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A broad view of cognitive linguistics

Author(s): Zoltán Kövecses / Language(s): English / Issue: 2-3/2005

Cognitive linguistics can offer an account not only of linguistic structure but also of a wide variety of social and cultural phenomena. The comprehensive account presented in this paper is crucially based and dependent on cognitive capacities that human understanders and producers of language possess quite independently of their ability to use language. By discussing the cognitive processes and the various linguistic, social and cultural issues they help us describe and explain, the author demonstrates that cognitive linguistics is far more than a theory of language; one can think of it as a theory of "meaning-making" in general in its innumerable linguistic, social and cultural facets.

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A Cognitive And Cross-Cultural Study On Body Part Terms In English And Turkish Colour Idioms

Author(s): Gökçen Hastürkoglu / Language(s): Turkish,English / Issue: 2/2018

This study aims to reveal and compare the embodied cognition of English and Turkish speakers through their use of body part terms in basic colour term idioms. More specifically, it addresses the distribution of the body part terms in Turkish and English basic colour term idioms and conceptual metonymies underlying these idioms, and it interprets the findings in terms of socio-cultural and socio-cognitive structures in the minds and linguistic practices of people of Turkish and English cultures. In order to achieve this aim, the idioms with Berlin and Kay’s basic colour terms and body part terms are selected from the specialized dictionaries on idioms. After the collection of data, the cognitive analysis is conducted within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The result demonstrates that although there are some conceptual metaphors and metonymies which tend to be universal as they are grounded in bodily experience, English and Turkish speakers’ conceptualizations through the basic colour terms and body parts vary tremendously because of different socio-cultural and socio-cognitive backgrounds of these speech communities.

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A COGNITIVE APPROACH TO THE COMPILATION OF TEST MATERIALS FOR THE EVALUATION OF TRANSLATOR’S SKILLS

Author(s): Elena Berg,Mark Kit / Language(s): English / Issue: 16/2016

This paper discusses the importance of a cognitive approach to the evaluation of translator’s skills. The authors set forth their recommendations for the compilation of test materials for the evaluation of translators’ cognitive ability.

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A Cognitive-Linguistic Investigation of English Phrasal Verbs Related to Plants

Author(s): Ivan Miloševic,Tijana Vesic Pavlovic / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

The focus of the paper is on the semantics of English phrasal verbs whose constituent verb is related to the concept of PLANTS. The investigated set of verbs includes twenty-two phrasal verbs featuring the particles OUT, OFF, UP, THROUGH, IN and AWAY. The analysis is conducted in the framework of cognitive semantics, which states that the meaning of phrasal verbs can be analysed in view of their constituent particles and the interplay between the verb meaning and the particle senses. It is concluded that the general meaning of the examined phrasal verbs is a result of different spatial configurations underlying the conceptual-semantic structure of the constituent particles, while their specific meanings are motivated by different conceptual metonymies stemming from the constituent verb. Numerous abstract meanings are additionally derived via various submetaphors of the basic metaphor COMPLEX ABSTRACT SYSTEMS ARE PLANTS embedded in the conceptual framework of the constituent verbs.

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A CONTRASTIVE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH ANGER-FURY AND TURKISH KIZGINLIK-ÖFKE

Author(s): Hatice Karaaslan / Language(s): English / Issue: 36/2017

Emotion concepts across different cultures and languages have been studied extensively. New research on emotion concepts can efficiently capture the “experience-near” and “universal” aspects of cultures and languages for the construction of a language-independent semantic metalanguage, namely the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) (Goddard, 1998). Wierzbicka (1999) claims that lexical discriminations in the area of emotions (as well as in other semantic fields) provide important clues to the speakers’ conceptualizations, and thus, a considerable amount of lexical data collection and of serious semantic analysis is needed before any universals in the area of emotion concepts can be proposed. Based on the classification of the cognitive scenarios for emotion terms in Wierzbicka (1999), the current study investigated one area of the emotion lexicon in English and Turkish, that is, a set of terms within the domain of “I don’t want things like this to happen”. It explored how these concepts relate to each other in terms of their cognitive scenarios intra-linguistically and whether their cognitive scenarios match within the domain of “I don’t want things like this to happen”. The study revealed the core meanings of target concepts show a high amount of correspondence, excluding cases of immediacy and intensity.

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A Cross-Cultural Study On White Colour Idioms In Turkish And English: Conceptual Metaphor Theory In Focus

Author(s): Gökçen Hastürkoglu / Language(s): Turkish,English / Issue: 1/2017

This study aims at investigating how similar and different the embodied cognition of Turkish and English speakers is by providing a systematic description of Turkish and English white colour idiomatic expressions and by analyzing them within the framework of Conceptual Metaphor Theory through which the cognitive motivations behind the idiomatic expressions can be demonstrated. In order to do so, a large-scale corpus study based on specialized dictionaries on idioms in Turkish and English was carried out and a table was presented for each language illustrating the idiomatic expression, its meaning, its translation for the Turkish part, and the underlying conceptual metaphor or metonymy. After this cognitive analysis, it was revealed that despite some similarities in the cognitive mappings of the idioms in Turkish and English, the connotations of white colour idioms in two genetically unrelated languages vary because of cultural, historical, religious, or customary matters.

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A discourse approach to conceptual metaphors: a corpus-based analysis of sports discourse in croatian

Author(s): Daniela Katunar,Ida Raffaelli / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

This paper deals with the analysis of sports discourse in Croatian through the theoretical framework offered by conceptual metaphor theory. Within this framework, certain metaphorical expressions found in sports discourse are analyzed as expressions of two conceptual metaphors: sport is war and sport is force. The analysis of these metaphorical expressions combines the methodology of cognitive linguistics with corpus linguistics, resulting in the proposal of a new method for discourse analysis in general. In our research, we introduce the notion of the specialized digitized corpus as a basis for further quantitative and qualitative research. On the basis of the specialized digitized corpus created for the purposes of this research, it is shown how the formation of sports discourse is dependent on three categories of metaphorical expressions relative to the degree of their conventionalization within sports discourse: (a) conventionalized, (b) semi-conventionalized, and (c) innovative metaphorical expressions. Each of these categories is analyzed according to their frequency and various aspects of meaning that it entails. Through the introduction of the semi-conventionalized metaphorical expression category, we aim to examine the gradable line between language creativity and conventionality as it is formed within the discourse of sports.

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A SEMANTIC-COGNITIVE ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPT OF UKRAINE IN THE SPEECHES OF B. OBAMA (2014)

Author(s): Anatoliy Khudoliy / Language(s): English / Issue: 16/2016

This article presents a semantic-cognitive analysis of the concept of Ukraine, verbally represented in the speeches of the American President, Barak Obama. The peculiarities of the President’s worldview are highlighted. The objective of the article is as follows. Firstly, it aims to demonstrate that the concept of Ukraine is verbally represented in the speeches of Obama. This means that Ukraine as a country, moving towards democracy despite the war with Russia, is an object of focus for American leaders. Secondly, the article suggests that there is a connection between the concept described, its pragmatic orientation and its cognitive processes. Thirdly, it describes the semantic peculiarities of the concept of Ukraine in the political speeches of the American leader, which are due to the role Ukraine plays in the local and regional context. Our research is based on the content-analysis of political speeches delivered by American President. The functional, communicative and pragmatic orientation of the speeches is highlighted. In line with the approaches of cognitive scholars, the article concludes that the concept of Ukraine is a complex semantic-cognitive structure that consists of core, transition zone and periphery. During the research for this article, fifteen speeches made by Obama in 2014 were analysed. This research presupposes the application of content analysis. It is relevant in the analysis of international relations with respect to the notions used by President Obama in his speeches delivered during 2014 in the relations between: the USA – Ukraine, Ukraine – Russia, the USA – Russia, and Europe – Ukraine.

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A SHORT HISTORY OF POLISH-UKRAINIAN TERMINOGRAPHY

Author(s): Marek Wojciech Lukasik / Language(s): English / Issue: 16/2016

Specialised dictionaries fulfil a plethora of linguistic and cognitive functions in specialised communication. In particular, such reference works help introduce, harmonise and standardise national terminologies, thus playing an indispensable role in disseminating high quality specialised knowledge. An even more important role may be attributed to bilingual and multilingual specialised dictionaries, whose primary goal is to facilitate the flow of scientific and technical information at an international level. This function has come to the fore in today’s multinational and interconnected professional world. In light of the developing and ever stronger cooperation between Poland and Ukraine, an attempt is being made to evaluate bilingual and multilingual terminographic works containing Polish and Ukrainian which have been published in Poland to date. The aim is to assess the positive developments and to identify the gaps in Polish-Ukrainian terminography. It is hoped that the findings presented in this paper will be applied by terminographers in order to compile terminological dictionaries of higher quality, which satisfy the needs of specific users and follow terminographic principles.

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A study on conceptual transfer in the use of prepositions in English writing by Chinese secondary school students

Author(s): Shaoqian Luo,Shuai Zhang / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2017

This study addresses the issue of conceptual transfer in Chinese EFL learners’ use of prepositions under the guidance of Image Schema Theory, aiming to explore the cognitive underpinnings of conceptual transfer. By observing linguistic data from the learner corpus WCEL (Writing Corpus of English Learners), part of ICCI (The International Corpus of Crosslinguistic Interlanguage), this study summarises types and manifestations of conceptual transfer in the use of prepositions in English writing by Chinese secondary school students, and analyses corresponding cognitive causes of conceptual transfer. Data processing software, AntConc, is used for observation of concordance lines according to the minimum assumption proposed by Sinclair (2004) in corpus-based studies. It is found that errors made by students in their use of English prepositions are mainly caused by negative conceptual transfer of the Chinese language; positive conceptual transfer also exists. Conceptual transfer is mainly caused by cognitive similarities and differences between English and Chinese, represented by image schemas.

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Acerca del potencial didáctico de la Lingüística Cognitiva en el aula de E/LE: el caso de las locuciones

Author(s): Agnieszka Szyndler / Language(s): Spanish / Publication Year: 0

The aim of this paper is to present the didactic potential of Cognitive Linguistic, and in particular of Cognitive Theory of Metaphor in teaching Spanish as a foreign language. The present article, whose subject matter are idiomatic expressions which belong to the core of phraseology and can be viewed as prototypical phraseological units, not only attempts to demonstrate the reasons why this theoretical framework is extremely beneficial in the foreign language classroom but also focuses on role that the iconic dimension of idioms (mental image) and its metaphorical value (conceptual metaphors) have in the teaching and learning process. In other words, particular attention will be paid to research into the application of the theoretical postulates of Cognitive Linguistics to didactics of phraseology.

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Addressing the notions of convention and context in social media research

Author(s): Marina Grubišic / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2017

The aim of this paper is to discuss two fundamental pragmatic notions, convention and context within the framework of communication on social media. By presenting an overview of theoretical perspectives on the two notions and analyzing concrete examples from Twitter we put forward the importance of the dynamic and constant synergy between convention and context in communication on social media, but also in communication in general. Examples of tweets (Twitter posts) will show that the core principles of traditional communication – conventionalization and contextualization – remain strong and are visible in concrete realizations through new ‘communicative items’ such as hashtags (i.e. #onokad) and handles (i.e. @username). The technology behind the media opens up new avenues of creativity for the participants (users, speakers), yet the creativity remains situated within ‘contexts’ (micro- and macro-level) and perpetuated (or dismissed) through mechanisms of ‘conventionalization’. Pragmatics is shown to be a highly relevant and appropriate scholarly field for comprehensive research into language and communication on social media.

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Adjectives co-occurring with the illative form of the MA-infinitive in Finnish and Estonian

Author(s): Petra Hebedová / Language(s): English / Issue: 26/2016

In both Finnish and Estonian, the illative form of the MA-infinitive/supine can be used at the end of a predictive the clause, as in the Finnish online hitaita optimal (‘we were slow to learn’) or the Estonian open küps Seda aktsepteerima (‘I am ready/ripe to accept it’). In these sentences, a characteristic expressed by an adjective is attributed to the subject of the sentence, with the scope of the characteristic related to a single activity marked by the an illative form of the MA-infinitive/supine. In this paper, I will present data to describe this type of construction in both languages and will analyze it as a constructional schema in terms of cognitive grammar (Langacker 2000, 2008). My analysis will concentrate on the adjectival component of the schema with the help of examples from Estonian and Finnish corpora.

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Aleksander Gomola, Bóg kobiet. Studium językoznawczo-teologiczne, Wydawnictwo Biblos, Tarnów 2010, ss. 304 (Teolingwistyka, 7)

Author(s): Wieslaw Przyczyna / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2012

A Book Review

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Alexander Herd’s Teaching Legacy in the Context of the Development of Modern Natural Sciences Education

Author(s): Angelina Anatoliivna Korobchenko,M. M. Holovkova,Y.I. Popeleshko / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2018

A review of the pedagogical achievements of Aleksander Yakovlevich Herd (1841 – 1888) is presented. Aleksander Herd is the most talented pedagogue of the second half of the 19th century and one of the brightest figures in the history of school natural sciences. He worked out the system of teaching natural sciences at school, paying attention to its educational importance, and he connected the methods of teaching with the content of subjects. He was the first who criticized the dogmatic method of A. Luben, a German educator, and he was also the first of Russian educators who tried to introduce the idea of historical development of nature into the curricula and textbooks of Russia in the 19th century. Aleksander Herd advocated the use of the evolutionally biological direction in teaching natural sciences. He worked out the methods of teaching the course of inanimate nature for junior pupils.

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Allomorphic responses in Serbian pseudo-nouns as a result of analogical learning

Author(s): Petar Milin,Emmanuel Keuleers,Dušica Filipovic Ðurdevic / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2011

Allomorphy is a phenomenon that occurs in many languages. Several psycholinguistic studies have shown that allomorphy, if present, co-determines cognitive processing. In the present paper we discuss allomorphic variations of Serbian instrumental singular form of pseudo-nouns as emerging from analogical learning. We compare the predictions derived from memory-based language processing models with results from a previous experimental study with adult Serbian native speakers. Results confirm that the production of suffix allomorphs in Serbian instrumental singular masculine nouns can be accounted for by memory-based learning and simple analogical inferences. The present findings are in line with a growing body of research showing that memory-based learning models make relevant predictions about the cognitive processes involved in various linguistic phenomena.

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An Attempt At A Typological Investigation Of The Ice Motif As A Symbol Of Death

Author(s): Galina Velikova / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2018

Prompted by Frye’s classification of literary works the present paper embarks on an investigation of the ice motif and its manifestations in a mythological and literary context. It is based on a restricted corpus, yet the survey made proves the recurrent meaning of ice to be a symbol of death and its various other connotations – inherently associated with the primal meaning revealing it in different aspects in the works to be analyzed.

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Analiza kognitywna zmian stylistycznych w przekładzie Perły Johna Steinbecka

Author(s): Dorota Gonigroszek / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 30/2015

The aim of the present article is to analyse the translation of The Pearl written by John Steinbeck. The translator of the novel Juliusz Kydryński made significant linguistic changes that distort the original message (sense) of this literary work. While translating the novel, he made the text stylistically similar to his own works, to some extent, ignoring the intentions of Steinbeck. The analysis is based on the theoretical tenets of cognitive linguistics.

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Analiza tekstu jako zdarzenia komunikacyjnego

Author(s): Edyta Paluszynska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 17/2010

Celem artykułu jest próba opisania następstw, jakie wynikają z podejścia do tekstu jako zdarzenia komunikacyjnego. Zostaną one omówione na płaszczyźnie ontologicznej, typologicznej, semantycznej. Rozpatrywanie tekstu w kategoriach komunikacji hierarchizuje te dwa pojęcia operacyjne. Kierunek podporządkowania jest taki, że tekst jako pojęcie podrzędne dziedziczy cechy jednostki wyższego rzędu, czyli komunikacji. Najważniejszą z nich jest cecha ontologiczna, podstawowa: komunikacja jest procesem, rodzajem działalności ludzkiej . Zatem postrzeganie tekstu jako zdarzenia komunikacyjnego zmienia jego dotychczasowy status z substancjalnego (tekst jako produkt, efekt działań) na procesualny2 . Ze zmianą cechy ontologicznej wiąże się zweryfikowanie uprzednio przyjmowanych przeświadczeń i otwarcie nowych perspektyw badawczych.

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Andekuse kollokatsioonid keelekorpustes ning laste ja lastevanemate andekustõlgitsused

Author(s): Halliki Põlda / Language(s): Estonian / Issue: 14/2018

The study is an attempt to unfold the social meaning of the phenomenon of giftedness in expanded cultural context. Construal of the concept is first studied by the frequency of collocations of the synonymous signifiers of the term of giftedness in the Estonian Reference Corpus, German Reference Corpus, and British National Corpus. After that, the construction of meaning of giftedness is qualitatively studied by interviewing children and parents (15 qualitative open and non-directive mode interviews). Critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 2001) is used to show the linguistic choices and their links to discourses through which the interviewees construe the concept of giftedness, pointing to certain social relations and meanings. Results showed that giftedness was associated with childhood, highlighting the attractiveness and distinction of the phenomenon. In different languages, giftedness is associated with relatively similar features (development attractiveness, differentiation, domain-specificity) but the perceptions are different for children and parents. For children, giftedness is multidimensional but it does not get enough attention at school, whereas for parents, it is a gift from God that needs their dedication although supported by the educational system. The positive meanings of the phenomenon are made visible by children.

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