D. U. Ashurova m. R. Galieva cognitive linguistics

2.2. Theoretical principles of Cognitive Linguistics

It is common knowledge that the status of any linguistic trend is determined by its subject, aims, theoretical basis, principles, assumptions and methods of analysis.

The subject matter of Cognitive Linguistics is the study of cognitive functions of the language and its units, their conceptual structures and deep semantics. The aim of Cognitive Linguistics is to study relationships between language and mental structures and linguistic representation of knowledge structures.
The area of study in Cognitive Linguistics covers a wide range of problem issues concerning the relationships between language and thought, the linguistic relevance to the processes of cognition. Most significant are the following problems:

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  conceptual theory of meaning;
  
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  the notion of concept and its types;
  
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  the problems of conceptualization and categorization;
  
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  knowledge structures and their types;
  
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  frame semantics;
  
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  prototype theory;
  
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  the cognitive account of grammatical categories;
  
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  conceptual metaphor theory.
  

The basic principles of Cognitive Linguistics are as follows:

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  the acknowledgement of the two functions – communicative and cognitive – as the main functions of language. As E.S. Kubryakova points out, that any linguistic phenomena can be adequately described and explained only at the cross-road of cognition and communication
  
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  a fundamental principle of Cognitive Linguistics is the principle of anthropocentrism. It means that a priority role in the process of language functioning is assigned to the human, his knowledge, experience and all kinds of cognitive activity. In other words, language is studied in its multiple relations to the linguistic personality, his mind, intellect, knowledge;
  
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  one of the essential principles of the cognitive paradigm is its interdisciplinary character, and this means that cognitive linguists drew on the results of psychology, sociology, philosophy, culture. The principle of interdisciplinarity is bound to the principle of synergy. The synergetic approach to language develops the integral conception of language built on the deep isomorphism of Language and Man, Man and Society, Language and Society, Language – Man – Culture;
  
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  another principle consists in the fact that Cognitive Linguistics is aimed to explain linguistic phenomena (Фрумкина, 1999). As A.E. Kibrik rather wittily remarks linguistics has worked its way up from “What linguistics” (structural linguistics), “How linguistics” (functional linguistics), “Why linguistics”(cognitive linguistics). The explanatory function of cognitive linguistics is laid down in the processes of conceptualization and categorization of the information conveyed by linguistic units;
  
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  blurring boundaries between “inner” and “outer” linguistics, synchronism and diachronism, semantics and grammar.
  

D. Geeraerts (2006, p.1-28) outlines four characteristics of how Cognitive Linguistics deals with meaning the study of which is considered to be the main problem of the discipline:

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   Linguistic meaning is perspectival, i.e. meaning is not just an objective reflection of the outside world, it is the way of shaping the world. D. Geeraerts exemplifies it with spatial perspectives which linguistically are construed in different ways. For example, in the situation when someone is in the back garden and wants to say the place where he left some object, he can use the sentences “It’s behind the house” or “It’s in front of the house” which seems to be contradictory, except that they embody different perspectives. In the first expression, the perspective is determined by the way he looks (the object is situated in the direction of gaze, but the house blocks the view, so the object is behind the house). In the second expression, the point of view is that a house has a canonical direction, the side a house is facing is regarded as front. So, both sentences have the same meaning but are constructed from different perspectives;
   
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   Linguistic meaning is dynamic and flexible, i.e. meanings change, they are not fixed and stable. The language units as well as their meanings reflect all the changes of the world, so people adapt semantic categories to transformations of the surrounding world;
   
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   Linguistic meaning is encyclopedic and non-autonomous, i.e. the meaning we construct in and through language is not a separate and independent module of the mind, but it reflects our overall experience as human-beings. Linguistic meaning is interconnected with other forms of knowledge of the world and it involves knowledge of the world that is integrated with our cognitive capacities. In this sense, meanings also reveal and reflect cultural, social, historical experiences of the representatives of a certain nation. D. Geereaerts exemplifies it with the category of “birds”; the typical, most familiar birds in one culture are not familiar to other cultures and that will certainly affect the knowledge people associate with the category of “bird”. The same concerns other categories;
   
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   Linguistic meaning is based on usage and experience, i.e. it is experience grounded. In this respect, cognitive linguistics is a usage-based model of grammar; the experience of language is an experience of actual language use, not words given in a dictionary or sentence patterns in structural grammar. So, in a usage-based model the knowledge of language experientially based on actual speech is more essential than the knowledge of structures (Geeraerts, 2006, p.1-28).