Cognitive Linguistics: Modelling language as an index of society and culture

It is through thought that we understand the world, yet one cannot think without language. Language, in turn, is structured by grammar. Therefore, grammar is the structure of the mind and the world it creates.

Contemporary theories of language hold that this grammar is motivated by meaning and structured by use. The success of this approach to language is evidenced by advances in applied linguistics, such as machine translation and artificial intelligence. However, just as the probability-based patterns derived from language use can be employed to produce “authentic” generated language like in automated translation (like DeepL) and Large language Models (like ChatGpt), using electronic corpora, the same approach can be used to model human behaviour, society and culture.

This course emphasises the practical skills needed in linguistic research (especially corpus linguistics), applied or theoretical. It focuses on current trends in language technology and social and cognitive science, especially with respect to socio-cultural variation. No prior experience in computing is expected, but an interest in how different people see and understand the world is essential.

The MA project examines a topic of the student’s choosing and includes data collection and analysis. If the student is interested, the presentation and / or publication of their results will be encouraged and facilitated. The research is performed on English, often in comparison with other languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Russian or Ukrainian etc. Examples of previous studies include:

Multimodal (images) Boasting Strategies on Instagram

Multimodal (video) Expression of Irony in Stand-up Comedy and TikTok

Multimodal (images) Indication of Sarcasm in visual novels (manga)

Conceptualisation of the Body in 19C and 20C literature

Conceptualisation of Beauty on Internet forums

Conceptualisation of Shame

Metaphors of Anxiety

Metaphors of Happiness

Metaphors of Anger

Representation of Femininity in 20C fashion magazines

Representation of Women in Wikipedia

Representation of Immigrants in News Press

Future Grammatical Constructions

Benefactive Grammatical Constructions

Resultative Grammatical Constructions

Requirements
Computer with net access
Basic knowledge of linguistics

Programme
coming - discuss with students

Overal outline

a. Autumn Semester

Intro to Linguistics - to make sure we all are on the same page 

- sigs, semiotics and sign theory

- phonemes and phonology

- morphemes and morphology

- lexemes and lexicology

- constructions, grammar and grammaticality

- sociolinguistics and discourse analysis

Slides 01 Feb

b. Spring Semester

Cognitive Linguistics - theory and practice

- usage-based model of language and entrenchment

- categorisation and polysemy

- construal and framing

- constructions and frames

- linguistic relativity and culture

- conceptual metaphor

c. Scientific methodology

- study design and data

- corpus methods and collocations

- corpus methods and profiles

Evaluation

S1M1 - Annotated TOC of thesis

S2M1 - data sampled and / or detailed description of study design

S1M2 - Method and Introduction chapters of thesis

S2M2 - Presentation of thesis and question in defence

Links - Commandes pour R

R- Commands - First steps

R-Commands - MCA

R-Commands - HCA

R-Commands - LogReg

Links - learning data

Destiny in English and Russian

Happiness in English, Czech, and Polish

Women is Vogue, Cosmo and Closer

Future Constructions - will vs. BGT

Epistemic stance - think and believe 

Links - apps

R: https://www.r-project.org/

Mac Only - BBEdit (free version) : https://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/

Win Only - NotePad++ https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

Reading

Theoretical Basics of Cognitive Linguistics 

1. Lakoff & Johnson 1980 - Metaphors We Live By. 

Very old, and pop sci not real linguistics, but it is a good starting point.

Don't read it, of course, but do have a read of it. And if you like, then go ahead and read it. It is old but good.

2. Lakoff 1987 - Women, Fire and Dangerous Things

This is one of the two foundational works of Cognitive Linguistics. Again, don't read it of course, but you do need to get to know it. The descriptions of Prototype Set Theory and its case studies on polysemy, metaphors, and grammatical constructions form the foundation of much of the work in the field.

General Basics in relevant fields where you are weak

Yule 1996 - The Study of Language

This is a 1st year BA text book designed for "foreign language" students - so very easy to read. It is in its 10n millionth edition now and kept more or less up to date. Anything after the 4th editions should be fine. The chapters on sociolinguistics (18, 19, 20) would be very good to read through. But the chapters on Semantics (9,10, 11) should also be looked at. Other chapters may be of interest as well.

More reading coming :P

Geeraerts & Glynn 2026 - Cambridge Handbook of Lexical Semantics. Cambridge: CUP

Baayen 2008 - Analyzing Linguistic Data. A practical introduction to statistics using R. Cambridge: CUP

Glynn & Robinson 2014 - Corpus Methods for Semantics. Quantitative studies in polysemy and synonymy. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Glynn & Fischer 2010 - Quantitative Cognitive Semantics. Corpus-driven approaches. Berlin: Mouton

Gries 2021 - Statistics for Linguistics with R. A practical introduction. Berlin: Mouton.

Gries & Stefanowitch 2006 - Corpora in Cognitive Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton.

Stefanowitch & Gries 2006 - Corpus-Based Approaches to Metaphor and Metonymy. Berlin: Mouton

Goldberg

Schmid 

Lakoff 1987 - Women, Fire and Dangerous Things. CUP

Langacker 1987 - Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. SUP.

Geeraerts