CONTEMPORARY COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS ABROAD. BASIC UNITS OF STUDY

СОВРЕМЕННАЯ КОГНИТИВНАЯ ЛИНГВИСТИКА ЗА РУБЕЖОМ. ОСНОВНЫЕ ЕДИНИЦЫ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ

Магаметова Зульмира Бахтияровна

магистрант 2-го курса, Казахский  университет   международных отношений и мировых языков имени Абылай хана,

Республика Казахстан, г. Алматы

ABSTRACT

The article lists the main sub-branches of contemporary cognitive linguistics in the USA and Western Europe and reviews basic research concepts used in the works of western scientists.The article gives overview to different classifications of cognitive linguistics that classified by significant linguists and  examines the process of formation and development of cognitive linguistics, with particular attention to controversial issues related to the formation of the conceptual and terminological apparatus of this science. The latter are represented, first, by further elaborations of classical works, which can be exemplified by manifold studies in conceptual metaphor and metonymy, or lexical polysemy. Second, new trends have become noticeable in recent years, in particular, a definite shift from theoretical concerns to practical applications. This has given rise to the so-called applied cognitive linguistics concerned mostly with second language acquisition and translation studies. Besides, cognitive linguistics can be seen to have gone empirical, making close contacts with corpus linguistics. However, the central development of contemporary cognitive linguistics, as posited by the author, is its integration tendency.

АННОТАЦИЯ

В статье перечисляются основные направления, характерные для современного этапа развития когнитивной лингвистики США и Западной Европы, рассматриваются основные когнитивные единицы, используемые в работах западных лингвистов-когнитологов. В статье рассматривается процесс становления и развития когнитивной лингвистики. Особое внимание уделяется спорным вопросам, связанным с формированием понятийного и терминологического аппарата этой науки. Так, рассматриваются современные работы в области изучения концептуальной метафоры и метонимии, а также лексической полисемии. Из новых тенденций подчеркивается сдвиг от фундаментальных теоретических построений к практическим работам, ознаменованный зарождением так называемой прикладной когнитивной лингвистики. Основные сферы ее приложения — это педагогика (вопросы усвоения родного и иностранного языков), а также переводоведение. Помимо этого, заметен поворот в сторону эмпирических методов исследования и сближение когнитивной и корпусной лингвистики.

Ключевые слова: фреймы, идеализированные когнитивные модели, домены, концепты, процессы концептуализации, прикладная лингвистика, корпусная лингвистика.

Keywords: frames, idealized cognitive models, domains, concepts, applied linguistics, corpus linguistics.

Cognitive linguistics, in the midpoint of the inquiring of which is language as a implement for setting, depuration and corresponding, is a path to natural language subdivision, which came in the late 70s -early 80s. Cognitive linguistics as a self-standing area of ​​linguistics originates inworks of Western linguists G.Lakoff, R.W.Langacker, L.Talmy, J. Fillmore. Over the past three decades, it has become one of the most dynamic emerging areas of research within theoretical and descriptive linguistics, replacing status from "revolutionary" to "common". It addresses most of the issues engaged in general linguistics - from phonology and pragmatics to syntax and semantics, incorporating some aspects of such sciences as developmental psychology - language acquisition, neuropsychology - embodied consciousness, neurobiology - the work of the mechanisms of thinking, social psychology - language in social interaction. Language is the material of study in linguocognitology. British scientist J. Taylor says that language is “an integral part of human cognition, and the analysis of any phenomena in language should be based on knowledge of human cognitive activity, i.e. cognitive linguistics is not knowledge about language, but knowledge gained through language.

Three basic characteristics it follow from this: primacy analysis, arising from the cognitive essence of the language itself, which predetermines its main purpose - categorization of the surrounding world, reflected in the linguistic meaning; encyclopedic properties of linguistic meaning; the perspectives nature of linguistic meaning. It includes a wide range of questions and a number of compatible theoretical approaches, which are based on one idea - language as one of the facets of cognition reflects social, cultural, psychological, communicative and functional aspects and can only be understood in the context of a realistic view of his mastery, cognitive development and mental processes. (Pic.1)

Picture 1. How language and cognition interact in thinking?

T. Clausner and W. Croft write, there is also a variability in the names of the same theoretical constructs within different approaches.For example:

Table 1.

Terms and theoretical constructs

The main theoretical construct of cognitive semantics is the concept - the basic unit mental representation. The central place occupied by concepts is one of the main distinguishing features of cognitive semantics from formal semantics. "Concepts can be related to categories such as bird or justice, or to an individual, for example, George Lakoff" [2, p. 2]. The concepts are characterized by their own logic of structural organization. So, if we take the classic example of Shank and Abelson with a restaurant, a restaurant is not just a service sector, it is associated with a number of other concepts, such as a client, a waiter, ordering, eating, and invoicing. These concepts are not related to the restaurant metonymy, antonymy or other structural semantic relations, but are combined into based on human experience. Thus, the  concept RESTAURANT is closely related to other concepts and is not can be isolated from them . Lexical concept is defined as a unit semantic structure associated with a linguistic form, which together form a linguistic unit. Lexical concepts - linguistically coded concepts, the so-called. knowledge contained in language, "can be associated with different linguistic forms, including words, related morphemes, idiomatic expressions, grammatical constructions ”[4, p. 123 - 124]. The need to organize concepts was understood many researchers, which led to the emergence of the terms "frame", "schema", "script", "pseudo-text", "Cognitive model", "gestalt", "basis", "scene" [3, p. 8], since concepts are not isolated, atomic units of the mind, and phenomena that exist and are perceived in the context of the supposed background structures of knowledge.

In conclusion, any proposal involves a large number of conceptualization processes. Everything from the choice of words and their parts of speech to various endings and constructions that make up the grammatical structure of the utterance is based on conceptualization.Categories, according to W. Croft, have an internal structure, which is called the prototypical structure, and which is characterized by the relationship between its internal elements and taxonomic relations between the categories themselves. Thus, domains, concepts, conceptualization processes and categorical structures are among the main fundamental units of structured knowledge identified by Western researchers in cognitive linguistics.Against noted diversity’s background, a natural question arises: will it remain as an independent direction or will it dissolve in other areas, enriching them with new ideas and approaches.

References:

1. Fillmore, C. Frame Semantics / Linguistics in the morning calm, ed. The Linguistic Society of Korea. – Seoul: Hanshin, 1982.
2. Lakoff, G. Women, Fire and Dangerous things /. – Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987 –614 p.
3. Langacker, R. Foundations of cognitive grammar. Theoretical prerequisites. – Stanford, CA:Stanford University Press, 1987. – Vol. 1. – 540 p.
4. Taylor, J. R. Cognitive Grammar / – Oxford University Press Inc., New York, 2002. – 621 p.