SoSe 13: Levels of Linguistic Analysis II: Cognitive Linguistics
Susanne Flach
Comments
"Cognitive Linguistics is a relatively new school of linguistics, and one of the most innovative and exciting approaches to the study of language and thought that has emerged within the modern field of interdisciplinary study known as cognitive science" (Evans & Green 2006: 5). While traditional, more formally oriented theories view language as an autonomous system, Cognitive Linguistics sees language and language structure as being fundamentally grounded in human perception and cognition.
After reviewing the central tenets of cognitive approaches, we will investigate these in more detail by looking at selected aspects of linguistic organization. As Cognitive Linguistics takes an explicitly usage-based perspective on language, we will focus on the analysis of actual (language) data. The course will include basic tutorials and discussions on empirical methods relevant to Cognitive Linguistics, most notably corpus and experimental linguistics.
Course requirements are regular attendance, weekly readings & small research tasks for in-class discussions, a group project and a short paper based on an empirical case study. All participants are kindly asked to read an introductory text for the first session which will be made available on Blackboard a week prior to the start of term (Evans & Green 2006: Chapter 1).
Course reading (further material will be made available on Blackboard):
Evans, Vyvyan & Melanie Green. 2006. Cognitive Linguistics: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
close13 Class schedule
Regular appointments