Elements in Cognitive Linguistics – serie

The purpose of this Cambridge Element is to bring together three subfields of the language sciences: cognitive, historical (diachronic), and Russian linguistics. Although diachrony has inspired a number of important works in recent years, historical linguistics is still underrepresented in cognitive linguistics, and the most influential publications mainly concern the history of English. This is an unfortunate bias, especially since its lack of morphological complexity makes English a typologically unusual language. In this Cambridge Element, the author demonstrates that Russian has a lot to offer the historically oriented cognitive linguist, given its well-documented history and complex phonology and morpho-syntax. Through seven case studies the author illustrates the relevance of four basic tenets of Cognitive Grammar: the cognitive, semiotic, network, and usage-based commitments.

By exploring the associations that people make between emotions and colours, looking at how they vary across languages, and exploring the explanations that people provide for the associations that they make, this Element provides insight into the ways in which humans express emotions through colour, and the reasons why they do so. Metaphoric (and metonymic) language and thought play a key role on several levels in the formation of emotion-colour associations, interacting with physical, environmental and social factors. A strong metaphorical connection between the valence of the emotion and the lightness of the colours with which it is associated, and between the intensity of an emotion and the saturation level of the colours with which it is associated is found. However, the strength of this association varies according to the linguistic background of the speaker, and the gender in which the emotion is presented.

Both applied cognitive linguistics (ACL) researchers and linguists, and language instructors and professionals looking for a comprehensive and innovative access to ACL from the direct point of view of applied L2 Pedagogy, will find this Element to be of interest. There is great demand for quality teaching materials, a need for guidance on how to design them and which technology tools are of value. This Element takes a theoretical approach to that design while offering direct examples and tips for practitioners and researchers. Questions about empirical studies are explored, probing prominent empirical research, and the author provides promising evidence to support their recommendations on assetment-task design for future research. Linguists, researchers, linguistics students, graduate academic programs, and teachers of L2 languages alike will find value in this Element.

This Element introduces a usage-based computational approach to Construction Grammar that draws on techniques from natural language processing and unsupervised machine learning. This work explores how to represent constructions, how to learn constructions from a corpus, and how to arrange the constructions in a grammar as a network. From a theoretical perspective, this Element examines how construction grammars emerge from usage alone as complex systems, with slot-constraints learned at the same time that constructions are learned. From a practical perspective, this work is accompanied by a Python package which enables linguists to incorporate construction grammars into their own corpus-based work. The computational experiments in this Element are important for testing the learnability, variability, and confirmability of Construction Grammar as a theory of language. All code examples will leverage the cloud computing platform Code Ocean to guide readers through implementation of these algorithms.

The evolution of language has developed into a large research field. Two questions are particularly relevant for this strand of research: firstly, how did the human capacity for language emerge? And secondly, which processes of cultural evolution are involved both in the evolution of human language from non-linguistic communication and in the continued evolution of human languages? Much research on language evolution that addresses these two questions is highly compatible with the usage-based approach to language pursued in cognitive linguistics. Focusing on key topics such as comparing human language and animal communication, experimental approaches to language evolution, and evolutionary dynamics in language, this Element gives an overview of the current state-of-the-art of language evolution research and discusses how cognitive linguistics and research on the evolution of language can cross-fertilise each other. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Both applied cognitive linguistics (ACL) researchers and linguists, and language instructors and professionals looking for a comprehensive and innovative access to ACL from the direct point of view of applied L2 Pedagogy, will find this Element to be of interest. There is great demand for quality teaching materials, a need for guidance on how to design them and which technology tools are of value. This Element takes a theoretical approach to that design while offering direct examples and tips for practitioners and researchers. Questions about empirical studies are explored, probing prominent empirical research, and the author provides promising evidence to support their recommendations on assetment-task design for future research. Linguists, researchers, linguistics students, graduate academic programs, and teachers of L2 languages alike will find value in this Element.

The evolution of language has developed into a large research field. Two questions are particularly relevant for this strand of research: firstly, how did the human capacity for language emerge? And secondly, which processes of cultural evolution are involved both in the evolution of human language from non-linguistic communication and in the continued evolution of human languages? Much research on language evolution that addresses these two questions is highly compatible with the usage-based approach to language pursued in cognitive linguistics. Focusing on key topics such as comparing human language and animal communication, experimental approaches to language evolution, and evolutionary dynamics in language, this Element gives an overview of the current state-of-the-art of language evolution research and discusses how cognitive linguistics and research on the evolution of language can cross-fertilise each other. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This Element presents a Cognitive Grammar (CG) approach to a range of signed language grammatical phenomena. It begins with a background on the history of sign linguistics, focusing on what was a widely held belief that signs are simply gestures. The first section traces the modern linguistic examination of signed languages, focusing on Stokoe and his demonstration that these languages exhibit phonology and duality of patterning. Next, we present some fundamental principles that are foundational for cognitive linguistics and sign linguistics. In a section on Cognitive Grammar, we present a brief overview of CG principles, constructs, and models. Section 4 presents extensive analyses of signed language constructions applying CG, including nominal grounding; the concepts of Place and placing; a CG approach to 'agreement' constructions in signed languages; reported dialogue; grammatical modality; and the grammatical meaning of facial displays. The final section examines the controversial role of gesture in grammatical constructions.

This Element explores the relationship between creativity, poetry, and cognition through the lenses of cognitive linguistics and cognitive poetics. Section 1 situates poetic creativity within the frameworks of conceptual metaphor theory, cognitive grammar, and text world theory, reconsidering traditional views of creativity by showing how linguistic structures underpin both writing and reading poetry. Section 2 adopts an autoethnographic approach, documenting the writing of poems, demonstrating how cognitive-poetic principles shape decisions and highlight the embodied, subjective nature of creativity. Section 3 shifts focus to analysis, applying stylistic frameworks to original poems to illustrate how linguistic methods illuminate textual patterns, conceptual structures, and interpretative effects. Section 4 turns to reception, examining empirical reader-response data to show how readers engage with poems through cognitive-poetic processes, creating a cyclical interplay between production, analysis, and response. Together, these sections highlight the value of cognitive linguistics for understanding poetic creativity, interpretation, and experience.

This Element explores the relationship between creativity, poetry, and cognition through the lenses of cognitive linguistics and cognitive poetics. Section 1 situates poetic creativity within the frameworks of conceptual metaphor theory, cognitive grammar, and text world theory, reconsidering traditional views of creativity by showing how linguistic structures underpin both writing and reading poetry. Section 2 adopts an autoethnographic approach, documenting the writing of poems, demonstrating how cognitive-poetic principles shape decisions and highlight the embodied, subjective nature of creativity. Section 3 shifts focus to analysis, applying stylistic frameworks to original poems to illustrate how linguistic methods illuminate textual patterns, conceptual structures, and interpretative effects. Section 4 turns to reception, examining empirical reader-response data to show how readers engage with poems through cognitive-poetic processes, creating a cyclical interplay between production, analysis, and response. Together, these sections highlight the value of cognitive linguistics for understanding poetic creativity, interpretation, and experience.

This Element introduces a usage-based computational approach to Construction Grammar that draws on techniques from natural language processing and unsupervised machine learning. This work explores how to represent constructions, how to learn constructions from a corpus, and how to arrange the constructions in a grammar as a network. From a theoretical perspective, this Element examines how construction grammars emerge from usage alone as complex systems, with slot-constraints learned at the same time that constructions are learned. From a practical perspective, this work is accompanied by a Python package which enables linguists to incorporate construction grammars into their own corpus-based work. The computational experiments in this Element are important for testing the learnability, variability, and confirmability of Construction Grammar as a theory of language. All code examples will leverage the cloud computing platform Code Ocean to guide readers through implementation of these algorithms.

This Element adopts a holistic approach to the processing of colours in language and literature, weaving together insights from cognitive linguistics, psychology, and literary studies. Through diverse case studies, it underpins the symbolic power of colours in evoking characters' emotional states, moral traits, and cultural perceptions (Section 2). Section 3 explores how colour metaphors such as discomfort is brown influence readers' cognitive and emotional responses, drawing on psychology research on colour-emotion association. Section 4 examines how the lexeme colourless functions as its own oxymoron and is used figuratively through the metaphor anatomy is mind in Modernist literature. Each section draws on cognitive linguistic tools, showcasing how colours shape not just visual but emotional engagement with texts. By connecting cognitive science, psychology, and literary analysis, this Element offers an interdisciplinary perspective, demonstrating that colours act as stimuli shaping perception, language, and cultural meaning, enriching the literary experience across contexts and cultures.

This Element adopts a holistic approach to the processing of colours in language and literature, weaving together insights from cognitive linguistics, psychology, and literary studies. Through diverse case studies, it underpins the symbolic power of colours in evoking characters' emotional states, moral traits, and cultural perceptions (Section 2). Section 3 explores how colour metaphors such as discomfort is brown influence readers' cognitive and emotional responses, drawing on psychology research on colour-emotion association. Section 4 examines how the lexeme colourless functions as its own oxymoron and is used figuratively through the metaphor anatomy is mind in Modernist literature. Each section draws on cognitive linguistic tools, showcasing how colours shape not just visual but emotional engagement with texts. By connecting cognitive science, psychology, and literary analysis, this Element offers an interdisciplinary perspective, demonstrating that colours act as stimuli shaping perception, language, and cultural meaning, enriching the literary experience across contexts and cultures.

Linguistic synesthesias combine different senses, as in English smooth melody (touch→sound). For nearly a century, researchers have gathered data that has been interpreted as supporting the notion of a hierarchical ordering of the senses. According to this proposal, expressions map the presumed-to-be 'lower' senses of touch, taste, and smell onto the presumed-to-be 'higher' senses of sound and sight. Here, this proposal is tested in the first-ever meta-analysis of linguistic synesthesias, combining thirty-eight datasets from fourteen different languages. The authors demonstrate that clear patterns emerge from the data, but many such patterns are inconsistent with the notion of a linear hierarchical order or a simple lower/higher divide of the senses. This calls for a shift in what theories are considered to be viable for explaining asymmetries between the senses in linguistic synesthesia.

Linguistic synesthesias combine different senses, as in English smooth melody (touch→sound). For nearly a century, researchers have gathered data that has been interpreted as supporting the notion of a hierarchical ordering of the senses. According to this proposal, expressions map the presumed-to-be 'lower' senses of touch, taste, and smell onto the presumed-to-be 'higher' senses of sound and sight. Here, this proposal is tested in the first-ever meta-analysis of linguistic synesthesias, combining thirty-eight datasets from fourteen different languages. The authors demonstrate that clear patterns emerge from the data, but many such patterns are inconsistent with the notion of a linear hierarchical order or a simple lower/higher divide of the senses. This calls for a shift in what theories are considered to be viable for explaining asymmetries between the senses in linguistic synesthesia.

This Element aims to expand the theoretical and methodological boundaries of Cognitive Linguistics. Research on language contact from a cognitive perspective has been neglected despite the omnipresence of linguistic contact situations. This Element addresses questions of language contact research from a cognitive perspective. The aims of this Element are twofold: first, to present the current state of the art in cognitive contact linguistics; second, to discuss existing and original theoretical approaches in this field. The focus is on four key topics that can be examined within a cognitive framework: manifestations of language contact in language processing and production, contact-induced language change at different linguistic levels, contact-induced variation in discourse and conversation, and the combination of a social and cognitive perspective in the analysis of loan processes and their linguistic effects. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This Element aims to expand the theoretical and methodological boundaries of Cognitive Linguistics. Research on language contact from a cognitive perspective has been neglected despite the omnipresence of linguistic contact situations. This Element addresses questions of language contact research from a cognitive perspective. The aims of this Element are twofold: first, to present the current state of the art in cognitive contact linguistics; second, to discuss existing and original theoretical approaches in this field. The focus is on four key topics that can be examined within a cognitive framework: manifestations of language contact in language processing and production, contact-induced language change at different linguistic levels, contact-induced variation in discourse and conversation, and the combination of a social and cognitive perspective in the analysis of loan processes and their linguistic effects. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Constructions are long-term pairings in memory of form and meaning. How are they created and learned, how do they change, and how do they combine into new utterances (constructs, communicative performances) in working memory? Drawing on evidence from word-formation (blending, Noun-Noun-compounds) over idioms and argument structure constructions to multimodal communication, we argue that computational metaphors such as 'unification' or 'constraint-satisfaction' do not constitute a cognitively adequate explanation. Instead, we put forward the idea that construction combination is performed by Conceptual Blending - a domain-general process of higher cognition that has been used to explain complex human behavior such as, inter alia, scientific discovery, reasoning, art, music, dance, math, social cognition, and religion. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Constructions are long-term pairings in memory of form and meaning. How are they created and learned, how do they change, and how do they combine into new utterances (constructs, communicative performances) in working memory? Drawing on evidence from word-formation (blending, Noun-Noun-compounds) over idioms and argument structure constructions to multimodal communication, we argue that computational metaphors such as 'unification' or 'constraint-satisfaction' do not constitute a cognitively adequate explanation. Instead, we put forward the idea that construction combination is performed by Conceptual Blending - a domain-general process of higher cognition that has been used to explain complex human behavior such as, inter alia, scientific discovery, reasoning, art, music, dance, math, social cognition, and religion. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This Element deals with the relationship between cognition, understood as the process of acquiring and developing knowledge, and diverse types of conspiracy theories, or short, 'CTs'. Section 1 lays the groundwork for the analysis by determining four components of narrative argumentative framing in CTs, of which the first three are constitutive for all CTs, with a fourth representing the 'optional' collective action-guiding "scenario" component. Section 2 exemplifies manifestations of these components by discussing contemporary and historical 'hoax' and 'asserting' CTs and 'empowering' CTs. Section 3 takes a cognitive-evolutionist and pragmatic view at the conditions for the 'success' of CT scenarios. In conclusion. Section 4 formulates lessons for countering the effects of socially detrimental CTs by deconstructing them and by obstructing their dissemination.

This Element deals with the relationship between cognition, understood as the process of acquiring and developing knowledge, and diverse types of conspiracy theories, or short, 'CTs'. Section 1 lays the groundwork for the analysis by determining four components of narrative argumentative framing in CTs, of which the first three are constitutive for all CTs, with a fourth representing the 'optional' collective action-guiding "scenario" component. Section 2 exemplifies manifestations of these components by discussing contemporary and historical 'hoax' and 'asserting' CTs and 'empowering' CTs. Section 3 takes a cognitive-evolutionist and pragmatic view at the conditions for the 'success' of CT scenarios. In conclusion. Section 4 formulates lessons for countering the effects of socially detrimental CTs by deconstructing them and by obstructing their dissemination.

This Element presents a Cognitive Grammar (CG) approach to a range of signed language grammatical phenomena. It begins with a background on the history of sign linguistics, focusing on what was a widely held belief that signs are simply gestures. The first section traces the modern linguistic examination of signed languages, focusing on Stokoe and his demonstration that these languages exhibit phonology and duality of patterning. Next, we present some fundamental principles that are foundational for cognitive linguistics and sign linguistics. In a section on Cognitive Grammar, we present a brief overview of CG principles, constructs, and models. Section 4 presents extensive analyses of signed language constructions applying CG, including nominal grounding; the concepts of Place and placing; a CG approach to 'agreement' constructions in signed languages; reported dialogue; grammatical modality; and the grammatical meaning of facial displays. The final section examines the controversial role of gesture in grammatical constructions.

Creative metaphor has been of central interest to the cognitive linguistic research community in recent years. However, little is known about what propels people to use metaphor in a creative way. In this Element, the authors identify and explore some of the clues that synaesthesia may provide to help us better understand the factors that drive creativity, with a particular focus on creative metaphor. They identify the factors that seem to trigger the production of creative metaphor in synaesthetes, and explore what this can tell us about creativity in the population more generally. Their findings provide insights into the nature of creativity as it relates to metaphor, emotion and embodied experience. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.