5.

The Appeal of Cognitive Linguistics

Cognitive Linguistics is definitely a success in terms of academic appeal. The
openness and flexibility of theorizing in Cognitive Linguistics probably contributes
to its attractiveness: as we have stressed, Cognitive Linguistics is a building with
many rooms, and it may thus draw the attention of researchers with diverse
interests. We think, however, that more is at stake. We would like to argue that
Cognitive Linguistics combines a number of tendencies that may also be found in
other contemporary developments in theoretical linguistics and, by combining
them, taps into the undercurrent of contemporary developments more than any
other theoretical framework. From this overall characterization, three fundamental
characteristics of Cognitive Linguistics can be derived: the primacy of semantics in
linguistic analysis, the encyclopedic nature of linguistic meaning, and the
perspectival nature of linguistic meaning. The first characteristic merely states that
the basic function of language involves meaning; the other two characteristics
specify the nature of the semantic phenomena in question. The primacy of
semantics in linguistic analysis follows in a straightforward fashion from the
cognitive perspective itself: if the primary function of language is categorization,
then meaning must be the primary linguistic phenomenon. The encyclopedic
nature of linguistic meaning follows from the categorial function of language: if
language is a system for the categorization of the world, there is no need to
postulate a systemic or structural level of linguistic meaning that is different from
the level where world knowledge is associated with linguistic forms.
The perspectival nature of linguistic meaning implies that the world is not
objectively reflected in the language: the categorization function of the language
imposes a structure on the world rather than just mirroring objective reality.
Specifically, language is a way of organizing knowledge that reflects the needs,
interests, and experiences of individuals and cultures. The idea that linguistic
meaning has a perspectivizing function is theoretically elaborated in the
philosophical, epistemological position taken by Cognitive Linguistics (see
Johnson 1987; Lakoff 1987; Geeraerts 1993). The experientialist position of
Cognitive Linguistics vis--vis human knowledge emphasizes the view that human
reason is determined by our organic embodiment and by our individual and
collective experiences.
Given this initial characterization of the cognitive nature of Cognitive Linguistics,
we can now turn to the second question: how can it be that Cognitive Linguistics
and Generative Grammar both proclaim themselves to be cognitive enterprises?
Essentially, the two approaches differ with regard to the epistemological role of
natural language. They both agree (and this is their common cognitive parentage)
that there can be no knowledge without the existence of a mental representation (p.
6) that has a constitutive, mediating role in the epistemological relationship
between subject and object. But while, according to Cognitive Linguistics, natural
languages precisely embody such categorial perspectives onto the outside world,
the generative linguist takes natural language as the object of the epistemological
relationship, rather than as the intermediate link between subject and object.
Cognitive Linguistics is interested in our knowledge of the world and studies the
question how natural language contributes to it. The generative linguist, conversely,
is interested in our knowledge of the language and asks the question how such
knowledge can be acquired given a cognitive theory of learning. As cognitive
enterprises, Cognitive Linguistics and Generative Grammar are similarly interested
in those mental structures that are constitutive of knowledge. For the Cognitive
approach, natural language itself consists of such structures, and the relevant kind
of knowledge is knowledge of the world. For the generative grammarian, however,
the knowledge under consideration is knowledge of the language, and the relevant
mental structures are constituted by the genetic endowment of human beings that
enables them to learn the language. Whereas Generative Grammar is interested in
knowledge of the language, Cognitive Linguistics is so to speak interested in
knowledge through the language.
To summarize, what holds together the diverse forms of Cognitive Linguistics is
the belief that linguistic knowledge involves not just knowledge of the language,
but knowledge of the world as mediated by the language. Because of this shift in
the type of knowledge that the approaches focus on in contrast with Generative
Grammar, and specifically because of the experientialist nature of Cognitive
Linguistics, it is sometimes said that Cognitive Linguistics belongs to the second
cognitive revolution, whereas Generative Grammar belongs to the first cognitive
revolution of the 1950s; see Sinha, this volume, chapter 49, for an elaboration.
To conclude, if we can agree that contemporary linguistics embodies a tendency (a
cluster of tendencies, to be more precise) toward the recontextualization of
linguistic enquiry, we may also agree that Cognitive Linguistics embodies this
trend to an extent that probably no other theoretical movement does. It embodies
the resemanticization of grammar by focusing on the interplay between language
and conceptualization. It embodies the recovery of the lexicon as a relevant
structural level by developing network models of grammatical structure, like
Construction Grammar. And it embodies the discursive turn of contemporary
linguistics by insisting explicitly on the usage-based nature of linguistics. Other
approaches may develop each of these tendencies separately in more detail than
Cognitive Linguistics does, but it is the latter movement that combines them most
explicitly and so epitomizes the characteristic underlying drift and drive of present-
day linguistics. We would like to suggest, in short, that it is this feature that
constitutes one of the fundamental reasons behind the success of Cognitive
Linguistics.