Introducing Cognitive Linguistics Oxford Handbooks

1.
Introduction
Cognitive Linguistics as represented in this
Handbook
is an approach to the analysis of 
natural language that originated in the late seventies and early eighties in the work of 
George Lakoff, Ron Langacker, and Len Talmy, and that focuses on language as an instru­
ment for organizing, processing, and conveying information. Given this perspective, the 
analysis of the conceptual and experiential basis of linguistic categories is of primary im­
portance within Cognitive Linguistics: the formal structures of language are studied not 
as if they were autonomous, but as reflections of general conceptual organization, catego­
rization principles, processing mechanisms, and experiential and environmental influ­
ences.
Dirk Geeraerts
Hubert Cuyckens

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Introducing Cognitive Linguistics
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date: 06 June 2022
In this introductory chapter, we will sketch the theoretical position of Cognitive Linguis­
tics together with a number of practical features of the way in which research in Cogni­
tive Linguistics is organized: Who are the people involved in Cognitive Linguistics? What 
are the important conferences and the relevant publication channels? Are there any intro­
ductory textbooks? Throughout this theoretical and “sociological” introduction to Cogni­
tive Linguistics, we will emphasize that Cognitive Linguistics is not a single theory of lan­
guage, but rather a cluster of broadly compatible approaches. This recognition also deter­
mines the practical
(p. 4)
organization of the present
Handbook
, which will be presented 
in the fourth section of the chapter. The penultimate and the final sections deal with two 
specific questions: can we explain the apparent appeal of Cognitive Linguistics, and what 
would be important questions for the further development of the framework?