认知语言学60页-Cognitive-Linguistic1

Lecture 1

认知语言学

An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics

Ⅰ. Introduction

1.What is Cognitive Linguistics?

Cognitive linguistics (CL) refers to the branch of linguistics that interprets language in terms of the concepts, sometimes universal, sometimes specific to a particular tongue, which underlie its forms. It is thus closely associated with semantics but is distinct from psycholinguistics, which draws upon empirical findings from cognitive psychology in order to explain the mental processes that underlie the acquisition, storage, production and understanding of speech and writing.

Cognitive linguistics is characterized by adherence to three major hypotheses as guiding the cognitive linguistic approach to language:

1) Language is not an autonomous cognitive faculty; (语言不是自主的认知能力)

2) grammar is conceptualization; 〔语法是概念化〕

3) knowledge of language arises out of language use.〔语言知识来源于语言的使用〕

Cognitive linguists deny that the mind has any module for language-acquisition that is unique and autonomous. This stands in contrast to the stance adopted in the field of generative grammar. Although cognitive linguists do not necessarily deny that part of the human linguistic ability is innate, they deny that it is separate from the rest of cognition. They thus reject a body of opinion in cognitive science which suggests that there is evidence for the modularity of language. They argue that knowledge of linguistic phenomena — i.e., phonemes, morphemes, and syntax —is essentially conceptual in nature. However, they assert that the storage and retrieval of linguistic data is not significantly different from the storage and retrieval of other knowledge, and that use of language in understanding employs similar cognitive abilities to those used in other non-linguistic tasks.

Departing from the tradition of truth-conditional semantics, cognitive linguists view meaning in terms of conceptualization. Instead of viewing meaning in terms of models of the world, they view it in terms of mental spaces.

Finally, cognitive linguistics argues that language is both embodied and situated in a specific environment. This can be considered a moderate offshoot of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, 〔The linguistic relativity principle , also known as the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, is the idea that the varying cultural concepts and categories inherent in different languages affect the cognitive classification of the experienced world in such a way that speakers of different languages think and behave differently because of it.〕in that language and cognition mutually influence one another, and are both embedded in the experiences and environments of its users.

2.认知语言学的诞生〔The birth of cognitive linguistics〕

A．起始阶段〔The initial stage〕

认知语言学兴起于20世纪70年代，20世纪80年代以后迅猛发展。1989年由Rene Driven 等人组织在杜伊斯堡(Duisburg)召开的第一次认知语言学会议〔The first conference of Cognitive Linguistics〕以及随后《认知语言学杂志》(the Cognitive Linguistics Magazine)的创办和国际认知语言学学会(the International Cognitive Linguistics Society )的成立，标志着认知语言学的正式诞生。认知语言学研