Download or read book Aspects of Meaning Construction written by Günter Radden and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meaning does not reside in linguistic units but is constructed in the minds of the language users. Meaning construction is an on-line mental activity whereby speech participants create meanings on the basis of underspecified linguistic units. The construction of meaning is guided by cognitive principles. The contributions collected in the volume focus on two types of cognitive principles guiding meaning construction: meaning construction by means of metonymy and metaphor, and meaning construction by means of mental spaces and conceptual blending. The papers in the former group survey experiential evidence of figurative meaning construction and discuss high-level metaphor and metonymy, the role of metonymy in discourse, the chaining of metonymies, metonymy as an alternative to coercion, and metaphtonymic meanings of proper names. The papers in the latter group address the issues of meaning construction prompted by personal pronouns, relative clauses, inferential constructions, “sort-of” expressions, questions, and the into-causative construction.

Download or read book Mental Spaces written by Gilles Fauconnier and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1994-08-26 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mental Spaces is the classic introduction to the study of mental spaces and conceptual projection, as revealed through the structure and use of language. It examines in detail the dynamic construction of connected domains as discourse unfolds. The discovery of mental space organization has modified our conception of language and thought: powerful and uniform accounts of superficially disparate phenomena have become available in the areas of reference, presupposition projection, counterfactual and analogical reasoning, metaphor and metonymy, and time and aspect in discourse. The present work lays the foundation for this research. It uncovers simple and general principles that lie behind the awesome complexity of everyday logic.

Download or read book Semantic Leaps written by Seana Coulson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2001-01-29 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Semantic Leaps explores how people combine knowledge from different domains in order to understand and express new ideas. Concentrating on dynamic aspects of on-line meaning construction, Coulson identifies two related sets of processes: frame-shifting and conceptual blending. By addressing linguistic phenomena often ignored in traditional meaning research, Coulson explains how processes of cross-domain mapping, frame-shifting, and conceptual blending enhance the explanatory adequacy of traditional frame-based systems for natural language processing. The focus is on how the constructive processes speakers use to assemble, link, and adapt simple cognitive models underlie a broad range of productive language behavior.

Download or read book How Words Mean written by Vyvyan Evans and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-09-10 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Words Mean introduces a new approach to the role of words and other linguistic units in the construction of meaning. It does so by addressing the interaction between non-linguistic concepts and the meanings encoded in language. It develops an account of how words are understood when we produce and hear language in situated contexts of use. It proposes two theoretical constructs, the lexical concept and the cognitive model. These are central to the accounts of lexicalrepresentation and meaning construction developed, giving rise to the Theory of Lexical Concepts and Cognitive Models (or LCCM Theory).Vyvyan Evans integrates and advances recent developments in cognitive science, particularly in cognitive linguistics and cognitive psychology. He builds a framework for the understanding and analysis of meaning that is at once descriptively adequate and psychologically plausible. In so doing he also addresses current issues in lexical semantics and semantic compositionality, polysemy, figurative language, and the semantics of time and space, and writes in a way that will be accessible tostudents of linguistics and cognitive science at advanced undergraduate level and above.

Download or read book The Communicative Mind written by Line Brandt and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2013-11-04 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Integrating research in linguistics, philosophy, semiotics, neurophenomenology, and literary studies, The Communicative Mind presents a thought-provoking and multifaceted investigation into linguistic meaning construction. It explores the various ways in which the intersubjectivity of communicating interactants manifests itself in language structure and use and argues for the indispensability of dialogue as a semantic resource in cognition. The view of the mind as highly conditioned by the domain of interpersonal communication is supported by an extensive range of empirical linguistic data from fiction, poetry and written and spoken everyday language, including rhetorically “creative” metaphors and metonymies. The author introduces Cognitive Linguistics to the notion of enunciation, which refers to the situated act of language use, and demonstrates the centrality of subjectivity and turn-taking interaction in natural semantics. The theoretical framework presented takes contextual relevance, viewpoint shifts, dynamicity, and the introduction into discourse of elements with no real-world counterparts (subjective motion, fictivity and other forms of non-actuality) to be vital components in the construction of meaning. The book engages the reader in critical discussions of cognitive-linguistic approaches to semantic construal and addresses the philosophical implications of the identified strengths and limitations. Among the theoretical advances in what Brandt refers to as the cognitive humanities is Fauconnier and Turner’s theory of conceptual integration of “mental spaces” which has proved widely influential in Cognitive Poetics and Linguistics, offering a philosophy of language bridging the gap between pragmatics and semantics. With its constructive criticism of the “general mechanism” hypothesis, according to which “blending” can explain everything from the origin of language to binding in perception, Brandt’s book brings the scope and applicability of Conceptual Integration Theory into the arena of scientific debate. The book contains five main chapters entitled Enunciation: Aspects of Subjectivity in Meaning Construction, The Subjective Conceptualizer: Non-actuality in Construal, Conceptual Integration in Semiotic Meaning Construction, Meaning Construction in Literary Text, and Effects of Poetic Enunciation: Seven Types of Iconicity.

Download or read book Lexical and Syntactical Constructions and the Construction of Meaning written by Marjolyn Verspoor and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1997-01-01 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The basic tenet of cognitive linguistics is that every linguistic expression is a construal relation. The first section of this volume focuses on issues of such construal and presentation of information, including figure-ground relations, image-schematic structures, and the role of syntactic constructions in information structure.In sections two and three papers are presented on cross-categorial polysemy between lexical and grammatical uses of a morpheme, and between different grammatical senses, and on the relationship between earlier lexical senses and later grammatical ones.The final section of the volume brings together studies which shed further light on transitivity and argument structure. The study of transitivity necessarily entails exploration of the relationship between syntactic constructions and the pragmatics and semantics conveyed by such constructions.As a whole, this collection of papers gives new evidence on the complexity and motivation of the mapping between linguistic form and function and offers a wealth of new directions for research on the construction of meaning at every level of the sentence.

Download or read book This Book of Books written by Mihály Árpád and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Construction of Words written by Geert Booij and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-04-13 with total page 617 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume focuses on detailed studies of various aspects of Construction Morphology, and combines theoretical analysis and descriptive detail. It deals with data from several domains of linguistics and contributes to an integration of findings from various subdisciplines of linguistics into a common model of the architecture of language. It presents applications and extensions of the model of Construction Morphology to a wide range of languages. Construction Morphology is one of the theoretical paradigms in present-day morphology. It makes use of concepts of Construction Grammar for the analysis of word formation and inflection. Complex words are seen as constructions, that is, pairs of form and meaning. Morphological patterns are accounted for by construction schemas. These are the recipes for coining new words and word forms, and they motivate the properties of existing complex words. Both schemas and individual words are stored, and hence there is no strict separation of lexicon and grammar. In addition to abstract schemas there are subschemas for subclasses of complex words with specific properties. This architecture of the grammar is in harmony with findings from other empirical domains of linguistics such as language acquisition, word processing, and language change.

Download or read book Linguistic Perspectives on the Construction of Meaning and Knowledge written by Elke Diedrichsen and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an exploration of the dimensions of meaning in language from several important perspectives that are of major interest to scholars today, bringing together studies from the realms of linguistic pragmatics, semantics, ontological knowledge engineering, and computational linguistics. Situated within modern functional-cognitive constructional-ontological and computational paradigms, the analyses here are supported by authentic language data, including corpus data, from a rich set of languages. Context and situation play an important but complex role in meaning elaboration. The role of context and situation is elusive and has proved difficult to elucidate with respect to meaning and knowledge representation. This volume provides evidence of the nature of the, often rapid, emergence of meaning in the digital world of the internet, social media, and Internet memes. The use of computational avatars and the rise of human language technologies, including big data and digital corpora, have made the construction of meaning and human language understanding essential to the work of linguists, cognitive scientists and computer scientists who are increasingly working together in collaborative teams to share insights.

Download or read book Deconstructing Constructions written by Christopher S. Butler and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2009-01-14 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of papers brings together contributions from experts in functional linguistics and in Construction Grammar approaches, with the aim of exploring the concept of construction from different angles and trying to arrive at a better understanding of what a construction is, and what roles constructions play in the frameworks which can be located within a multidimensional functional-cognitive space. At the same time, the volume has a historical dimension, for instance in plotting the developments which led to recent models. The book is organised in three sections: the first deals with particular theoretical issues, the second is devoted to the recent Lexical Constructional Model, and the third presents a number of analyses of specific constructions. The volume thus makes an important contribution to the ongoing debate about the relationship between functionalist and constructionist models.

Download or read book Figurative Meaning Construction in Thought and Language written by Annalisa Baicchi and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2020-08-12 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume brings together twelve usage-based studies conducted by leading researchers in language and cognition that explore core issues of figurativeness from the Cognitive Linguistics perspective. The individual chapters reveal the central function of figurativeness in thought and its impact on language. Cognition relies on knowledge-structuring tools in the construction of meaning both mentally and linguistically. Collectively, the chapters delve into an array of topics that are crucial to future research in figurative meaning construction, especially on questions of identification and structure of figures, the figurative motivation of constructions, the impact of figurativeness on pragmatic and multimodal communication, and the correlation between figures and cognitive models.

Download or read book Ten Lectures on Cognitive Construction of Meaning written by Gilles Fauconnier and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-07-17 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As we think and talk, rich arrays of mental spaces and connections between them are constructed unconsciously. Conceptual integration of mental spaces leads to new meaning, global insight, and compressions useful for memory and creativity. A powerful aspect of conceptual integration networks is the dynamic emergence of novel structure in all areas of human life (science, religion, art, ...). The emergence of complex metaphors creates our conceptualization of time. The same operations play a role in material culture generally. Technology evolves to produce cultural human artefacts such as watches, gauges, compasses, airplane cockpit displays, with structure specifically designed to match conceptual inputs and integrate with them into stable blended frames of perception and action that can be memorized, learned by new generations, and thus culturally transmitted.

Download or read book Meaning and the Lexicon written by Ray Jackendoff and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-02-25 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Meaning and the Lexicon' brings together Ray Jackendoff's pathbreaking work on language. It traces the development of his parallel architecture, in which phonology, syntax, and semantics are independent generative components, and in which knowledge of language consists of a repertoire of stored structures.

Download or read book Aspects of Artificial Intelligence written by J.H. Fetzer and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This series will include monographs and collections of studies devoted to the investigation and exploration of knowledge, information and data-processing systems of all kinds, no matter whether human, (other) animal or machine. Its scope is intended to span the full range of interests from classical problems in the philosophy of mind and philosophical psychology through issues in cognitive psychology and sociobiology (concerning the mental capabilities of other species) to ideas related to artificial intelligence and to computer science. While primary emphasis will be placed upon theoretical, conceptual and epistemological aspects of these problems and domains, empirical, experimental and methodological studies will also appear from time to time. The present volume illustrates the approach represented by this series. It addresses fundamental questions lying at the heart of artificial intelligence, including those of the relative virtues of computational and of non-computational conceptions of language and of mind, whether AI should be envisioned as a philosophical or as a scientific discipline, the theoretical character of patterns of inference and modes of argumenta tion (especially, defeasible and inductive reasoning), and the relations that may obtain between AI and epistemology. Alternative positions are developed in detail and subjected to vigorous debate in the justifiable expectation that - here as elsewhere - critical inquiry provides the most promising path to discovering the truth about ourselves and the world around us. lH.F.

Download or read book Meaning in Mind and Society written by Peter Harder and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2010-09-24 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Meaning is embodied - but it is also social. If Cognitive Linguistics is to be a complete theory of language in use, it must cover the whole spectrum from grounded cognition to discourse struggles and bullshit. This book tries to show how. Cognitive Linguistics knocked down the wall between language and the experiential content of the human mind. Frame semantics, embodiment, conceptual construal, figure-ground organization, metaphorical mapping, and mental spaces are among the results of this breakthrough, which at the same time provided cognitive science as a whole with an essential human dimension. A new phase began when Cognitive Linguistics started to see itself as part of the wider movement of 'usage-based' linguistics. Bringing about an alliance between mind and discourse, it complemented the conceptual dimension that had been dominant until then with a 'use' dimension - thereby living up to the explicit 'experiential' commitment of Cognitive Linguistics. This outward expansion is continuing: The focus on 'meaning construction', which began with the theory of blending, highlights emergent, online effects rather than underlying mappings. Cognitive Linguistics is integrating the evolutionary perspective, which links up individual and population-based features of language. The empirical obligations incurred by this expansion have led to greatly increased attention to corpus and experimental methods, especially in relation to sociolinguistic and language acquisition research. The book describes this development and goes on to discuss the foundational challenge that it creates for Cognitive Linguistics as it begins to cover issues that are also central to types of discourse analysis focusing on social processes of determination. The book argues for a synthesis based on a renewed Cognitive Linguistics, which can accommodate everything from bodily grounding to deconstructible floating signifiers in an integrated complete picture, which also covers the roles of arbitrariness and structure.

Download or read book Cognitive Linguistics and Translation written by Ana Rojo and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-07-15 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The papers compiled in the present volume aim at investigating the many fruitful manners in which cognitive linguistics can expand further on cognitive translation studies. Some papers (e.g. Halverson, Muñoz-Martín, Martín de León) take a theoretical stand, since the epistemological and ontological bases of both areas (cognitive linguistics and translation studies) should be known before specific contributions of cognitive linguistic to translation are tackled. Several works in the volume attempt to illustrate how some of the notions imported from cognitive linguistics may contribute to enrich our understanding of the translation process in a general translation problem such as metaphor (e.g. Samaniego), the relationship between form and meaning (e.g. Tabakowska, Rojo and Valenzuela) or cultural aspects (e.g. Bernárdez, Sharifian/Jamarani). Others use translation as an empirical field to test some of the basic assumptions of cognitive linguistics such as frames (e.g. Boas), metonymy (e.g. Brdar/Brdar-Szabó), and lexicalisation patterns (e.g. Ibarretxe-Antuñano/Filipovi?). Finally, another set of papers (e.g. Feist, Hatzidaki) opens up new lines of investigation for experimental research, a very promising area still underdeveloped.

Download or read book Elements of Surprise written by Vera Tobin and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2018-04-16 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do some surprises delight—the endings of Agatha Christie novels, films like The Sixth Sense, the flash awareness that Pip’s benefactor is not (and never was!) Miss Havisham? Writing at the intersection of cognitive science and narrative pleasure, Vera Tobin explains how our brains conspire with stories to produce those revelatory plots that define a “well-made surprise.” By tracing the prevalence of surprise endings in both literary fiction and popular literature and showing how they exploit our mental limits, Tobin upends two common beliefs. The first is cognitive science’s tendency to consider biases a form of moral weakness and failure. The second is certain critics’ presumption that surprise endings are mere shallow gimmicks. The latter is simply not true, and the former tells at best half the story. Tobin shows that building a good plot twist is a complex art that reflects a sophisticated understanding of the human mind. Reading classic, popular, and obscure literature alongside the latest research in cognitive science, Tobin argues that a good surprise works by taking advantage of our mental limits. Elements of Surprise describes how cognitive biases, mental shortcuts, and quirks of memory conspire with stories to produce wondrous illusions, and also provides a sophisticated how-to guide for writers. In Tobin’s hands, the interactions of plot and cognition reveal the interdependencies of surprise, sympathy, and sense-making. The result is a new appreciation of the pleasures of being had.