Dangers of disciplinary border crossings: When terminology resonates…
By carefully choosing their terminology so that it resonated across disciplinary boundaries (e.g., 'experientialism', 'experiential realism' and 'embodied realism')—using terms that were already popular and familiar to those working in the cognitive sciences—Lakoff and Johnson created a paradigm that would receive a warm welcome back in the early 1990s.
That warm reception was brought about not simply because of the similarity of the terminology used, but because of the way that the premises of Lakoff & Johnson, as expressed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, resonated with the "embodied mind" model being developed in the cognitive sciences.
And that model included the notion that "'direct physical experience' is never merely a matter of having a body of certain sort; rather, every experience takes place within a vast background of cultural presuppositions."
A few more challenges and suggestions for Cultural Linguistics
Encourage engagement with terminology and concepts being developed in adjacent fields ('distributed cognition', 'extended mind', 'enaction,' 'intersubjectivity' and 'radical embodied cognition') that in turn impact our work in Cultural Linguistics.
Gain a greater awareness of the ways that research paradigms in cognitive science and Cultural Linguistics are coming together: that both cognition and language are increasingly viewed through the lens of the 4Es, as 'embodied', 'embedded', 'enacted' and 'extended', a movement referred to collectively as the "New Wave" in cognitive science.
Promote engagement and cross-disciplinary collaboration with researchers working on these "New Wave" (4Es) approaches to cognition and language. As an aside, several of us are already doing this.
More challenges and suggestions for Cultural Linguistics
More emphasis on diachronic studies; historical–comparative approaches; more research of an evolutionary and ethnolinguistic nature (e.g., Bartmiński 2009); including forays into human- and non-human animal interaction and intercommunication (Frank, in press).
We still need to develop a robust ontological and philosophical grounding for the field.
Refine existing instruments of analysis and terminology, e.g., cultural cognitive models (CCMs) (Blount 2014; Martín Morillas 1997).
Some challenges and suggestions for Cultural Linguistics
Need to search for cultural schemas that are grammatically inscribed in the language and that are congruent with certain social practices. Some of them might well fall into the category of Whorf's 'cryptotypes', cultural norms and their linguistic counterparts that pass unnoticed by speakers and, consequently, are part of unreflective cultural linguistic usage.
For all of us, but most especially for those working with non-SAE languages, the search for 'cryptotypes' can include uncovering cultural words, specific cultural conceptualizations of the world which are peculiar to a given cultural community and link to a unique worldview; such cultural words are usually ubiquitous, very much entrenched in culture, and often very difficult to explain and translate into other languages. As such, they can represent deeply backgrounded cultural conceptualizations. The challenge lies discovering them (Ibarretxe-Antuñano 2012).
Some challenges and suggestions for Cultural Linguistics
Need for the recognition and exploration of the role of ritual, traditional social practices and beliefs as important vehicles for the transmission of cultural linguistic artifacts across time and generations; how the former can contribute to the stability of the latter.
Need to encourage the exploration of how a material artifact or set of material artifacts can act as anchors for cultural conceptualizations and aid in their transmission across both space and time (Malafouris 2013).
All of this requires an integration of ethnographic oriented approaches and the recognition that the entrenchment, stability and survival of many cultural conceptualizations are inextricably linked to a matrix of practices, beliefs and material objects.
Cultural Linguistics: Integration with other Cognitive Sciences
Cultural linguistics is on track with the current thinking in other fields of cognitive science.
"Our knowledge of the workings of the human brain increases day by day and so does our understanding of the extended, distributed, embodied and culturally mediated character of the human mind" (Renfrew, Frith & Malafouris 2008).
And, so does, we might add, our understanding of language itself.
Building community: Possible role of Academia.edu
Currently there are 283 of us signed on as followers in the Cultural Linguistics Research Interest Group and we can expect that number to grow.
Colleagues should be encouraged to join this group and to be sure that their papers are 'tagged' with our Interest Group.
Where appropriate, colleagues in adjacent fields should be encouraged to add the tag of Cultural Linguistics to their own articles.
Building community:
Mechanisms for sharing information and concerns
Currently we have a book series and a journal and we have started the conference series. What else is missing?
Given the interdisciplinary focus of Cultural Linguistics, it is easy to miss articles of importance, e.g., concerning what is going on in related areas of Cognitive Science, Cognitive Anthropology, etc. …
So is there a need for a Cultural Linguistics List-Server?
A place to post suggested readings for researchers in Cultural Linguistics?
A Facebook page?
Other suggestions?
THE END
"Our knowledge of the workings of the human brain increases day by day and so does our understanding of the extended, distributed, embodied and culturally mediated character of the human mind" (Renfrew, Frith & Malafouris 2008).
Bibliography (cont.)
Lakoff, G. (1980). Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G. (1993). The contemporary theory of metaphor. In A. Ortony (Ed.), Metaphor and Thought (pp. 202-251). 2nd. ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, G. (2009). The neural theory of metaphor. In R. Gibbs, Jr. (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor (pp. 17-38). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live by. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenges to Western Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Malafouris, L. (2013). How Things Shape the Mind: A Theory of Material Engagement. Cambridge, MA: MIT.
Marmaridou, S. (2000). Pragmatic Meaning and Cognition. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Martín Morillas, J. (1997). The cultural cognitive model: A programmatic application. Cuadernos de Filología Inglesa, 6(2), 53-63.
Maturana, H., & Varela, F. J. (1987). The Tree of Knowledge: The Biological Roots of Human Understanding. Boston: New Science Library.
Bibliography (cont.)
Goatley, A. (2007). Washing the Brain: Metaphor and Hidden Ideology. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Harder, P. (2010a). Cognitive linguistics and philosophy. In D. Geeraerts & H. Cuyckens (Eds.), Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 1241-1266). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harder, P. (2010b). Meaning in Mind and Society: A Functional Contribution to the Social Turn in Cognitive Linguistics. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I. (2012). The importance of unveiling conceptual metaphors in a minority language: The case of Basque. In A. Idström & E. Piirainen (Eds.), Endangered Metaphors (pp. 253-273). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Johnson, M. (1987). The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Reason and Imagination. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Johnson, M., & Lakoff, G. (2002). Why cognitive linguistics requires embodied realism. Cognitive Linguistics, 13(3), 245-263.
Johnson, M. (2005) Philosophical significance of image schemas. In B. Hampe (Ed.) From Perception to Meaning : Image Schemas in Cognitive Linguistics (pp.15-33). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Koller, V. (2004). Metaphor and Gender in Business Media Discourse: A Clinical Cognitive Study. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bibliography (cont.)
Di Paolo, E., & Thompson, E. (2014). The enactive approach. In L. A. Shapiro (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition (pp. 68-78). London/New York: Routledge.
Frank, R. M. (2015). Cultural Linguistics and the future agenda for research on language and culture. In F. Sharifian (Ed.), Routledge Handbook on Language and Culture (pp. 493-512. http://tinyurl.com/cultural-linguistics). New York/London: Routledge.
Frank, R. M. (in press). Expanding the scope of cultural linguistics: Taking parrots seriously. In F. Sharifian (Ed.), Advances in Cultural Linguistics. Berlin: Springer.
Fusaroli, R., & Morgagni, S. (Eds.). (2013). Journal of Cognitive Semiotics. Special Issue: Conceptual Metaphor Theory Thirty Years After (Vol. 5 (1-2)).
Gibbs, J., Raymond W. (1999). Taking metaphor out of our heads and putting it into the cultural world. In R. W. Gibbs, Jr. & G. Steen (Eds.), Current Issues in Linguistic Theory: Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics: Selected Papers from the 5th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Amsterdam, 1997 (pp. 145-166). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Gibbs, Jr., R. W. (2013). Why do some people dislike conceptual metaphor theory? Journal of Cognitive Semiotics. Special Issue: Conceptual Metaphor Theory Thirty Years After, Riccardo Fusaroli and Simone Morgagni (Eds.), 5(1-2), 14-36.
Bibliography
Bartmiński, J. (2010). Aspects of Cognitive Ethnolinguistics. Edited by Jörg Zinken. Trans. Adam Glaz. London/Oakville, CT: Equinox.
Bernárdez, E. (2010). Language and Culture: A review of Aspects of Cognitive Ethnolinguistics. Bartmiński, Jerzy. (2009). Aspects of Cognitive Ethnolinguistics. Edited by Jörg Zinken. London & Oakville (CT): Equinox. 250 pp. Review of Cognitive Linguistics, 8(2), 376-385.
Blount, B. (2014). Situating cultural models in history and cognition. In M. Yamaguchi, D. Tay, & B. Blount (Eds.), Approaches to Language, Culture and Cognition: The Intersection of Cognitive Linguistics and Linguistic Anthropology (pp. 271-298). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Caballero, R., & Ibarretxe-Antuñano, I. (2013). Ways of perceiving, moving and thinking: Revindicating culture in Conceptual Metaphor Research. Journal of Cognitive Semiotics. Special Issue: Conceptual Metaphor Theory Thirty Years After, Riccardo Fusaroli and Simone Morgagni (Eds.), 5(1-2), 268-291.
Croft, W. (2009). Towards a social cognitive linguistics. In V. Evans & S. Pourcel (Eds.), New Directions in Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 395-420). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
De Jaegher, H., & Di Paolo, E. (2007). Participatory sense-making. Phenomenology and Cognitive Science, 6(4), 485-507.
And lest we forget, Cultural Linguistics is by its own nature also cognitive
Even though Cultural Linguistics views cultural conceptualizations as shared, there is still a tendency for us to see culture as "out-there" in the world. So I would like to close this part of the talk by citing a recent article by Blount (2014) entitled "Situating cultural models in history and cognition."
In it Blount speaks about "out-of-awareness" brain functions and cultural cognitive models (CCMs): "[…] most of the brain's functions are out-of-awareness, that the conscious, aware aspects constitute only a small a part of the brain's work regarding behavior. CCMs are one part of a framework within which information is stored, organized and activated. They, too, operate mostly out-of-awareness and can be seen as one of the cognitive systems."
Thus, according to Blount, CCMs can be viewed as "neural models, in terms of mental storage, retrieval, out-of-awareness, long-term and short-term memory, and association with other forms of neurally stored encyclopedic knowledge."
Culture + cognition = Cultural cognition
In 2006, in an article called "When will cognitive linguistics become cultural", Gary Palmer wrote:
In my view, culture and cognition are not separate entities, just two views on the process whereby people with minds, which are embedded in physical bodies situated in social and physical environments, communicate, learn, think, and pursue social goals. Similarly, Edwin Hutchins (1996: 354) proposed an integrated view of human cognition, "in which a major component of culture is a cognitive process . . . and cognition is a cultural process."
At this point it is hard to tell whether or when the pro-cultural forces in Cognitive Linguistics will finally succeed in reorienting that field. What I can say, however, is that Cultural Linguistics with its culturally-oriented theoretical and methodological approach represents a very attractive option for them.
Conclusions: Terminological battles continue…
Embodiment, in turn, is another one of those terms, ever popular yet inherently opaque, a term that has so many definitions that one becomes dizzy trying to sort them out. And when one leaves the relatively safe confines of Cognitive Linguistics and moves into the thickets of Cognitive Science, the problems only increase. The definitions one runs into are not only different, but often contradictory (Ziemke 2004).
In sum, over the past thirty years much time and energy has been expended defending the model of 'embodied realism' as well as attempting to escape from it. Cultural Linguistics, on the other hand, represents, in my opinion, a clean break where the core tenets of Cognitive Linguistics discussed in this talk no longer need to be defended.
Continuity – Discontinuity? Or Shifts in emphasis?
Indeed, for those working in Cognitive Linguistics, Second Generation Cognitive Science appeared to bring with it a shift from
seeing the mind as a disembodied manipulation of formal symbols and of language as a syntactic arrangement of formal symbols, accessed unconsciously, algorithms that reflected language universals
to seeing the mind as embodied and that language exploits universal features of human perception and bodily structure which are then reflected in language usage.
Rather than formal symbols linking representations to a pre-given world, focus in the Lakoffian model has been on metaphor and transformations of basic 'neural structures', accessed unconsciously, as they come to manifest themselves in 'conceptual metaphors'.
More border crossings: Consolidation of model of "Experiential Realism"
Already in 2000, we find discussions showing up in print concerning the model of 'experiential realism' as proposed by Lakoff & Johnson. The following comes from an extended discussion of this topic in a book on Pragmatism and Cognition:
Given the commitment of experiential realism to an account of mind that is neurally realistic, concepts and meaning are considered to be embodied. Embodiment of meaning specifically implies that the same neural and cognitive mechanisms that are responsible for perception and sensorimotor control also create our conceptual systems and modes of reason via processes of neural co-activation. (Marmaridou 2000: 48)
Marmaridou, S (2000). Pragmatic Meaning and Cognition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Continuity – Discontinuity: First Generation Cognitive Science vs. Second Generation Cognitive Science
Comments by Peter Harder from 2010:
"The emphasis within Cognitive Linguistics on bodily grounding […] means that the internalist perspective is generally given priority as a source of explanation.
In this, there is a continuity with first-generation cognitive science. Lakoff and Johnson (1999: chapter 2) outline a picture of cognitive architecture which accords with a rule of thumb among cognitive scientists stating that 95% of all thought is inaccessible to consciousness: "Our unconscious conceptual knowledge functions like a 'hidden hand' that shapes how we conceptualize all aspects of our experience" (Lakoff & Johnson 1999: 13).
Chomsky is generously said to "deserve enormous credit" (Lakoff and Johnson 1999: 472) for bringing into linguistics the notion of unconscious cognitive structures. In this picture, the explanatory status of "tacit knowledge" thus survived from Chomsky to Cognitive Linguistics, while the specification of what it consists of radically changed." (Harder 2010: 1251)
Harder, P. (2010a). Cognitive linguistics and philosophy. In D. Geeraerts & H. Cuyckens (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics (pp. 1241-1266). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Historical context: The same but different…
In 2007, Goatley provided this cogent insight:
"What Lakoff calls "The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor" […] grew up in a particular historical context, among linguists heavily influenced by, though ultimately distancing themselves from Chomskyan notions of language."
"However, two aspects of Chomsky's theory seem to have been inherited. The emphasis on linguistic universals or universal grammar, and the notion that language is an innate genetically-determined faculty, though for Chomsky's mental faculty Lakoff and his followers substitute the biological (Lakoff & Johnson 1999: 476)" (Goatley 2007: 276; emphasis in original).
Positive disciplinary border crossings: When terminology, models and interests really do converge…
Today it is clear that the 'experiential realism' paradigm of biological foundationalism promoted by Lakoff & Johnson is losing traction and followers within Cognitive Linguistics.
At the same time research groups working on the cutting edges of 'distributed cognition', 'embodiment,' 'intersubjectivity' and 'enactivism' have rejected the 'between the ears' orientation and brain-centered focus on cognition.
They are now exploring the complex interactions between body, mind and world with increasing emphasis on the 'world', 'interaction' and 'language' and most especially on developing tools to explore what they call 'social neuro-science' and 'social cognition'.
In short, they are embracing positions that resonate with what is going on in Cultural Linguistics.
Special Issue dedicated to language and social neuro-cognition in Behavioral Brain Sciences (2013) 36(4).
Special Issue dedicated to Socially Extended Cognition in Cognitive Systems Research (2013) 25-26.
Substituting 'image-schemas' for the 'representations' found in First Generation Cognitive Science
According to Johnson & Lakoff in their 2002 article entitled "Why cognitive linguistics requires embodied realism":
Representation is a term that we try carefully to avoid, since it calls up an idealized cognitive model of mind with disembodied internal idea-objects that can somehow correspond to states of affairs in the external world. According to our experientialist view, neither image schemas nor any other aspect of conceptual structure are 'representations' in this sense [they are not disembodied internal idea-objects]. An image schema is a neural structure residing in the sensorimotor system that allows us to make sense of what we experience (Johnson & Lakoff 2002: 250; italics original)
But is CMT really just a theory of metaphor?
It is clear that there as been universal acceptance of the term 'conceptual metaphor theory' (CMT) as if the phase 'conceptual metaphor' used in the term needed no further justification. But I continue to believe we are actually talking more about a theory of 'conceptualization' rather than a theory of 'metaphor.'
Pawelec (2013: 3) seems to agree:
The definitions of conceptual metaphor that Lakoff and Johnson offer do not cover metaphorical phenomena […]. CMT should be understood primarily as a (highly) speculative empiricist theory of meaning extension rather than a theory of metaphor.
CMT treats everything that does not belong to sensorimotor experience as metaphorical and relies primarily on generic cognitive characteristics of human beings, making it insensitive to the crucial role of the historical socio-cultural situatedness of language and hence the role of cultural conceptualizations.
Attempts to escape from 'embodied realism' while clinging desperately to its basic premise…
Some thirty years after Metaphors We Live By, we are hearing increasing murmurs of dissent and talk of a social cognitive linguistics:
"What I call 'the social turn' can be understood as a new operation of the same kind: language-and-conceptualization needs to be set in the wider context of 'meaning-in-society' […] In classic CL, the central form of grounding is bodily grounding (cf. Johnson 1992). This dimension retains its crucial role, but in a social cognitive linguistics, grounding also includes the anchoring of meaning in feedback from the environment, outside the individual's body. This is in keeping with the broader agenda in CL of experiential grounding. Grounding contrasts on the one hand with dogmatic foundationalism, where everything is rigidly determined at some basic level, and on the other with the deconstructionist detachment of meaning from all foundational moorings." (Harder 2010b: 3-4)
Harder, P. (2010b). Meaning in Mind and Society: A Functional Contribution to the Social Turn in Cognitive Linguistics. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Conclusions: Terminological battles continue…
And the battle is bound to continue over this universalist, body-oriented and grounded, individualist stance toward cognition and the appropriateness of solely foregrounding universal processes.
We see that this mentalistic stance found in Cognitive Linguistics contrasts with the framework of distributed and extended cognition intrinsic to Cultural Linguistics: "A process is not cognitive simply because it happens in a brain, nor is a process non-cognitive simply because it happens in the interactions among many brains" (Hollan & Hutchins 2000).
Yet after several decades of heated discussion, cognition along with cognitive continues to be a little understood term, never fully defined yet omnipresent in Cognitive Linguistics.
Conclusions: Terminological battles
For years a tug of war has been going on inside Cognitive Linguistics with increasing intensity, focused on competing definitions of key terms. A tug of war that is certainly not new as the title of the following talk by Raymond Gibbs at the ICLC, celebrated in 1997 in Amsterdam, demonstrates:
Gibbs, Jr., Raymond W. (1999). Taking metaphor out of our heads and putting it into the cultural world. In Raymond W. Gibbs, Jr. and Gerard Steen, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory: Metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics: Selected Papers from the 5th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Amsterdam, 1997. John Benjamins.
Or this title by Gibbs from 2013, some fifteen years later:
Gibbs, Jr., Raymond W. (2013) Why do some people dislike conceptual metaphor theory? In Riccardo Fusaroli & Simone Morgagni, Special Issue: Conceptual Metaphor Theory Thirty Years After." Journal of Cognitive Semiotics. 5 (1-2).
In the past decade dozens of similar articles have appeared in print which could be cited, many of them written by leading lights in Cognitive Linguistics, some of whom are with us today here in Prato.
Summary of differences (cont.)
Tenets of Cultural Linguistics
Cultural aspects of conceptualization and their role in language play a central role in investigations, a languacultural focus
Strong diachronic emphasis
World Englishes and other languages
Multidisciplinary focus. Language is viewed as a complex adaptive system with links to dynamic systems & complexity sciences
Tenets of Cognitive Linguistics
Cultural aspects of conceptualization relegated to the margins; often portrayed as non-basic, secondary levels of concern or simply left unlabeled
Strong synchronic orientation
Linguacentrism: Anglo-American English
Lacks a solid multidisciplinary focus
Summary of differences
Tenets of Cultural Linguistics
Sociocultural situatedness/situated embodiment
Language viewed as deeply entrenched in the group-level, cultural cognition of communities of speakers
Methodological distributed cognition ('wide ware')
Foregrounds exploration of cultural conceptualizations—the languacultural nexus; cultural schemas and cultural categories, cultural cognitive models, cultural structuring with scenes, scenarios or scripts
Tenets of Cognitive Linguistics
Embodied realism/biological-neural embodiment
Linguistic mentalism (role of the 'cognitive unconscious')
Methodological individualism ('between the ears')
Foregrounds universal cognitive processes such as figure-ground relations, force dynamics, emergent categories, and Idealized Cognitive Models
Another difference: Attempts at paradigmatic rupture
When evaluating the role played by the 'experientialist postulate', conceptual metaphor theory and its other entailments, Sinha notes that
We should try […] not to lose sight of the dialogic context of theories, the fact that they are rhetorical as well as cognitive constructions, engaged both collaboratively and competitively with other rhetorical constructions. Johnson and Lako have, with increasing emphasis, deployed a rhetorical style emphasizing the razing of the foundations of the edi ces of past ages, the consignment of almost the entire canon of Western thought to the dustbin of prehistory, and starting again from the ground up. Leaving aside now the building metaphor, Johnson and Lako 's message is couched in terms of a rhetoric of discovery and discontinuity. (Sinha 2002: 275)
There is a downside to this rhetoric, because it downplays continuity and a liation. And as many have noted, Lakoff & Johnson knock down many strawmen of their own making.
Bibliography (cont.)
Mischler, III, J. J. (2013). Metaphor across Time and Conceptual Space: The Interplay of Embodiment and Cultural Models. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Palmer, G. B. (2006). When does cognitive linguistics become cultural? Case studies in Tagalog voice and Shona noun classifiers. In J. Luchjenbroers (Ed.), Cognitive Linguistics Investigations across Languages, Fields, and Philosophical Boundaries (pp. 13-45). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Sarmela, M. (2006). The Bear in the Finnish Environment: Discontinuity of Cultural Existence. Translated by Annira Silver (2005). Appendix: Ritva Boom (1982). Helsinki. http://www.kotikone.fi/matti.sarmela/bear.html.
Sharifian, F. (2011). Cultural Conceptualizations and Language: Theoretical Framework and Applications. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Varela, F. J., & Maturana, H. (1980). Autopoesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. Dordtrecht: Springer Netherlands.
Varela, F. J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1991). The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge, MA/London: MIT.
Ziemke, T. (2002). Introduction to the Special Issue on Situated and Embodied Cognition. Cognitive Systems Research, 3(3), 271-274.
Ziemke, T. (2004). What's this thing called embodiment? In R. Alterman & D. Kirsh (Eds.), Proceedings of the 25th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1305-1310). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Core concepts eventually assigned by Lakoff & Johnson to the 'embodiment theory' or 'embodiment postulate'
Claims that pre-linguistic cognitive structures—in the 'cognitive unconscious'—ground linguistic meaning and, hence, are the bedrock of language.
Claims that the connection between two conceptual domains is not arbitrary; it does not occur in the absence of, or separately from, the contents of pre- or extra-linguistic experience; it is motivated by the metaphorical elaboration of image-schematic pre-conceptual structures.
Riding the wave in a circular path?
That the initial distancing process was caught up in and coupled to the changing contours of the dominant paradigms in Cognitive Science, most particularly, the initial shift away from Classical Cognitivism to an embodied and enactivist perspective.
That today we find attempts to execute what been called a 'social turn' (Harder 2010) in the field of Cognitive Linguistics: a broader initiative called "social cognitive linguistics" which has a distinct languacultural emphasis.
In short, increasingly we hear calls for Cognitive Linguistics to "go outside the head and incorporate a socio-interactional perspective on the nature of language" (Croft 2009: 395).
Riding the wave in a circular path?
The argument that I will be making in favor of Cultural Linguistics is a relatively simple one. I allege:
That despite its successes, over the past 30 years the field of Cognitive Linguistics has followed a circular path, leading from what initially promised to be a relatively strong culturally-oriented research paradigm to an increasingly different individualistic, neurally embodied one …. and that currently the field is moving back again, trying to regain lost ground.
That over the years in Cognitive Linguistics the hardening of the model—its distancing from any kind of languacultural grounding—has resulted in the partial or full rejection of the core tenets of the 'embodiment theory' by an increasing number of researchers.
Cognitive Linguistics vis-à-vis Cultural Linguistics: A proposal from 1996
In 1996 Palmer produced a diagram that I believe in retrospect was overly optimistic in terms of how Cognitive Linguistics actually was going to develop.
What I hope to show in this talk is that over the past twenty years, the distance between the core concepts and concerns of the two fields, namely, Cognitive Linguistics and Cultural Linguistics, has varied significantly.
As we'll see in what follows, it is the cultural component that was sidelined by adherence to the model of 'embodied realism'. However, I will argue that culture is now making a comeback in Cognitive Linguistics.
A diagrammatic representation of Palmer's (1996) proposal for cultural linguistics
Overview: Analytical tools and theoretical framework of Cultural Linguistics (Sharifian 2011)
Points of intersection between the subdisciplines at the top are displayed by placing them against a common background frame, collectively identified as 'areas of applied linguistics'.
The overlapping circles at the bottom of the figure reflect the common ground between these theoretical disciplines.
The model is designed not so much to set forth the borders of the discipline as to make them more porous, particularly toward culturally informed cognitive insights and analytical tools that can be drawn from other subdisciplines which make up what today is understood globally as the cognitive sciences.
Multidisciplinary dimensions intrinsic to the framework of Cultural Linguistics
Core concepts assigned to the 'embodiment theory' or 'embodiment postulate'
In short, the tenets of 'embodied realism' set forth a research agenda in which language data and conceptualization serve as evidence for the universal and pre-cultural nature of cognition and construal.
To justify their terminology, namely, 'embodied realism', Lakoff and Johnson postulate a 'literal', pre-conceptual level of sensorimotor interactions with the world. "Such 'basic concepts' […] are extended metaphorically and made available conventionally, in various portions, depending on the culture." (Pawelec 2013: 21)
Organization of the talk
A brief look at the scope of Cultural Linguistics
Historical overview of the path taken by Cognitive Linguistics over the past 30 years
Comparing and contrasting features and concerns of Cognitive Linguistics and Cultural Linguistics
Challenges and suggestions for Cultural Linguistics
Time set aside for discussion of conference & future directions
Cultural Linguistics vis-à-vis Cognitive Linguistics: A Critical Perspective
Roslyn M. Frank
University of Iowa
Email:
[email protected]
"Our knowledge of the workings of the human brain increases day by day and so does our understanding of the extended, distributed, embodied and culturally mediated character of the human mind" (Renfrew, Frith & Malafouris 2008).
First International Conference of Cultural Linguistics, Monash University Centre, Prato, Italy, July 20-22, 2016.
Preliminary considerations
Let me begin by saying that I recognize that Cognitive Linguistics is not a completely homogeneous enterprise.
that over the past thirty years the field has changed in terms of its emphasis, theory and methods and
that the submodels which make it up are not identical or always fully commensurate.
that my comments here are generalities and ones that reflect my own personal bias with respect to what I feel are the weaknesses inherent in Cognitive Linguistics
While the field has undergone changes, it is an enterprise that shares certain core theoretical commitments, ones that have remained relatively constant and these will be our focus, at least initially, as well as the debates that have arisen over their appropriateness and empirical validity.
Modeling cultural cognition: Cultural conceptualizations and language (Sharifian 2011)
The field of Cultural Linguistics is focused on examining the sociocultural situatedness of language and therefore exploring the ways that language and culture interact.
As reflected in the diagram, various features and levels of language, from the morpho-syntactic to pragmatic and semantic meanings, may be embedded in cultural conceptualizations in the form of cultural schemas, cultural categories and cultural metaphors.
Classical Cognitivism Science = First Generation Cognitive Science versus Embodied-Enactive = Second Generation Cognitive Science
Today Cognitive Linguistics is considered by many to be one of the principal branches of Second Generation Cognitive Science—an alliance of new approaches emerging from what has been called the second cognitive revolution of the last decades of the twentieth century.
But there is a problem with this assertion or assumption that Cognitive Linguistics should be considered one of the principal branches of Second Generation Cognitive Science.
Examined more closely, the model of 'embodied mind' (Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1991/1993) that was embraced by those working in Second Generation Cognitive Science is, in fact, far closer to the model of Cultural Linguistics than to the model of 'experiential realism' promoted, eventually, by Lakoff & Johnson, namely, the paradigm of neural embodiment that has dominated much of the work in the field of Cognitive Linguistics for the past thirty years.
Further down memory lane: Meetings in Berkeley (cont.)
On the other hand, Philosophy in the Flesh (1999) is the work where the concepts of 'embodied mind' and 'experience'—as eventually (re-)defined by Lakoff & Johnson—are laid out, the term 'experiential realism' is launched and the earlier background of cultural presuppositions is essentially abandoned. We should recall that those earlier definitions are the ones that had been appropriated by Varela, Thompson & Rosch to elaborate their own theory of the embodied mind.
And in 1999, we find this statement by the Lakoff & Johnson: "We owe a special debt to Evan Thompson, Francisco Varela and Eleanor Rosch, whose extensive work on embodied cognition has been inspirational and has informed our thinking throughout."
Further down memory lane: Meetings in Berkeley
I would emphasize that it was precisely these last statements, taken to be typical of the model of Lakoff & Johnson, which were integrated by Varela, Thompson & Rosch into their own definitions of 'enaction' and 'embodied cognition.'
On the other hand, we should not underestimate the importance of the work by Varela, Thompson & Rosch, whose full title was The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience and its role in shaping the Lakoff & Johnson enterprise.
Some history. Keeping in mind Lakoff's relationship with Berkeley, we find that Varela and Thompson wrote their book in conjunction with Rosch who at the time was teaching and doing research at Berkeley in both cognitive psychology and Buddhist philosophy. Indeed, much of the work was done while the three of them were in Berkeley where they continued "the dialogue between the cognitive sciences and the Buddhist tradition", as they state in the preface to The Embodied Mind.
Down memory lane: How languaculture lost its way…
So, in 1980, what did Lakoff & Johnson mean by the term experience? Investigators have cited the fundamental importance of the following assertion by Lakoff and Johnson, taken from the same work, which seems to be contradicted by other statements about 'experiential realism' in that volume as well as in subsequent ones:
In other words, what we call 'direct physical experience' is never merely a matter of having a body of certain sort; rather, every experience takes place within a vast background of cultural presuppositions. It can be misleading, therefore, to speak of direct physical experience as though there were some core of immediate experience which we then 'interpret' in terms of our conceptual system. Cultural assumptions, values, and attitudes are not a conceptual overlay which we may or may not place upon experience as we choose. It would be more correct to say that all experience is cultural through and through, that we experience our 'world' in such a way that our culture is already present in the very experience itself. (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 57)
Cross-disciplinary Interactions: Conceptual, Theoretical and Methodological Reinforcements
Thesis: A paradigm doesn't evolve in isolation but rather draws its strength—and power to convince—from adjacent fields,
This process of paradigm consolidation often involves investigators from one field seeking to justify and ground their findings in those of another field.
Three stages (from 25 yrs. ago):
1. Classical Cognitivism
2. Emergence
3. Enactivism
A diagram of the cognitive sciences as a polar map with participating disciplines and representative approaches. Source: The Embodied Mind (Varela, Thompson & Rosch (1991: 7).
Thirty Years of Evolution: Cognitive Science vs Cognitive Linguistics
Down memory lane: How languaculture lost its way
Classical cognitive metaphor theory before it became consolidated into Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT)
Koller (2004: 9) speaks of 'classical cognitive metaphor theory', as articulated, for example, in Lakoff and Johnson (1980), and epitomized by the following quote referring to 'experientialism' which is found in Metaphors We Live By:
"[…] the nature of our bodies and our physical and cultural environment imposes a structure on our experience […]. Recurrent experience leads to the formation of categories, which are experiential gestalts. […] We understand experience metaphorically when we use a gestalt from one domain of experience to structure experience in another domain" (1980: 230).
What will be argued…
That Cultural Linguistics is more aligned with the notion of 'embodied mind' put forward by Varela, Thompson & Rosch with their emphasis on the cultural when talking about the 'body, mind and world' complex and
That, consequently, Cultural Linguistics is more aligned with the tenets and findings of Complexity Science.
That Second Generation Cognitive Science, described by Varela, Thompson & Rosch, actually stands in opposition to the Lakoffian model of neural 'embodiment'.
Finally, that terms such as 'enaction' and 'embodied' when used by Varela, Thompson & Rosch meant something quite different from what Lakoff & Johnson came to defend as 'embodied realism'. Nevertheless, the sets of terms resonated strongly with each other across the disciplines.
Click to edit Master title style
Edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
8/1/2016
#
Click to edit Master title style
Edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
8/1/2016
#
8/1/2016
#
Click to edit Master title style
Edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
Edit Master text styles
8/1/2016
#
Click to edit Master title style
Edit Master text styles
8/1/2016
#
Click to edit Master title style
Edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
8/1/2016
#
Click to edit Master title style
8/1/2016
#
Click to edit Master title style
Edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
Edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
8/1/2016
#
Click to edit Master title style
Click to edit Master subtitle style
8/1/2016
#
Click to edit Master title style
Edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
8/1/2016
#
Click to edit Master title style
Edit Master text styles
8/1/2016
#
Click to edit Master title style
Edit Master text styles
Edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
Edit Master text styles
Edit Master text styles
Second level
Third level
Fourth level
Fifth level
8/1/2016
#
