Bilişsel Dilbilimi: Bir Giriş

Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction

• The book is dedicated to the memory of Larry Trask, a linguist, scholar, teacher, colleague, mentor, and friend.
• The book explores the fundamental concepts of cognitive linguistics.
• It examines what it means to know a language, considering its symbolic and interactive functions.
• It discusses the systematic structure of language and how it relates to thought processes.
• Cognitive linguistics studies language in relation to general cognitive processes and human experience.
• It highlights the significance of "generalization" and "cognition" in linguistic understanding.
• The book explores the embodied mind, emphasizing the role of embodied experience and embodied cognition in shaping language.
• It investigates how language is used in various situations and how this usage affects language structure, change, and acquisition.
• Cognitive linguistics emphasizes cross-linguistic patterns in semantic systems, including the conceptualisation of space and time.
• It also looks into cross-linguistic variation in semantic systems.
• The book discusses linguistic relativity and its connection to cognitive linguistics, evaluating the impact of language on thought.
• The text argues that language shapes thought and experience.

Assumptions and Commitments

• Cognitive linguistics is built on two main commitments:
  • The "Generalisation Commitment": Language structures are generalizations of human experience.
  • The "Cognitive Commitment": Language is a cognitive phenomenon and is studied within a broader cognitive framework.
• Embodied cognition and experiential realism are central to the theory, believing that language is deeply rooted in bodily experiences.

Universals and Variation in Language

• Cognitive linguistics investigates universals in thought and language, considering typological universals, formal linguistics universals, and universals within cognitive linguistics.
• It analyzes cross-linguistic patterns in the semantic representation of concepts like space and time, emphasizing consistency in how humans conceive of these.
• Cognitive linguistics studies cross-linguistic variations, recognizing that despite general patterns, languages vary in the specifics of how they represent concepts.
• Whorf's Linguistic Relativity Principle is explored, examining how language might shape thought.
• The book examines how cognitive linguistics handles the relationship between language, thought, and experience, contrasting that to different approaches.

Language in Use

• The concept of a "usage event" is introduced.
• It discusses the link between language usage, change and structure
• Language acquisition is considered in the context of language use.