The New Psychology of Language

Cognitive and Functional Approaches to Language Structure, Volume I

Michael Tomasello

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317693512
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

From the point of view of psychology and cognitive science, much of modern linguistics is too formal and mathematical to be of much use. The New Psychology of Language volumes broke new ground by introducing functional and cognitive approaches to language structure in terms already familiar to psychologists, thus defining the next era in the scientific study of language.The Classic Edition volumes re-introduce some of the most important cognitive and functional linguists working in the field. They include a new introduction by Michael Tomasello in which he reviews what has changed since the volumes first published and highlights the fundamental insights of the original authors. The New Psychology of Language volumes are a must-read for anyone interested in understanding how cognitive and functional linguistics has become the thriving perspective on the scientific study of language that it is today.

1

CONCEPTUALIZATION, SYMBOLIZATION, AND GRAMMAR

Ronald W. Langacker

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

1. Introduction

Language has two basic and closely related functions: a semiological function, allowing thoughts to be symbolized by means of sounds, gestures, or writing, as well as an interactive function, embracing communication, expressiveness, manipulation, and social communion. A pivotal issue in linguistic theory is whether the functions language serves should be taken as foundational or merely subsidiary to the problem of describing its form. The recognition of their foundational status is the primary feature distinguishing functionalist approaches to language from the formalist tradition (notably generative grammar).

The movement called cognitive linguistics belongs to the functionalist tradition. Although its concern with cognition hardly makes it unique, the label cognitive is not entirely arbitrary. Within functionalism, cognitive linguistics stands out by emphasizing the semiological function of language and the crucial role of conceptualization in social interaction. It contrasts with formalist approaches by viewing language as an integral facet of cognition (not as a separate “module” or “mental faculty”). Insofar as possible, linguistic structure is analyzed in terms of more basic systems and abilities (e.g., perception, attention, categorization) from which it cannot be dissociated.

The theory called cognitive grammar (Langacker, 1987a, 1990, 1991) represents one approach to cognitive linguistics. Its central claim is that grammar is per se a symbolic phenomenon, consisting of patterns for imposing and symbolizing particular schemes of conceptual structuring. It is held that lexicon, morphology, and syntax form a continuum fully describable as assemblies of symbolic structures (form–meaning pairings), and consequently, that all valid grammatical constructs have conceptual import. Although quite radical from the standpoint of orthodox linguistic theory, these positions are actually both natural and desirable. Reducing grammar to symbolic assemblies affords a major theoretical unification as well as great austerity in the kinds of entities analysts are allowed to posit. It is realistic from the psychological standpoint, for unlike semantics and phonology—grounded in the broader realms of conceptualization and sound—grammar is not connected to any independently accessible domain of experience. It is more naturally taken as residing in schematized representations of sound–meaning pairings, abstracted from (and immanent in) the specific symbolic configurations observable in complex expressions. Described in this manner, grammar (like lexicon) can be seen as directly reflecting the semiological function of language.

Although the analyses and theoretical claims of cognitive grammar are proposed and justified on the basis of linguistic evidence, some care is taken to stay within the bounds of psychological plausibility. A guiding principle is that language structure should be characterized relying only on mental abilities and phenomena that are either well known or easily demonstrated. This leads to a primary working strategy (described in Langacker, 1993a) based on the convergence of three kinds of considerations. The objective is to find descriptions of linguistic elements that simultaneously meet the conditions of being (a) reasonable from the psychological standpoint, (b) well motivated in purely semantic terms, and (c) optimal as a basis for analyzing grammar. In my view, this methodology has proved quite successful. It is argued in various works (e.g., Langacker, 1995b; van Hoek, 1995) that conceptually grounded descriptions satisfying conditions (a) and (b) support revealing accounts of classic grammatical problems. The advantages of reducing grammar to symbolic assemblies are not purchased at the expense of descriptive adequacy, but quite the contrary.

The presentation begins by sketching a conceptualist approach to semantics. We next consider symbolic assemblies and the gradation between lexicon and grammar. Following this is a discussion of how cognitive grammar handles some basic problems of grammatical description. Finally, as a case study, an attempt is made to justify (or at least render plausible) a conceptual characterization of the grammatical notions subject and object. The supposed impossibility of such a characterization is of course a central argument for the autonomy of syntax.

2. Semantics

Views of grammar are critically dependent on assumptions made about semantics. In particular, the autonomy of grammar appears self-evident given the prevalent assumption that meanings consist of truth conditions. The meaningfulness of grammatical elements becomes apparent only by adopting a conceptualist semantics that properly accommodates our ability to conceive and portray the same objective situation in alternate ways. The term conceptualization is interpreted broadly as embracing any kind of mental experience. It subsumes (a) both established and novel conceptions; (b) not only abstract or intellectual “concepts” but also sensory, motor, and emotive experience; (c) conceptions that are not instantaneous but change or unfold through processing time; and (d) full apprehension of the physical, social, cultural, and linguistic context. Thus, far from being either static or solipsistic, conceptualization is viewed as the dynamic activity of embodied minds interacting with their environment.

Linguistic semantics has traditionally posited a definite boundary between “semantics” and “pragmatics.” It is further assumed that lexical items have fixed, well-delimited meanings (far less inclusive than speakers’ general knowledge of the entities they denote), and that sentence meanings are fully derivable from lexical meanings by rules of semantic composition. Attractive though it is, a semantics of this sort is actually quite problematic. It reflects the dubious metaphorical supposition that linguistic elements are containers from which discrete components of meaning need only be extracted and assembled in building-block fashion (cf. Reddy, 1979). In practice, motivated boundaries between “linguistic” and “extralinguistic” facets of meaning have proved notoriously hard to establish.

The basic vision of cognitive semantics is radically different. Rather than imposing artificial boundaries, it posits a gradation between semantics and pragmatics, and also between linguistic and general knowledge. It views expressions as evoking (rather than containing) meanings, which emerge via an elaborate process of meaning construction drawing on all available resources—linguistic, psychological, and contextual. Even at the lexical level, meanings are variable and malleable. The encyclopedic approach (Haiman, 1980; Langacker, 1987a; cf. Wierzbicka, 1995) treats lexical items as points of entry into vast conceptual networks. Although the access they afford to these networks is to some degree conventionally established, it is nonetheless flexible, open-ended, and highly subject to priming. To the extent that distinct paths of access become entrenched and conventionalized, the result is the common situation of polysemy, where a lexical item has a number of related senses, any one of which might be activated on a given occasion. These senses form a complex category describable as a network, usually centered on a prototype (Lakoff, 1987; Langacker, 1987a; Taylor, 1995).

At higher levels of organization, the essential role of meaning construction is even more evident. Multifaceted research in cognitive semantics has demonstrated that the meanings of complex expressions are not in general algorithmically derivable from their parts—at least given a representative range of data (not selected just to avoid the problem) and a realistic definition of “meaning” (not so impoverished as to be trivial in relation to natural language understanding). Patterns of semantic composition do of course exist (they are considered an inherent aspect of grammar) and their importance is undeniable. Still, because language is neither autonomous nor encapsulated, semantically it exhibits only partial compositionality. The meanings contributed by lexical and grammatical elements evoke and constrain—but do not fully constitute—the overall conceptualization evoked by a complex expression, its composite semantic structure. This is an entity in its own right with many possible sources of extracompositionality. It may, for instance, be crucially dependent for its coherence on discourse or contextual clues to supplement the fragmentary information explicitly encoded. It may invoke domains of knowledge not accessed by any component element taken individually. It is likely to require the construction and manipulation of an elaborate set of connected mental spaces (Fauconnier, 1985; Fauconnier & Sweetser, 1996). Almost certain to be involved are basic and ubiquitous phenomena such as metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980; Lakoff & Turner, 1989), metonymy (Langacker, 1995b; Nunberg, 1995), and conceptual blending (Fauconnier & Turner, 1994, 1996; Turner & Fauconnier, 1995). It might then seem attractive to distinguish between evoked and encoded meaning, equating semantic structure with just the latter (Harder, 1996). The feasibility of such a move is anything but obvious, however. There is no clear boundary between evoked and encoded meaning, nor is the latter necessarily either independently coherent or separately apprehended.

Fundamental to cognitive semantics is construal, our manifest capacity for conceptualizing the same situation in alternate ways. At least for mortals, construal is inescapable—there is no completely neutral way of apprehending a situation (although there are of course defaults). Meaning is thus a function of both conceptual “content” and how that content is construed. As an inherent aspect of their conventional semantic value, linguistic elements impose a particular construal on the content they evoke, and speakers adopt it for purposes of linguistic expression. Differences in conventional patterns of construal are largely responsible for the impression that languages embody contrasting “worldviews.” A strong claim of linguistic relativity, that language drastically and unavoidably shapes thought, is not however warranted. The effect of linguistically imposed construal may be fairly superficial (Slobin, 1987). The content evoked by expressions can be largely the same (affording the basis for understanding and rough translation) even when construed very differently. Moreover, the symbolic resources of a single language provide an enormous range of options for construing any given situation, and speakers show great dexterity in shifting from one to another.

One dimension of construal is “granularity,” i.e. the degree of precision and detail with which a situation is characterized. The lexicon of a language allows an entity to be described at varying levels of specificity (conversely, schematicity), the choice depending on circumstances and communicative objectives. For instance, the same feline might be described specifically as a Siamese, more abstractly (in coarser grained detail) as a cat, and still more schematically with terms like animal, creature, or even thing. Complex expressions obviously allow indefinite variation along this parameter, as illustrated by the progressively more schematic descriptions in (1):

1. Your wretched Siamese just gobbled up my crème brûlée. > Your cat just ate my dessert. > An animal did something. > Something happened.

The meanings of grammatical elements are usually quite schematic (cf. Talmy, 1988). This does not distinguish them sharply from lexical items, because the latter vary widely along the dimension of specificity. There is rather a gradation, such that the more schematic an element is semantically, the more likely it is to be regarded by linguists as grammatical rather than lexical.

Numerous aspects of construal reflect a very general ability to conceive of one structure against the background provided by another. One kind of background consists of assumptions, expectations, and presuppositions, which expressions evoke with varying degrees of explicitness and specificity. Consider the sentences in (2), which might be used to describe the same objective situati...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction to the Classic Edition
• Introduction: A Cognitive–Functional Perspective on Language Structure
• 1 Conceptualization, Symbolization, and Grammar
• 2 The Functional Approach to Grammar
• 3 The Structure of Events and the Structure of Language
• 4 Language and the Flow of Thought
• 5 The Semantics of English Causative Constructions in a Universal-Typological Perspective
• 6 Emergent Grammar
• 7 Syntactic Constructions as Prototype Categories
• 8 Patterns of Experience in Patterns of Language
• 9 The Acquisition of WH-Questions and the Mechanisms of Language Acquisition
• 10 Mental Spaces, Language Modalities, and Conceptual Integration
• Index