studies in English Language.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9781139004206Search in Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Thomas (2013). “Abstract and Clausal Constructions.” Thomas Hoffmann and Graeme Trousdale, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 307–328.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195396683.013.0017Search in Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Thomas and Alexander Bergs (2015). “Are You a Construction in Disguise? Soziale und physische Kontexteigenschaften von Fußballgesangskonstruktionen.” Alexander Ziem and Alexander Lasch, eds. Konstruktionsgrammatik IV: Konstruktionen als soziale Konventionen und kognitive Routinen. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 267–282.Search in Google Scholar
Hollmann, Willem (2013). “Constructions in Cognitive Sociolinguistics.” Thomas Hoffmann and Graeme Trousdale, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 491–509.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195396683.013.0027Search in Google Scholar
Hollmann, Willem and Anna Siewierska (2007). “A Construction Grammar Account of Possessive Constructions in Lancashire Dialect: Some Advantages and Challenges.” English Language and Linguistics 11, 407–424.10.1017/S1360674307002304Search in Google Scholar
Hollmann, Willem and Anna Siewierska (2011). “The Status of Frequency, Schemas and Identity in Cognitive Sociolinguistics: A Case Study on Definite Article Reduction.” Cognitive Linguistics 22, 25–54.10.1515/cogl.2011.002Search in Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara (2010). “Locating Language in Identity.” Carmen Llamas and Dominic Watt (eds.), Language and Identities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 29–36.10.1515/9780748635788-007Search in Google Scholar
Joseph, John E. (2010). “Identity.” Carmen Llamas and Dominic Watt, eds. Language and Identities. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 9–17.Search in Google Scholar
Kopiez, Reinhard and Guido Brink (1999). Fußball-Fangesänge: Eine FANomenologie. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.Search in Google Scholar
Kristiansen, Gitte (2008). “Style-Shifting and Shifting Styles: A Socio-Cognitive Approach to Lectal Variation.” Gitte Kristiansen and René Dirven, eds. Cognitive Sociolinguistics: Language Variation, Cultural Models, Social Systems. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 45–88.10.1515/9783110199154.1.45Search in Google Scholar
Kristiansen, Gitte and René Dirven, eds. (2008). Cognitive Sociolinguistics: Language Variation, Cultural Models, Social Systems. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110199154Search in Google Scholar
Labov, William (1972). Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Search in Google Scholar
Lakoff, George (1973). “Hedges: A Study in Meaning Criteria and the Logic of Fuzzy Concepts.” Journal of Philosophical Logic 2, 458–508.10.1007/BF00262952Search in Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud (1990). “What me Worry? Mad Magazine Sentences Revisited.” Berkeley Linguistic Society 16, 215–228.10.3765/bls.v16i0.1730Search in Google Scholar
Lambrecht, Knud (1994). Information Structure and Sentence Form: Topic, Focus and the Mental Representations of Discourse Referents. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511620607Search in Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W. (1987). Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. I: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W. (2005). “Construction Grammars: Cognitive, Radical and Less So.” Francisco J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez and M. Sandra Peña Cervel, eds. Cognitive Linguistics: Internal Dynamics and Interdisciplinary Interaction. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 101–159.10.1515/9783110197716.1.101Search in Google Scholar
Le Page, Robert and Andrée Tabouret-Keller (1985). Acts of Identity: Creole-based Approaches to Language and Ethnicity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Leslie, Alan M. (2000). “‘Theory of Mind’ as a Mechanism of Selective Attention.” Michael S. Gazzangia, ed. The New Cognitive Neurosciences. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1235–1247.Search in Google Scholar
Luhrs, Joanne (2008). “Football Chants and ‘Blason Populaire’: The Construction of Local and Regional Stereotypes.” Eva Lavric, Gerhard Pisek, Andrew Skinner and Wolfgang Stadler, eds. The Linguistics of Football. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 233–252.Search in Google Scholar
Marandin, Jean-Marie (2006). “Contours as Constructions.” Constructions. SV1 (10). http://journals.linguisticsociety.org/elanguage/constructions/article/download/25/25-83-1-PB.pdf (8 July 2015).Search in Google Scholar
Markkanen, Raija and Hartmut Schröder (1997). “Hedging: A Challenge for Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis.” Raija Markkanen and Hartmut Schröder, eds. Hedging and Discourse: Approaches to the Analysis of a Pragmatic Phenomenon in Academic Texts. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 3–18.10.1515/9783110807332.3Search in Google Scholar
Marwell, Gerald and Jerald Hage (1970). “The Organization of Role Relationships: A Systematic Description.” American Sociological Review 35, 884–900.10.2307/2093299Search in Google Scholar
Michaelis, Laura A. and Knud Lambrecht (1996). “Toward a Construction-Based Model of Language Function: The Case of Nominal Extraposition.” Language 72, 215–247.10.2307/416650Search in Google Scholar
Milroy, James and Lesley Milroy (1985). “Linguistic Change, Social Network and Speaker Innovation.” Journal of Linguistics 21.2, 339–384.10.1017/S0022226700010306Search in Google Scholar
Morris, Desmond (1981). The Soccer Tribe. London: Jonathan Cape.Search in Google Scholar
Östman, Jan-Ola and Graeme Trousdale (2013). “Dialects, Discourse, and Construction Grammar.” Thomas Hoffmann and Graeme Trousdale, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 476–490.10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195396683.013.0026Search in Google Scholar
Porsch, Peter (1984). “Außersprachliche Determinanten der sprachlichen Kommunikation aus soziolinguistischer Sicht.” Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Karl-Marx-Universität Leipzig, Gesellschafts- und Sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe 33, 464–469.Search in Google Scholar
Rickheit, Gert and Hans Strohner (1993). “Zu einer kognitiven Theorie konzeptueller Inferenzen.” Frank Beckmann and Gerhard Heyer, eds. Theorie und Praxis des Lexikons. Berlin: de Gruyter, 141–163.10.1515/9783110884630.141Search in Google Scholar
Rickheit, Gert and Constanze Vorwerg (2003). “Situiertes Sprechen.” Gert Rickheit, Theo Herrmann and Werner Deutsch, eds. Psycholinguistik/Psycholinguistics: Ein Internationales Handbuch/An International Handbook. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 279–294.10.1515/9783110114249.3.279Search in Google Scholar
Romaine, Suzanne (1982). Socio-Historical Linguistics: Its Status and Methodology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511720130Search in Google Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand de (2006 [1916]). Course in General Linguistics. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye, eds., Trans. Roy Harris. La Salle, Illinois: Open Court.Search in Google Scholar
Schulz von Thun, Friedemann (1981). Miteinander Reden 1: Störungen und Klärungen. Allgemeine Psychologie der Kommunikation. Hamburg: Rowohlt.Search in Google Scholar
Shaw, Alex (2010). Shall we Sing a Song for You? The Good, the Bad and the Downright Offensive – Britain’s Favourite Football Chants. London: John Blake.Search in Google Scholar
Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt (2010). “The English Genitive Alternation in a Cognitive Sociolinguistics Perspective.” Dirk Geeraerts, Gitte Kristiansen and Yves Peirsman, eds. Advances in Cognitive Sociolinguistics. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter Mouton, 141–166.10.1515/9783110226461.139Search in Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henri, ed. (1978). Differentiation between Social Groups: Studies in the Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. London: Academic Press.Search in Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henri (1981). Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henri (1982). “Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations.” Annual Review of Psychology 33, 1–39.10.1146/annurev.ps.33.020182.000245Search in Google Scholar
Tajfel, Henri and John C. Turner (1986). “The Social Identity Theory of Inter-Group Behaviour.” Stephen Worchel and William Austin, eds. Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 7–24.Search in Google Scholar
Turner, John C. (1987). “A Self-Categorization Theory.” John C. Turner, Michael A. Hogg, Penelope J. Oakes, Stephen D. Reicher and Margaret. S. Wetherell, eds. Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self-Categorization Theory. Oxford: Blackwell, 42–67.Search in Google Scholar
Turner, John C. (1991). Social Influence. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Turner, John C. (1999). “Current Issues in Research on Social Identity and Self-Categorization Theories.” Naomi Ellemers, Russell Spears and Bertjan Doosje, eds. Social Identity: Context, Commitment, Content. Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 6–34.Search in Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. (2008a). “The Grammaticalization of NP of NP patterns.” Alexander Bergs and Gabriele Diewald, eds. Constructions and Language Change. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 23–45.10.1515/9783110211757.23Search in Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. (2008b). “‘All That he Endeavoured to Prove was…’: On the Emergence of Grammatical Constructions in Dialogual Contexts.” Ruth Kempson and Robin Cooper, eds. Language Change and Evolution. London: Kings College Publications, 143–177.Search in Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. and Graeme Trousdale (2010). “Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization: How do they Intersect?” Elizabeth C. Traugott and Graeme Trousdale, eds. Gradience, Gradualness and Grammaticalization. (Typological Studies in Language 90). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 19–44.10.1075/tsl.90.04traSearch in Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth C. and Graeme Trousdale (2013). Constructionalization and Constructional Changes. (Oxford Studies in Diachronic and Historical Linguistics 6). Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199679898.001.0001Search in Google Scholar
Trousdale, Graeme (2008). “Constructions in Grammaticalization and Lexicalization: Evidence from the History of a Composite Predicate Construction in the History of English.” Graeme Trousdale and Nikolas Gisborne, eds. Constructional Approaches to English Grammar. (Topics in English Linguistics 57). Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 33–67.10.1515/9783110199178.1.33Search in Google Scholar
Wide, Camilla (2009). “Interactional Construction Grammar: Contextual Features of Determination in Dialectal Swedish.” Alexander Bergs and Gabriele Diewald, eds. Contexts and Constructions. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 111–141.10.1075/cal.9.06widSearch in Google Scholar
Wish, Myron, Morton Deutsch and Susan Kaplan (1976). “Perceived Dimensions of Interpersonal Relations.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 33, 409–420.10.1037/0022-3514.33.4.409Search in Google Scholar
Article note:
This paper builds on preliminary results first presented in Hoffmann and Bergs (2015). I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers as well as the audiences at ICLCE13, Heidelberg for their feedback. All remaining errors are, unfortunately, mine.
©2015 by De Gruyter
