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4.
The Organization of the Handbook
The organization of the present
Handbook
reflects the prototypical structure of Cognitive
Linguistics that was described above. In terms of people, the contributions come predom
inantly from first-generation cognitive linguists, together with
(p. 9)
some members of the
second generation, and a number of fellow travelers who would perhaps not consider
themselves cognitive linguists
pur sang
, but who are close enough to Cognitive Linguis
tics to shed an illuminating light on some of its subdomains. And, of course, the key fig
Introducing Cognitive Linguistics
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date: 06 June 2022
ures are represented. We regret that George Lakoff was not able to contribute to this
Handbook
(with a projected chapter on the relationship between Cognitive Linguistics
and neuroscience).
In terms of content, the absence of a single unified theoretical doctrine means that a
handbook of this type cannot simply start off with an exposé; on the architecture of Cog
nitive Linguistics as a theory. Rather, we start, under the heading “Basic Concepts of Cog
nitive Linguistics,” with a set of chapters that discuss different conceptual phenomena
that are recognized by Cognitive Linguistics as key concepts: prototypicality, metaphor,
metonymy, embodiment, perspectivization, mental spaces, and the like each constitute a
specific principle of conceptual organization as reflected in the language. Many of these
notions are far from exclusive for Cognitive Linguistics, but even then, Cognitive Linguis
tics subjects them to specific forms of analysis.
The second part of the
Handbook
, “Cognitive Linguistic Models of Grammar,” deals with
different frameworks that bring together a bigger or smaller number of the basic con
cepts into a particular theory of grammar and a specific model for the description of
grammatical phenomena. The models discussed include Ron Langacker's Cognitive Gram
mar, Construction Grammar, and Word Grammar. The fact that theory formation in Cogni
tive Linguistics is not yet completely stabilized (or, to put it more constructively, the fact
that Cognitive Linguistics is a flexible framework that allows for a number of competing
frameworks to be developed in parallel) shows up in the relationship between Cognitive
Grammar and Construction Grammar. On the one hand, the chapter on Construction
Grammar describes a family of approaches and suggests that Cognitive Grammar as
founded by Langacker is a member of that family. On the other hand, Cognitive Grammar
was a well-established model of grammar well before Construction Grammar emerged.
Moreover, it is without any doubt the most developed, both empirically and conceptually,
of all approaches that could be grouped under the heading of Construction Grammar. The
example shows how related theoretical models are developed in parallel within the broad
framework of Cognitive Linguistics.
As we have seen, demarcation problems may exist at the edges of Cognitive Linguistics as
a whole, just as they exist with regard to the boundary between different approaches
within Cognitive Linguistics. To get a better grip on the position of Cognitive Linguistics
within the landscape of linguistics at large, the section “Situating Cognitive Linguistics”
compares Cognitive Linguistics with other forms of linguistic research: functional linguis
tics (its closest ally), autonomous linguistics (its declared enemy), and the history of lin
guistics (its often forgotten ancestry). Here again, the reader will notice that things are
not always as simplistic as they might seem at first sight. The chapter on autonomous lin
guistics, for instance, suggests that the distance between Cognitive Linguistics and the
contemporary developments in Chomskyan linguistics need not be in all respects un
bridgeable.
(p. 10)
The first three sections of the book constitute an initial introduction to Cognitive
Linguistics. Readers who have gone through the twenty-one chapters of the first three
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