Kopecka, Beata

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250Z E S Z Y T Y  N A U K O W E   UNIWERSYTETU RZESZOWSKIEGO SERIA FILOLOGICZNA ZESZYT 47/2007           STUDIA ANGLICA RESOVIENSIA 4Beata KOPECKA COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS BY W. CROFT AND D.A. CRUSE. CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2004. PP. 356.  ISBN 0-521-66770-4 The notion of cognitive linguistics first appeared in the 1970’s, largely as a response  to  the  shortcomings  of  truth-conditional  semantics  and  generative grammar. Since then it has attracted the interest of a number of scholars, giving rise  to  a  complex  discipline  encompassing  the  study  of  semantics,  syntax, morphology, as well as reaching other disciplines of linguistic investigations, such  as  language  acquisition,  phonology,  morphology,  semantics  and  various fields of historical linguistics. Croft and Cruse’s (2004) recent publication is aimed to be a comprehensive work providing an over-all synthesis of studies within the cognitive framework of language analysis. In  fact,  the  book  reviewed  here,  being  an  introduction  to  the  cognitive linguistic approach to language, is primarily aimed at advanced undergraduate and  postgraduate  students,  to  serve  as  a  textbook  for  a  course  in  cognitive linguistics. The body of the book is divided into three main parts, which in turn consist of twelve chapters. Part I serves to outline the key concepts and tools underlying the cognitive spirit of the linguistic approach. In the remaining two parts, these principles are expanded and elaborated upon, and further illustrated with their application to semantic aspects in Part II, and to grammar in Part III. Additionally,  it  is  worth  stressing  that  this  publication  contains  author  and subject indexes appended to the main text, which is undoubtedly an advantage given the book’s primary audience.  To  be  more  specific,  Part  I  of  the  book  reviewed  concentrates  on  the presentation of the assumptions underlying the conceptual approach to linguistic analysis. Chapter 1, in the form of an introduction, briefly defines cognitive linguistics by listing the following main hypotheses, which are later developed and justified throughout the text of the book: 1) Language is not an autonomous cognitive faculty; 2) Grammar is conceptualisation; 3) Knowledge of languages emerges from language use.  251In turn, Chapter 2 is dedicated to the presentation of Fillmore’s model of frame semantics and its development by other linguists. Due attention is paid to the theories developed by Langacker and Lakoff. Here, an unquestionable virtue of the publication, from a student’s point of view, in addition to a concise and easily accessible presentation of the basic notions of cognitive semantics, is the clarification  of  terminological  differences  in  naming  the  same  concepts  by particular analysts. Unfortunately, in one case the authors seem to be somewhat hesitant as for the choice of a favoured term, and deliberately use the terms frame  and  domain interchangeably,  which  definitely  does  not  in  any  way contribute  to  the  so-much-expected  terminological  clarity  and  may  certainly impede the text comprehension.  What follows, in Chapter 3 is chiefly a presentation of a range of construal operations  (conceptualisation  processes),  and  an  attempt  at  proposing  their typological scheme. The discussion of the most influential theories ends with a detailed  presentation  of  the  authors’  own  proposal  for  the  classification  of construal operations. In their analysis the authors stress the fact that various construal  operations  are  manifestations  of  four  basic  cognitive  abilities  in different aspects of experience, which are not only linguistic. The discussion of particular  aspects  of  the  four  abilities  includes  frequent  references  to  other authors. The numerous examples, being often original quotations of the authors mentioned, are a cardinal virtue of the presentation offered by the authors of the book. Once again, the issue of terminological disorder is addressed.    Chapter  4,  the  final  section  of  Part  I,  concentrates  on  the  issue  of categorization. First, the notion of conceptual category is introduced and two influential theories of conceptual structures are surveyed, namely the classical model,  as  well  as  the  prototype  theory.  Unlike  in  these  theories,  where conceptual  categories  are  perceived  as  fixed  cognitive  entities  with  stable associations  with  linguistic  expressions,  the  authors  consider  conceptual categories dynamic entities. The next two subsections of the chapter are devoted to the discussion of the dynamic construal approach to conceptual categories, and the issue of the dynamic construction of meaning.  Part II deals with cognitive approaches in the field of lexical semantics, with the dynamic approach to construals forming the general guiding principle. The creation of sense boundaries is treated as a dynamic process as well. However, the  boundaries  are  considered  sharp,  which,  in  comparison  to  earlier publications (Cruse 2000), should be treated as an innovation. In Chapter 5, in addition to full sense units, distinguished by a high degree of autonomy, sub-sense units with near-sense properties are discussed in extenso. The types of sub-sense units described are facets, microsenses and ways-of-seeing. Cruse draws a line of distinction between them with the aid of applying different tests, and compares his ideas with Langacker’s view on microsenses, as well as with the ‘latency’ approach to microsenses advocated by Matthews. This slightly lengthy 252discussion is richly illustrated with examples, which occasionally may seem too detached  from  reality,  e.g.  a  complete  soldier.  Moreover,  in  comparison  to facets, which are presented in detail, microsenses and even more ways-of-seeing are only briefly touched upon. This may, at least partly, be justified by the fact that the account of facets is based on the author’s previous works. Chapter 6 deals with the notions of hyponymy and meronymy. First, Cruse points  to  a  couple  of  problems  connected  with  the  notion  of  hyponymy  as verified by the Lyons’ entailment test, and suggests how these can be overcome. The central feature of Cruse’s approach to hyponymy is contextual variation. With  regard  to  meronymy,  Cruse  indicates  problems  connected  with  the designation of meronymy as the part-whole relation, and to rectify this situation the author suggests a more general name, namely the portion-whole relation. A further distinction, which may seem slightly blurred, is made between parts and pieces.  Chapter 7 discusses the sense relations of complementarity and antonymy, which obviously are treated as relations between construals, and not lexical items. In comparison to an earlier publication (Cruse 1986), the varieties of opposite giving  rise  only  to  a  weak  intuition  of  oppositeness  are  not  mentioned. Unfortunately, it seems that there are several objections that can be raised against the contents of this chapter. First and foremost, despite the fact that the author lists three varieties of opposite as the most salient ones, i.e. complementaries, antonyms and reversives, only the first two are addressed further in the text. Secondly, their treatment is far from being equal. Thus, in comparison to an extremely sketchy presentation of complementaries, the antonym systems is given a detailed account, based mainly on Cruse and Togia (1995).  The main goal of Chapter 8 is to address issues connected with the notion of metaphor. Taken in isolation, this chapter may be treated as a particularly well-written introduction to the topic. It offers an explanation of all basic notions, presents  the  Lakoff’s  conceptual  theory  of  metaphor,  and  examines  issues leading to elaborations of the basic model. In the following sections, metaphors are  compared  and  contrasted  with  similes  and  metonymy.  On  the  topic  of similes,  Cruse  challenges  contradictory  opinions  and  offers  arguments advocating a view that metaphors and similes are different. Nevertheless, the author does not deny frequent interaction between them and admits the existence of metaphors within similes and similes within metaphors. The relation between metaphor  and  metonymy  is,  according  to  the  author,  characterized  by  their similar nature in that the two concepts are distinct although there seems to exist a certain degree of interaction between them. Regrettably, the mechanism of metonymy  is  only  briefly  mentioned,  with  the  focus  being  deliberately  on metaphor. Finally,  Part  III  deals  with  cognitive  approaches  to  syntax,  which  in cognitive  linguistics  is  termed  ‘construction  grammar’.  The  discussion  in 253Chapter 9 starts with problems in generative grammar connected with selected syntactic phenomena. The presentation of Fillmore’s et al. (1988) analysis and classification of idioms leads to the introduction of the notion of construction. The ensuing detailed discussion of the let alone construction, based on Fillmore et al., serves to prove that schematic idioms have their own syntactic, semantic and  pragmatic  properties  that  cannot  be  predicted  from  the  general  rules  of syntax, semantics or pragmatics. The following brief presentation of different case studies posits constructions as units of syntactic representation, as well as puts  forward  arguments  for  representing  grammatical  knowledge  as constructions. The chapter ends with a presentation of the model of grammatical knowledge in construction grammar.  Chapter 10 is primarily devoted to an overview of construction grammars. It begins with a comparison between the principles of generative grammar and those of construction grammar. Next, it surveys four variants of construction grammar in cognitive linguistics, with Croft’s Radical Construction Grammar (henceforth: RCG) receiving a more detailed account than the other varieties. All grammars are compared with regard to the answers they give to a set of four questions.  In  the  discussion  of  RCG,  special  focus  is  laid  on  issues  found problematic in other varieties, as well as on those issues that are approached from a different angle by Cruse.   The  main  concern  of  Chapter  11  is  the  usage-based  model,  in  which grammatical representation in the speaker’s mind is determined by the properties of the use of utterances in communication. This approach marks a change in direction  of  cognitive  studies,  where  traditionally  attention  was  focused  on mental  representations  and  cognitive  processes.  The  subsequent  sections  of Chapter 11 analyse hypotheses proposed by different authors, first in the area of morphology, and next in the area of syntax. The hypotheses are verified on the basis of a significant amount of empirical data drawn from the processes of language use and language change. However, as the author notes, due to the relative  novelty  of  the  hypotheses,  the  evidence  supporting  it  is  necessarily fragmentary.  The final chapter of the book is a two-page conclusion of achievements within cognitive linguistics. The authors finish their survey by presenting the ways  cognitive  linguistics  has  gone,  starting  from  the  reliance  on  studies  in cognitive psychology and philosophy, and its current influence on other fields of research. To sum up, particular chapters of the reviewed publication were written by two  authors  independently.  Therefore,  it  is  not  surprising  to  see  that  the individual  subsections  received  different  treatment,  with  some  of  them resembling concise encyclopaedic entries, whereas others are fully developed elaborations,  including  numerous  examples  and  diagrams.  Nevertheless,  the book forms a clearly organized whole, dealing both with well-established issues 254and  novel  approaches.  Given  the  intended  audience  of  the  book,  it  is worth pointing  out  that  the  authors  explain  particular  theoretical  issues  in  easily accessible language and manner, in most cases taking for granted that the reader possesses  only  basic  linguistic  knowledge.  All  main  concepts  are  carefully defined and appear in bold, which is an unquestionable virtue of a publication primarily  intended  for  student  readers.  The  overall  transparency  of  the presentation is enhanced by the author and subject indexes directing the reader to the main body of the text, and thus making the publication a handy reference work. The examples are in most cases carefully chosen, although occasionally the reader may experience a feeling of example overload. All in all, newcomers in the field of cognitive linguistics should find the publication an informative introduction,  even  if  the  occasional  detailed  treatment  of  some  issues  seems better suited to the needs of more advanced practitioners.  

William Croft, David A. Cruse: Cognitive linguistics, Cambridge [u.a.], Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004, pp. 356, ISBN 0-521-66770-4.

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