Cognitive linguistics combines research developments within the larger areas of cognitive science (which again subsumes parts of other disciplines such as biology, psychology, informatics, etc.) as well as linguistics. In this field, language is taken to reflect cognitive phenomena, such as conceptualizations of processes and facts of the real world. Therefore, cognitive linguistics helps to understand how language tells us how the mind works.

In this course, we will become familiar with central theories and topics within cognitive linguistics, such as embodied meaning, conceptual structure, image schemas, frame semantics, prototype theory, metaphor and metonymy, mental spaces, and cognitive grammar. Central leading authors in this field are Langacker, Talmy, Lakoff, Fillmore, among others; we will see how their work has influenced current approaches to understanding language as a resource (in semantics) as well as language in use (in pragmatics).

Materials:

Evans, Vyvyan and Melanie Green. 2006. Cognitive Linguistics. An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Geeraerts, Dirk (ed.). 2006. Cognitive Linguistics: Basic Readings. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.