Ten Lectures On Cognitive Sociolinguistics

Cognitive Sociolinguistics combines the interest in meaning of Cognitive Linguistics with the interest in social variation of sociolinguistics, converging on two domains of enquiry: variation of meaning, and the meaning of variation. These Ten Lectures, a transcribed version of talks given by professor Geeraerts in 2009 at Beihang University in Beijing, introduce and illustrate both dimensions. The ‘variation of meaning’ perspective involves looking at types of semantic and categorial variation, at the role of social and cultural factors in semantic variation and change, and at the interplay of stereotypes, prototypes and norms. The ‘meaning of variation’ perspective involves looking at the way in which categorization processes of the type studied by Cognitive Linguistics shape how scholars and laymen think about language variation.

A series of 10 lectures on various aspects of Cognitive Linguistics as these relate to matters of language teaching and learning.

Melissa Bowerman’s lectures present a lucid detailed account of her research on how children build up a semantics for domains such as space in their first language, and the roles played by adult speech, typology, and cross-linguistic variation.

In his ten Beijing lectures, Leonard Talmy represents the range of his work in cognitive semantics. This approach concerns the linguistic representation of conceptual structure: the patterns in which and processes by which conceptual content is organized in language.

In this interdisciplinary collection of lectures, Chris Sinha presents a uniquely cultural, developmental and evolutionary approach to cognitive linguistics. Topics range from language in children’s play, through cultural conceptualizations of time, to philosophical and linguistic relativism.

In Ten Lectures on Cognitive Linguistics and the Unification of Spoken and Signed Languages Sherman Wilcox suggests that rather than abstracting away from the material substance of language, linguists can discover the deep connections between signed and spoken languages by taking an embodied view.

The book offers a basic introduction to the theory of Cognitive Grammar, which claims that meaning resides in conceptualization, and that grammar is inherently meaningful, residing in the structuring and symbolization of conceptual content.

A study of mental spaces and the connections between them. Conceptual integration of mental spaces leads to new meaning, global insight, and compressions useful for memory and creativity, with dynamic emergence of novel structure in all areas of human life (science, religion, art, ...).