Kamil Wiśniewski – linguist, translator, and philosopher :)

Cognitive linguistics’ approaches to meaning

In cognitive linguistics in general, and cognitive grammar in particular, at least three approaches to the study of meaning can be distinguished. First, there is the language-world approach in which sense of words is studied as correlation between the words and the state of affairs in the world, but this is not the central view of mainline cognitive linguistics. Then, there is the language-internal approach, the central view of mainline cognitive linguistics, where the meaning is studied as relations between words themselves and not the external world. Last, but by no means least, is the conceptualist approach to the study of words’ senses. Here the meaning of a phrase is identified with its conceptualization in the minds of language users (Taylor, 2002:187).
The language-world approach is considered to be a very good method of analyzing nouns, noun phrases and alike. In this approach there are two perspectives of looking at the senses and referents of nouns: a semasiological perspective and an onomasiological perspective.
· The semasiological perspective starts with language and proceeds to the perceived world in that it looks at an expression and checks when and in what kinds of situations the expression may be used appropriately.
· The onomasiological perspective does practically the same thing, but the other way round. That is, it goes from the perceived world to language and tries to find as many appropriate expressions as possible to describe a given entity, or a situation (Taylor, 2002:187).
Such methods of analyzing words are reflected in dictionaries. Most dictionaries which give lists of words and their meanings reflect the semasiological perspective, while thesauri with one word and a list of words with very close meaning (synonyms) reflect the onomasiological perspective.
The second approach to the study of meaning is language internal which focuses on the relations of words in a language. Here also two different ways of implementing the approach are noticeable: the paradigmatic relations are in the centre of attention of first of them, which examines the relations of various expressions. Such relations include synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy and entailment. The second one focuses on the syntagmatic relations which are described as the relations between items co-occurring within expressions (Taylor, 2002:187).
As cognitive linguistics assumes that language is entrenched in human cognition and people from different backgrounds and cultures do not think alike there must be some discrepancies in the way the meanings of words are perceived. Yet, careful examination of this hypothesis led linguists to conclude that there are certain prototypes, that is words central to a given category. All prototypes share certain characteristics: they have many features typical of the category that is features with a high degree of predictability; they are usually monosyllabic or relatively short words; they are learned first by children; prototypes have a large number of features in common with other category members. For instance, if one is asked to give an example of a bird, for most language users a robin, or a sparrow will be the first answer and not an ostrich, or a penguin. It means that robin and sparrow are more prototypical in a given language culture.
Such considerations led to another interesting conclusion. As there are certain words that can be said to be prototypic to a given category, there are also words whose meaning is fuzzy and which are therefore difficult to categorize. A good example might be the difference between a slope, a hill, a mount, a valley, a mountain. Where does one end and the other begins? Most probably the majority of language users would classify those words differently (Internet source 2).
Primary cognitive grammar view on word meaning is expressed by Ronald Langacker who argues that the encyclopedic approach to the meanings of words does not always do them justice. According to this linguist what a word refers to is the profile and is always “relativised to a larger background knowledge structure” called its base (Internet source 3). Langacker claims that a given word “constitutes both the designatum-the entity designated by a given word-as well as the larger knowledge unit with respect to which the designatum is relativised” (Internet source 3). It is illustrated in the following example where the word elbow includes the profile, as well as the base.

Moreover, Langacker divides linguistic expressions into two categories: nominal predications and relational predications. The former are, according to him, conceptually autonomous, which means that they refer to entities which are conceptually independent, like house, or tree. On the other hand, the latter are conceptually dependent, meaning that they can only count on other lexical items to complete their meaning. Langacker notes that we can conceptualize nominal entries without evoking any particular events. However, events cannot be realized without any participants to interact and carry them out. Thus, in the sentence: Mark ate a sandwich in the kitchen the verb ate relates to sandwich, kitchen and Mark all of which are conceptually autonomous. By analogy, in establishes a spatial relation between the kitchen and sandwich (Evans, Green, 2006: 534).
Yet, most of the approaches to the study of meaning with their different methods of analysis and perspectives are united in the study of metaphors. Although much has been recently said about their nature, usage and purpose in all varieties of discourse, there is probably equally much that remains to be said. Thus linguists attempt to account for them in many different ways, some of which can be seen in the following chapter.