Language as a phenomenon of the third kind
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12197080 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ewa Dąbrowska (0000-0002-3926-9555, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 213-229 |
| Publication date | 2020-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Cognitive Linguistics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0936-5907 • E-ISSN: 1613-3641 |
| Publisher | De Gruyter Mouton (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1515/cog-2019-0029 |
| OpenAlex | W3033100184 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 18 |
| References cited | 25 |
While many linguists view language as either a cognitive or a social phenomenon, it is clearly both: a language can live only in individual minds, but it is learned from examples of utterances produced by speakers engaged in communicative interaction. In other words, language is what (Keller 1994. On language change: The invisible hand in language . London: Taylor & Francis) calls a “phenomenon of the third kind”, emerging from the interaction of a micro-level and a macro-level. Such a dual perspective helps us understand some otherwise puzzling phenomena, including “non-psychological” generalizations, or situations where a pattern which is arguably present in a language is not explicitly represented in most speakers’ minds. This paper discusses two very different examples of such generalizations, genitive marking on masculine nouns in Polish and some restrictions on questions with long-distance dependencies in English. It is argued that such situations are possible because speakers may represent “the same” knowledge at different levels of abstraction: while a few may have extracted an abstract generalization, others approximate their behaviour by relying on memorised exemplars or lexically specific patterns. Thus, a cognitively realistic usage-based construction grammar needs to distinguish between patterns in the usage of a particular speech community (a social phenomenon) and patterns in speakers’ minds (a cognitive phenomenon)
Cognition · Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Construal level theory · Dual (grammatical number · Epistemology · Grammar · Linguistics · Perspective (graphical · Phenomenon · Social phenomenon · Computer Science · Historical Linguistics and Language Studies · Lexicography and Language Studies · Psychology · Second Language Acquisition and Learning · Social Psychology · Artificial Intelligence
Beyond binary opposition
Development of the Turkish Author Recognition Task (Tart) and the Turkish Vocabulary Size Test (TurVoST)
No three productions alike
Individual variation in contact effects – stability, convergence, and divergence
Non-conforming dialect and its (social) meanings
Constructivist Approaches to First Language Acquisition
General linguistics and the nature of human language
Cognitive Linguistics and Language Evolution
Morphemic Reduplications in Geguritan
Grammar as a behavioral biometric
Cognition in construction grammar
Individuality in complex systems
Investigating language transfer from a usage-based perspective
Print exposure leads to individual differences in the Turkish aorist
Sociopragmatic pronouns in Limburgian
Individual corpus data predict variation in judgments
It’ Is Not for Everyone
The role of interactional and cognitive mechanisms in the evolution of (proto)language(s)
Knowledge of language
Constructions at Work
Frequency in Language
Individual Differences in Language Acquisition and Processing
The Social Stratification of English in New York City
Different speakers, different grammars
Language as a Social Institution
Functional constraints, usage, and mental grammars
Constructions on holiday
Questions with long-distance dependencies
The island status of clausal complements
Machine Meets Man
On Language Change
A Study in Polish Morphology
Frequency Effects in Language Processing
The later development of an early-emerging system
Language Is a Complex Adaptive System
Language Proficiency in Native and Non-native Speakers
| Unique citing works | 18 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 18 |