Is Cognitive Linguistics deadly sinful? On the pros and cons of Cognitive Linguistics and its development

Authors

  • Lin Gan

    School of General Education, Sichuan International Studies University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18063/fls.v3i1.1249

Abstract

Cognitive Linguistics started from the 1980s, and it has become a mainstream since the end of the last century and the beginning of this century, which has got widespread attention, with a nickname as the third revolution in linguistic circles after the Saussurean Revolution and the Chomskyean Revolution. According to the dialectical principle of "negation of negation", theoretical research is always advancing, thus the linguists are beginning to think of the shortcomings of Cognitive Linguistics and new developments in the future. For instance, Dabrowska (2016) pointed out the seven deadly sins of Cognitive Linguistics, which, we think, are overstated and too radical. Cognitive Linguistics has its own historical significance and makes great contributions to the criticism of Saussurean "Linguistic Apriorism" and Chomskyean "Linguistic Nativism", but Cognitive Linguistics also has its own weaknesses, which are to be exposed in brief in this paper. We have also tried to propose "Embodied-Cognitive Linguistics as a revision in order to emphasize the philosophical views of "materialism" and "humanism" as a basic start in linguistic research.

Keywords:

Cognitive Linguistics; seven deadly sins; pros & cons; Embodied-Cognitive Linguistics

References

Chomsky N (1957) Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton.

Chomsky N (1965) Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

Chomsky N (1968) Language and Mind. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc.

Dąbrowska E (2016) Cognitive Linguistics’ seven deadly sins. Cognitive Linguistics 27: 479–491.

Deleuze G (1994) Difference and Repetition. Patton P (trans). New York: Columbia University Press.

Feyerabend PK (1975) Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. Zhou (trans) (2007). Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House.

Foucault M (1966) Les mot et les choses: une archéologie des sciences humaines. Mo (trans) (2001). Shanghai: SDX Joint Publishing Company.

Hu Z (2012) Man, language and existence: Five queries about Heidegger’s view of language. Foreign Language Teaching and Research 44: 803–814.

Johnson M (1987) The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff G (1970) A note on vagueness and ambiguity. Linguistic Inquiry 1: 357–359.

Lakoff G (1972) Hedges: A study in meaning criteria and the logic of fuzzy concepts. In: Chicago Linguistic Society Papers. Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Lakoff G (1973) Fuzzy grammar and the performance/competence terminology game. In: Corum C, Smith-Stark TC and Werser A (eds) Papers from the Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Chicago: University of Chicago, pp.271–291.

Lakoff G and Johnson M (1980) Metaphors We Live By. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff G (1987) Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff G and Johnson M (1999) Philosophy in the Flesh—The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.

Li H (2002) On the image of the speaker from the perspective of the communicative structure of sentences. Foreign Language Research 4: 46–50.

Li H (2005) On the image of the speaker at the word level: A study on philosophy of language. Foreign Language Research 5: 45–50.

Li H and Wang J (2011) A research on subjective meaning and its structure. Foreign Language Education 32: 16–20.

Liu Y (2020) Embodied construal of Chinese figures and their classification. Foreign Language Education 41: 25–31.

Pan W (2006) Linguistics as human studies. Journal of Baicheng Normal University 1: 1–4.

Saussure F (1916) Course in General Linguistics. Gao M (trans) (1996). Beijing: The Commercial Press.

Wang Y (2001) Cognitive Linguistics in Lakoff & Johnson’s writings. Journal of Foreign Languages 4: 15–21.

Wang Y (2002) The philosophical basis for Cognitive Linguistics: Embodied philosophy. Foreign Language Teaching and Research 2: 82–89, 160.

Wang Y (2007) Cognitive Linguistics. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

Wang Y (2008) The interpretation of subjectivity-objectivity in translation by means of “Embodied conceptualization”—An analysis of 40 English translations of “Night Mooring by Maple Bridge”. Foreign Language Teaching and Research 3: 211–217, 241.

Wang Y (2009) Multi-dimensional interactive understanding of subject-object-subject. Philosophical Trends 10: 84–89.

Wang Y (2011) Contemporary research on metaphor in the viewpoint of Post-modernism philosophy. Shandong Foreign Language Teaching 32: 3–8.

Wang Y (2013) Embodied philosophy and Cognitive Linguistics is the continuation of philosophy of language: The 29th paper on Embodied Cognition of language. Foreign Language in China 51: 18–25.

Wang Y (2014) Embodied-Cognitive Linguistics in the viewpoint of postmodernism. Foreign Language and Literature 30: 61–67.

Wang Y (2015) The theoretical exploration and practical value of Embodied-Cognitive Monism: A new thought on philosophy of mind. Foreign Languages in China 12(2): 24–31.

Wang Y (2019a) Postmodern Trend, the 4th Turn in Western Philosophy: Exploring the Frontiers of Humanity and Social Sciences in the World. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

Wang Y and Wang T (2019b) English grammar teaching based on Embodied-Cognitive Linguistics. Foreign Language World 190: 44–52.

Wang Y (2019c) A glimpse on the 70-year research of Linguistics. Language Education 7: 30–35.

Wang Y (2019d) Essential thoughts on Embodied-Cognitive Linguistics. Foreign Languages in China 92: 18–25.

Wang Y (2020) Embodied-Cognitive Linguistics. Beijing: The Commercial Press.

Wang Z (2006) A Study of Postmodern Philosophical Movement. Beijing: Peking University Press.

Yang X and Wu Y (2015) Whether or not multiple occurrences of ziji can take distinct antecedents: A deictic perspective. Journal of Pragmatics 87: 142–155.

Yang X and Wu Y (2017) A dynamic account of verb doubling cleft construction in Chinese. Language Sciences 59: 69–82.

Yang X and Wu Y (2019) A dynamic account of lian…dou in Chinese verb doubling cleft construction. Lingua 217: 24–44.

Yang X and Wu Y (2020) On the scope of quantifier phrases in Chinese passive construction. International Journal of Chinese Linguistics 7: 71–89.

Zhao Y (2019a) A study on language intersubjectivity from Embodied-Cognitive linguistics: Taking the evolution of first pronouns in Chinese as an example. Foreign Languages in China 16: 50–56.

Zhao Y (2019b) A study of the construction of linguistic intersubjectivity based on English pronouns. Foreign Language and Literature 35: 8–14.

Downloads

How to Cite

Gan, L. (2021). Is Cognitive Linguistics deadly sinful? On the pros and cons of Cognitive Linguistics and its development. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.18063/fls.v3i1.1249

Issue

Vol. 3 , Iss. 1 (September 2021)

Article Type

Article

License

Copyright © 2021 Lin Gan

Creative Commons License

This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.