The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics

© 2007 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved. This book presents a comprehensive overview of the main theoretical concepts and descriptive/theoretical models of cognitive linguistics, and covers its various subfields, theoretical as well as applied. It starts with a set of articles discussing different conceptual phenomena that are recognized as key concepts in cognitive linguistics: prototypicality, metaphor, metonymy, embodiment, perspectivization, mental spaces, etc. A second set of articles deals with cognitive grammar, construction grammar, and word grammar, which, each in their own way, bring together the basic concepts into a particular theory of grammar and a specific model for the description of grammatical phenomena. Special attention is given to the interrelation between cognitive and construction grammar. A third set of articles compares cognitive linguistics with other forms of linguistic research (functional linguistics, autonomous linguistics, and the history of linguistics), thus aiming to provide a better grip on the position of cognitive linguistics within the landscape of linguistics at large. The remaining articles apply these basic notions to various more specific linguistic domains, illustrating how cognitive linguistics deals with the traditional linguistic subdomains (phonology, morphology, lexicon, syntax, text, and discourse), and demonstrating how it handles linguistic variation and change. Finally, the book considers its importance in the domain of applied linguistics, and looks at interdisciplinary links with research fields such as philosophy and psychology.

Publication year:2012