This textbook is designed for advanced (graduate and postgraduate) students, and will also be of interest to scholars. It blends a cognitive linguistic approach to language and language use with insights from contemporary pragmatics, the ultimate aim being to advance a unified model of cognitive pragmatics. Basic themes in cognitive linguistics and pragmatics are covered ranging from figurative language and thought, e.g. conceptual metaphor and metonymy, the role of inferencing in the construction of meaning, in particular, indirect speech acts, to the conceptual and functional motivation of morphosyntactic structure. Finally, the book offers many suggestions and ideas for student papers as well as larger research projects that promise to reveal new insights into conceptual structure, communicative function, and their influence on the grammatical structure of language.

Cognitive pragmatics is a mature field of research, characterized by robust theories and a growing amount of experimental work. In particular, Relevance Theory has provided a rich framework for research in the field. However, this theory makes a number of assumptions that are rooted in a modular view of cognition. This book provides a detailed analysis of such assumptions, arguing for an alternative model which has, however, some support in ideas explored by relevance theorists. First of all, inferences are explained in terms of associative pattern completion within associative networks, based on the schematic organization of memory. This explanation is shown to apply to a number of cognitive domains besides pragmatics, including mindreading. Moreover, such a view is compatible with a general understanding of the neurocomputational machinery of our cortex, suggesting a general argument to the effect that modularity in its standard version cannot be right. Second, the book argues for a crucial role of conscious attention in pragmatics as well as in most cognitive processes. In the end, what is proposed is not only a revision of Relevance Theory but also a fresh analysis of reasoning, which vindicates some Gricean intuitions.

The Routledge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics provides a comprehensive introduction and essential reference work to cognitive linguistics. It encompasses a wide range of perspectives and approaches, covering all the key areas of cognitive linguistics and drawing on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research in pragmatics, discourse analysis, biolinguistics, ecolinguistics, evolutionary linguistics, neuroscience, language pedagogy, and translation studies. The forty-three chapters, written by international specialists in the field, cover four major areas: • Basic theories and hypotheses, including cognitive semantics, cognitive grammar, construction grammar, frame semantics, natural semantic metalanguage, and word grammar; • Central topics, including embodiment, image schemas, categorization, metaphor and metonymy, construal, iconicity, motivation, constructionalization, intersubjectivity, grounding, multimodality, cognitive pragmatics, cognitive poetics, humor, and linguistic synaesthesia, among others; • Interfaces between cognitive linguistics and other areas of linguistic study, including cultural linguistics, linguistic typology, figurative language, signed languages, gesture, language acquisition and pedagogy, translation studies, and digital lexicography; • New directions in cognitive linguistics, demonstrating the relevance of the approach to social, diachronic, neuroscientific, biological, ecological, multimodal, and quantitative studies. The Routledge Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics is an indispensable resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students, and for all researchers working in this area.

Speakers tend to compose their utterances in such a way that the message they want to get across is hardly ever fully encoded by the meanings of the words and the grammar they use. Instead speakers rely on hearers adding conceptual and emotive content while interpreting the contextually appropriate meanings and intentions behind utterances. This insight, which is of course particularly relevant in all kinds of indirect, figurative or humorous talk, lies at the heart of the linguistic discipline of pragmatics. If pragmatics is the study of meaning-in-context, then cognitive pragmatics can be broadly defined as encompassing the study of the cognitive principles and processes involved in the construal of meaning-in-context. This volume is the first to systematically survey this terrain from a wide range of perspectives. It collects state-of-the-art contributions by leading experts from the fields of pragmatics, psycholinguistics, cognitive linguistics, clinical linguistics and historical linguistics.

Learning About Language is an exciting and ambitious series of introductions to fundamental topics in language, linguistics and related areas. The books are designed for students of linguistics and those who are studying language as part of a wider course. Cognitive Linguistics explores the idea that language reflects our experience of the world. It shows that our ability to use language is closely related to other cognitive abilities such as categorization, perception, memory and attention allocation. Concepts and mental images expressed and evoked by linguistic means are linked by conceptual metaphors and metonymies and merged into more comprehensive cognitive and cultural models, frames or scenarios. It is only against this background that human communication makes sense. After 25 years of intensive research, cognitive-linguistic thinking now holds a firm place both in the wider linguistic and the cognitive-science communities. An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics carefully explains the central concepts of categoriza­tion, of prototype and gestalt perception, of basic level and conceptual hierarchies, of figure and ground, and of metaphor and metonymy, for which an innovative description is provided. It also brings together issues such as iconicity, lexical change, grammaticalization and language teaching that have profited considerably from being put on a cognitive basis. The second edition of this popular introduction provides a comprehensive and accessible up-to-date overview of Cognitive Linguistics: Clarifies the basic notions supported by new evidence and examples for their application in language learning Discusses major recent developments in the field: the increasing attention paid to metonymies, Construction Grammar, Conceptual Blending and its role in online-processing. Explores links with neighbouring fields like Relevance Theory Uses many diagrams and illustrations to make the theoretical argument more tangible Includes extended exercises Provides substantial updated suggestions for further reading.

The best survey of cognitive linguistics available, this Handbook provides a thorough explanation of its rich methodology, key results, and interdisciplinary context. With in-depth coverage of the research questions, basic concepts, and various theoretical approaches, the Handbook addresses newly emerging subfields and shows their contribution to the discipline. The Handbook introduces fields of study that have become central to cognitive linguistics, such as conceptual mappings and construction grammar. It explains all the main areas of linguistic analysis traditionally expected in a full linguistics framework, and includes fields of study such as language acquisition, sociolinguistics, diachronic studies, and corpus linguistics. Setting linguistic facts within the context of many other disciplines, the Handbook will be welcomed by researchers and students in a broad range of disciplines, including linguistics, cognitive science, neuroscience, gesture studies, computational linguistics, and multimodal studies.

Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics is designed as a comprehensive introductory text for first and second-year university students of language and linguistics. It provides a chapter on each of the more established areas in linguistics such as lexicology, morphology, syntax, phonetics and phonology, historical linguistics, and language typology and on some of the newer areas such as cross-cultural semantics, pragmatics, text linguistics and contrastive linguistics. In each of these areas language is explored as part of a cognitive system comprising perception, emotion, categorisation, abstraction processes, and reasoning. All these cognitive abilities may interact with language and be influenced by language. Thus the study of language in a sense becomes the study of the way we express and exchange ideas and thoughts. This Second Revised Edition is corrected, updated and expanded. Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics is clearly presented and organized after having been tested in several courses in various countries. Includes exercises (solutions to be found on the Internet).