31.1021, Review: Cognitive Science: Dąbrowska, Divjak (2019)

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Subject: 31.1021, Review: Cognitive Science: Dąbrowska, Divjak (2019)

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Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2020 22:22:51
From: Pia Sommerauer [pia.sommerauer at live.com]
Subject: Cognitive Linguistics - Foundations of Language

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-3075.html

EDITOR: Ewa  Dąbrowska
EDITOR: Dagmar  Divjak
TITLE: Cognitive Linguistics - Foundations of Language
SERIES TITLE: Mouton Reader
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2019

REVIEWER: Pia Sommerauer, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

SUMMARY

The book “Cognitive Linguistics: Foundations of Language” constitutes the
first of a set of three volumes on Cognitive Linguistics edited by Ewa
Dąbrowska and Dagmar Divijak. The subsequent volumes are entitled “A survey of
Linguistic Subfields” and “Key Topics”. According to the editors, “[t]he aim
of this three-volume set is to provide a state-of-the-art overview of the
numerous subfields of cognitive linguistics written by leading international
experts which will be useful for for established researchers and novices
alike” (p. 3). The first volume consists of 11 chapters covering the areas
foundational for and central to the field (e.g. embodiment, metaphor,
construal). In their introduction, the editors look back on the development of
the field from initial ideas to well-established empirical traditions. They
reflect on criticism and envision further directions, which particularly
stress the increasing importance of experimental and quantitative methods,
interdisciplinary work and the consideration of social context (as opposed to
speakers in isolation). All three topics are echoed in various chapters.

Chapter 1: Embodiment (Benjamin Bergen)

The initial chapter of the book is about the assumption of embodiment which is
central to Cognitive Linguistics. The chapter introduces and examines the
concept from a historic perspective before discussing various definitions. The
author suggests that Lakoff's (1987: xiv) definition best captures what most
Cognitive Linguists understand by embodiment. It characterizes human
conceptualization as arising from and being influenced by the mediation of our
experiences of the world through the body. Both the developmental and
behavioral aspect of this definition are discussed. Furthermore, Bergen offers
a reflection on research on embodiment, which he divides into three phases:
the first, called ‘analytical phase’, was heavily influenced by cognitive
psychology and is characterized by a search for evidence of embodiment in
language through linguistic analysis. This phase gave rise to many influential
ideas such as Image Schemas and a cognitive approach to metaphor. The second
phase, called ‘process phase’ focuses on Lakoff and Johnson's (1999) idea that
conception mirrors perception and its reformulation in terms of the ‘embodied
simulation hypothesis’ (Bergen 2012), which can be tested by means of methods
in experimental psychology as well as neuo-imaging. The third phase is
concerned with the functional role of embodiment and is characterized by an
as-of-now less well explored direction of research. The chapter closes with a
reflection of the current state of embodiment and a sketch of new research
directions.

Chapter 2: Attention and Salience (Russel S. Tomlin and Andriy Myachykov)

The second chapter reflects on the perception and conceptualization of events
and processes, and their linguistic expression. The topic is introduced by a
range of examples linguistic illustrating the means through which different
aspects of events can be highlighted. The chapter then proceeds to a short
outline of theoretical assumptions opening with the question at the heart of
this research: “How are attentional processes implicated in the language
faculty, including production and comprehension?” This question is further
divided into the issues concerning conceptualization, communication and
grammaticalization. The third section of the chapter reviews empirical studies
with a main focus on a link between visual attention and syntactic choices. In
the closing section of the chapter, the following conclusions are drawn: there
is a systematic correlation between the syntactic choices speakers make and
the visual attention they pay to aspects of a scene. Whereas there is solid
evidence that the most prominent referent of a scene is realized as a subject
in English, it is still an open question whether this tendency holds across
languages. This question is difficult to answer as not all languages have the
same structural distinctions as English. 

Chapter 3: Frequency and entrenchment (Dagmar Divjak and Catherine L.
Cladwell-Harris)

Divijak and Cladwell-Harris introduce the topic of frequency (relating
occurrences of in linguistic utterances) and entrenchment (relating to
representations in the mind) by highlighting the historical context of the
field: the role of frequency received attention when cognitive linguists
turned away from the idea of a language faculty and towards general, cognitive
processes and abilities as central to language, in particular language
learning. The goal of their chapter is to outline the way frequency-based
learning mechanisms could lead to mental representations (a relation, they
state, other researchers have been hesitant to claim). The authors present
outlines of the most important aspects of frequency and entrenchment, which
rely on insights from experimental psychology as well as cognitive
linguistics. Frequency is discussed in terms of different frequency measures,
divided into common ways of measuring frequency and frequency measures
specifically designed to investigate neural frequency effects (less popular
among cognitive linguists and largely drawn from computational linguistics).
The section on entrenchment spans initial, theoretical accounts of
entrenchment, accounts of the mental encoding of linguistic patterns as well
as more recent approaches to learning. The final section presents an overview
of ongoing controversies and open issues, such as what kinds of linguistic
structures can be entrenched, whether frequency effects are evidence of
storage or faster processing, what the role of context is, and finally,
whether frequency is the main factor behind entrenchment.

Chapter 4: Categorization (without categories) (Michael Ramscar and Robert
Port)

The fourth chapter focuses on the notion of categorization and the closely
related notions of category and concept. It contains four main sections and
concludes with a brief summary. First, the fundamental ideas about these
central terms, approaches to concept learning and the structure of concepts
are explained. The distinction between concept learning and concept structure
is emphasized: while approaches to concept learning follow the question of how
people learn, discriminate, and match stimuli with a correct label, the latter
investigates “the knowledge associated with the words used in languages” (p.
93) and reflects on Rosch's notion of prototype, family resemblance and basic
level categories. Both approaches, it is argued, stress the dynamic and
contextualized nature of concepts. Second, the authors reflect on
computational models of categorization which aim to to explain empirical
results. Hierarchical models (such as Collins & Quillian 1969), prototype
models, exemplar models and combinations of different approaches are
introduced. Third, a rather brief and condensed outline of empirical
observations about the neurological basis of categorization is provided; this
focuses on the processes and architectures involved in categorization:
perception, higher-level concept learning and the categorization-process
itself. The final section reflects on and attempts to synthesize the findings
discussed in the chapter, in particular with respect to learning and
communication. The authors emphasize that “despite theorists' intuitions about
concepts as abstract mental tokens suitable for binding to phrase, word or
morpheme-sized phonetic patterns, this conception of concepts is not supported
by research results” (p. 103).

Chapter 5: Abstraction, storage and naive discriminative learning (Harald
Baayen and Michael Ramscar)

What are the fundamental processes underlying language understanding and
production? What role do they play in language learning? These fundamental
questions are discussed in Chapter 5 of the volume. The authors outline three
main approaches to this problem: learning through abstraction, learning
through analogy and learning through discrimination. Abstraction is introduced
as the most traditional direction and criticized for the following
shortcomings: the labor-intensity of implementing and testing models of
abstraction (which are rule-based), the highly contested assumption of innate
structures as a prerequisite for learning and the fact that they are
ill-equipped for dealing with the context-dependent nature of language. Models
of analogy assume a much more general learning principle which is purely based
on examples, making them compatible with other exemplar-based theories. The
authors list their dynamic and adaptive nature as an advantage, but criticize
their demands on memory. Hybrid models, it is argued, inherit the problems of
both approaches rather than solving them. The authors argue that  a more
fruitful approach is  discriminative learning, which is introduced in the
final section and most extensive of the chapter. At its core, such an approach
assumes that language serves to discriminate between experiences of the world.
The chapter presents a number of linguistic phenomena accounted for by models
of discriminative learning. In the concluding remarks, the authors note that
all models of linguistic processing yield similar results on well-established
test sets and stress that other aspects (neurobiological foundations,
knowledge of models, computational simplicity) should be considered to gain
further insights.

Chapter 6: Construal (Ronald W. Langacker)

Langacker opens Chapter 6 on construal by characterizing the phenomenon as
“our ability to conceive and portray the same situation in alternative ways”
(p. 140). The chapter examines five factors involved in construal:
perspective, selection, prominence, dynamicity and imagination. Under
perspective, the fundamental asymmetry between subject and object is
explained: a subject views and thus conceptualizes a situation in the world
from a certain perspective, which determines their linguistic utterances. The
aspect of selection refers to the filter interlocutors apply when describing a
situation: only certain aspects are selected for communication while others
are omitted. Langacker mentions various factors at play in this selection
process, such as specificity, profile (the focus of attention) and the special
mechanism of metonymy. Third, Langacker discusses prominence, which he
describes in terms of conceptual aspects made salient through phenomena such
as attention, well entrenched linguistic units or prototypes. The fourth
factor, dynamicity, refers to the fact that language and conceptualization
unfold in time and discusses how interlocutor express and deal with various
levels of time. The final factor, imagination, refers to the notion that “the
world as we experience it [...] is mentally constructed” (p. 157) rather than
simply being depicted. In the final section, Langacker summarizes ways in
which the assumptions of construal can be validated and examines possible
empirical directions and observations supporting them.

Chapter 7: Metonymy (Antonio Barcelona)

Barcelona starts his chapter on metonymy by highlighting the fundamental
nature of the phenomenon as it plays a role in other essential cognitive
processes, such as construal. Beyond  an introduction to the phenomenon
itself, the chapter offers a typology of metonymy, a reflection on the
different areas of cognition in which metonymy plays a role (entitled
'ubiquity of metonymy') and an outline of research methods used to study
metonymy. In the first section, Barcelona discusses the difficulty of finding
a universally accepted definition of the phenomenon and provides an analysis
of the agreements and disagreements in terms of uncontested and contested
properties. The definition known as “initial cognitive definition of metonymy”
is discussed in more detail before Barcelona presents his own. The second
section focuses on different typologies of metonymy, which categorize
instances of metonymy either in terms of their pragmatic function, their level
of abstraction (e.g. part-whole vs brain-intelligent person) or in terms of
their degree of prototypicality (classic examples vs. less obvious examples of
metonymic expressions). The third part of the chapter reflects on the role of
metonymy on different levels of linguistic analysis ranging from morphology
and lexical semantics to morphosyntactic structures and clausal grammar and
discourse. In the final part of the chapter, Barcelona stresses the necessity
of psychological experiments to complement the empirical insights gained from
linguistic analysis and outlines further directions.

Chapter 8: Metaphor (Raymond W. Gibbs)

Chapter 8 on metaphor provides an overview of the state of the art in
cognitive metaphor research as well as a reflection of ongoing controversies
in the field. It opens with an illustration of the most fundamental properties
of metaphor illustrated by means of an example. The summary of the most
important developments in the field, particularly highlight blending theory as
having lead to new insights (specifically on the level of discourse) and
systematic corpus analysis for providing a more solid basis to a field which
claims to be 'usage-based'. Furthermore, attempts to formulate primary
metaphors are mentioned as having triggered an important discussion on whether
the most fundamental mappings should be characterized in terms of metaphor or
metonymy. The second component of the chapter on ongoing debates lists a
number of concerns, such as the question of whether conventionalized
metaphorical expressions are in fact understood metaphorically or literally.
Systematic corpus annotation programs, such as MIP (Pragglejaz Group 2007) and
MIPVU (Steen et al. 2010) are named as first steps towards gaining better
insights. Other concerns relate to the deliberateness of metaphor and the
process of inferring conceptual metaphors. The chapter closes with an outline
of non-linguistic evidence for conceptual metaphors, which combat frequently
voiced criticism. Evidence for metaphor from gesture studies and
psycholinguistics are given as examples. The latter has for instance indicated
that metaphors influence decision making (Thibodeau & Boroditsky 2011). In his
concluding remarks, Gibbs urges the community to move away from purely
language-centered approaches to metaphor and towards focusing on the mental
process.

Chapter 9: Representing Meaning (Laura J. Speed, David P. Vinson, and
Gabriella Vigliocco)

Chapter 9 on representing word meaning focuses on a well-established debate
within Cognitive Linguistics about whether meaning arises from embodiment or
statistical co-occurrence patterns (or, suggested more recently, both)
(summarized in de Vega 2012). The chapter opens with two central aspects a
theory of word meaning should address: First, do representations of words from
different domains differ? Second, how does knowledge about the meaning of
concepts relate to the meaning of words? In the subsequent review of
theoretical assumptions, the two positions are contextualized historically and
assessed in terms of how they address the two key questions. While embodied
approaches developed from feature-based meaning representations and
distributional representations have emerged from computational linguistics on
the one hand and holistic models of meaning from psychology on the other hand
(e.g. Collins and Quillian's semantic network model). The two positions are
discussed in terms of empirical results in their favor and questions still
left open. Finally, more recent integrated models (in particular the
symbol-interdependency theory (Louwerese 2007) are presented and some
computational implementations and evaluations are mentioned. A short
reflection on the limitations of such approaches, such as the use of
human-generated features of concepts as an approximation of embodied meaning
representations is provided. In the conclusions, the authors highlight that
both distributional and embodied (i.e. grounded) information are relevant for
meaning representations, as the combination yields richer information than a
single source.

Chapter 10: Blending in language and communication (Mark Turner)

Turner begins his chapter on blending by outlining the most important elements
of blending theory, which have emerged from various areas in cognitive
linguistics, such as ‘mental frame’ (introduced by Fillmore 1976, 1982) and
‘mental space’ (attributed to Fauconnier 1985). This is followed by a short
characterization of the mechanisms of blending theory by means of a classic
example introduced by Fauconnier & Turner (2002). The third part of the
chapter consists of a reflection on seven challenges of blending theory, each
of which is outlined briefly and defended. The list includes topics such as
the observation that blending could be seen as merely a combination of other,
well-known cognitive processes (refuted by the argument that blending still
constitutes a mental process common to a range of situations and should
therefore be modeled) and the methodological difficulty of presenting evidence
for blending through psychological experiments. Turner closes the list with
the observation that blending theory is as of now incomplete and stresses its
openness for to new developments. The final part of the chapter consists of an
overview of manifestations of blending on different levels of linguistic
analysis and illustrates them with examples. Instances of blending are
discussed on the level of morphemes and words, syntax, phrases, clauses and
sentences and finally, discourse, which is considered in terms of ground and
viewpoint. In his concluding remarks, Turner stresses the centrality of
blending to human cognition and observes that linguistic expressions trigger
blending processes rather than merely carrying meaning.

Chapter 11: Grammar and cooperative communication (Arie Verhagen)

The goal of Verhagen's chapter, which constitutes the final chapter of the
volume, is to place linguistic meaning (such as expressed by deixis,
categorization and frames, and negation) in the context of the cooperative
nature of human communication. The chapter opens with a consideration of the
different characteristics of animal and human communication and highlights
that humans are able to share information while animals merely communicate to
manage others. In the subsequent sections, Verhagen analyzes how the
argumentative function of language calls this fundamental distinction into
question. Verhagen examines this seeming paradox against the background joint
knowledge and common ground, in particular with respect to the role of deictic
expressions. It is argued that communication can be viewed in terms of joint
projects or goals, which establish a hierarchy consisting of smaller
subproject to which interlocutors commit themselves. Verhagen particularly
highlights the group-centered nature of joint attention, rather than viewing
it simply as a phenomenon which arises when individuals making assumptions
about the other participants' ideas. In the concluding remarks, Verhagen
argues that the argumentative function of language is a critical factor in
human communication, as it plays a crucial role in the organization and
coordination of communication in terms of joint projects.

EVALUATION

The goal stated by the authors is two-fold: its purpose is to provide an
overview of the state-of-the-art in fundamental topics of cognitive
linguistics while catering to an audience both of seasoned researchers and
less experienced new-comers to the field. For the first volume, this goal has
largely been achieved despite the tension between providing complete and
information-dense overviews while at the same time remaining accessible.
Beyond this, the book can be considered a valuable resource for a number of
other reasons. In the larger context of the development of Cognitive
Linguistics as a discipline, the book can be seen as a step in the ongoing
integration of a highly interdisciplinary field. This integration is by no
means complete yet, which may be part of the reason for some minor
shortcomings.

The primary aim of the book is to provide an overview of the state of the art,
which to some extent implies completeness. Each chapter encompasses a little
over 20 pages which in itself already poses a considerable challenge for such
a goal. Most authors tackle this challenge by being very transparent about
which aspects will be treated and which are left out (e.g. Barcelona in his
chapter on metonymy). In addition, the chapters provide a plethora of relevant
references which constitute a valuable resource for a reader striving for a
complete picture. While I do not claim to have the expertise to assess the
completeness of each chapter, I could not help but wonder why the chapter on
metaphor did not include a reference to a debate about the mechanisms involved
in metaphor comprehension (discussed in Bowdler & Genter 2005, Glucksberg &
Haught 2006 and Utsumi 2007). 

The volume also sets out to address a diverse audience of experienced
researches and novices alike. While the first group will most likely
appreciate the reviews of the latest state-of-the-art, the second group is
much more difficult to satisfy. The challenge of writing a complete but
accessible overview almost necessarily results in a trade-off. Nevertheless,
the majority of chapters (in particular Chapters 8 on metaphor and 10 on
blending) are characterized by a high degree of accessibility, brought about
by a highly readable style and a range of well-chosen examples. A minority of
chapters are characterized by highly abstract language and are most likely
somewhat more difficult for beginners (in particular students), who will
require some guidance. This, however, is at least in part due to the abstract
nature of the topics (e.g. attention and salience, construal). Some sections
run the risk of acquiring the character of enumerations (e.g. in the chapter
of metonymy). A number of chapters go beyond mere accessibility and manage to
convey an exceptionally good feeling for the fundamental problems and
questions of the field (blending, metaphor, meaning representations,
categorization).

While the style of the book is overall highly accessible, some aspects could
be improved with respect to its structure. In particular, the sectioning in
some chapters is not very transparent and could pose challenges for less
experienced readers. For instance, the sections in Chapter 7 (metonymy) do not
seem to follow the outline described in the introductory section of the book.
When considering the structure and coherence of the entire volume, it is
immediately apparent how closely connected many of its topics are. Some
chapters can be read as a kind of dialogue: Turner's chapter on blending
addresses many aspects mentioned by Langacker in his chapter on construal and
vice-versa. Likewise, the chapters on embodiment (Chapter 1), frequency and
entrenchment (Chapter 3) and meaning representations (Chapter 9) are highly
complementary. For a less experienced reader though, it is not clear whether
these connections can easily be recognized. It might have helped to use a
somewhat more harmonized terminology and perhaps provide a glossary of terms.
Another strategy could have been to divide the book in terms of themes, which
group chapters about similar issues, perhaps introduced by a short paragraph
highlighting connections. This limitation is most certainly due to the highly
interdisciplinary nature of the field rather than being the fault of the
authors.

In addition to its accessibility, the book is characterized by an
exceptionally high degree of reflection. Many authors provide careful
considerations of the state of evidence for fundamental questions, the
methodology of a field and criticism voiced by other research directions. This
reflective character will most certainly be appreciated by a range of
researchers. Beyond this, it also makes this book a valuable resource for
education.

In conclusion, this 11 chapter volume constitutes a highly valuable resource
for beginners and experienced researchers in Cognitive Linguistics. Beyond
offering overviews of various research subfields at the heart of the field,
many of its chapters are inspirational while at the same time providing very
careful reflections on the state of evidence and suitability of methods in a
highly interdisciplinary field. 

REFERENCES

Bergen, B.K., 2012. Louder than words: The new science of how the mind makes
meaning. Basic Books (AZ).

Bowdle, B.F. and Gentner, D., 2005. The career of metaphor. Psychological
review, 112(1), p.193.

Collins, A.M. and Quillian, M.R., 1969. Retrieval time from semantic memory.
Journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior, 8(2), pp.240-247.

Fauconnier, G., 1985. Mental spaces: Aspects of meaning construction in
natural language. Cambridge University Press.

Fauconnier, G. and Turner, M., 2002. The way we think: Conceptual blending and
the mind's hidden complexities. Basic Books.

Fillmore, C.J., 1976. Frame semantics and the nature of language. In Annals of
the New York Academy of Sciences: Conference on the origin and development of
language and speech (Vol. 280, No. 1, pp. 20-32).

Fillmore, C., 1982. Frame Semantics. Linguistic Society of Korea. Linguistics
in the morning calm. Seoul: Hanshin Publishing Co, pp.111-137.

Glucksberg, S. and Haught, C., 2006. On the Relation Between Metaphor and
Simile: When Comparison Fails. Mind & Language.

Lakoff, G., 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. The University of Chicago
Press, Chicago, USA.

Lakoff, G. and Johnson, M., 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh (Vol. 4). New york:
Basic books.

Louwerse, M.M., 2007. Symbolic or embodied representations: A case for symbol
interdependency. Handbook of latent semantic analysis, pp.107-120.

Pragglejaz Group., 2007. MIP: A method for identifying metaphorically used
words in discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(1), pp.1-39.

Steen, G.J., Dorst, A.G., Herrmann, J.B., Kaal, A.A., Krennmayr, T. and Pasma,
T., A Method for Linguistic Metaphor Identification.

Thibodeau, P.H. and Boroditsky, L., 2011. Metaphors we think with: The role of
metaphor in reasoning. PloS one, 6(2), p.e16782.

Utsumi, A., 2007. Interpretive diversity explains metaphor–simile distinction.
Metaphor and Symbol, 22(4), pp.291-312.

De Vega, M., Glenberg, A. and Graesser, A., 2012. Symbols and embodiment:
Debates on meaning and cognition. Oxford University Press.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Pia Sommerauer is a PhD candidate in the Computational Lexicology and
Terminology Lab at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam under the supervision of
Piek Vossen, Antske Fokkens, and Gerard Steen. Her research focuses on
analyzing the semantics represented by distributional semantic models with
respect to cognitive phenomena. She is also involved in research about the
applicability of distributional models of word meaning for the investigation
of conceptual change.





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