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BOOK OF ABSTRACTS

Institute of English Studies, University of Rzeszów, Poland 25-26 April 2019

CULTURE and COGNITION in LANGUAGE 2: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CONTEXT FOR HUMAN CONCEPTUAL SYSTEM

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Scientific Committee 4

Organising Committee 4

Plenary Lectures 5

Bogusław Bierwiaczonek, Jan Długosz University in Częstochowa, Poland

6

Małgorzata Fabiszak, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland

7

Dirk Geeraerts, University of Leuven, Belgium

8

Adam Głaz, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland

Parellel Sessions

9

10

Rafał Augustyn, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland

Paulina Biały, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland

Edmond Cane, Beijing International Studies University, Beijing, China

Anna Dąbrowska, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland

Bożena Duda, University of Rzeszów, Poland

Anna Dziama, University of Rzeszów, Poland

Kristine Gevorgyan, Yerevan State University, Armenia

Ewa Gieroń-Czepczor, State Higher Vocational School in Racibórz, Poland

Agnieszka Grząśko, University of Rzeszów, Poland

Samer Jarbou, University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

Alevtyna Kalyuzhna and Inna Davydenko, V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National

University, Ukraine

Robert Kiełtyka, University of Rzeszów, Poland

Ewa Konieczna, University of Rzeszów, Poland

Marcin Kudła, University of Rzeszów, Poland

Karolina Kurowska, University of Rzeszów, Poland

Inna Livytska, Taras Shevchenko National University, Kyiv, Ukraine

11

12

13

14

16

16

17

18

19

19

20

21

22

23

24

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https://usosweb.umcs.pl/kontroler.php?_action=katalog2/osoby/pokazOsobe&os_id=8272

http://www.sharjah.ac.ae/en/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.knu.ua/


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Przemysław Łozowski, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland

Justyna Mandziuk, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland

Agnieszka Mierzwińska-Hajnos, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin,

Poland

Małgorzata Paprota, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland

Bogdan Pavliy, Toyama University of International Studies, Japan

Bartosz Pietrzak, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland

Anna Shershnova, Kyiv National Linguistic University, Ukraine

Iryna Shevchenko, V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Ukraine

Tereza Slaměníková and David Uher, Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech

Republic

Konrad Szcześniak, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland

Aleksandar Trklja, University of Vienna, Austria

Agnieszka Uberman, University of Rzeszów, Poland

Adam Warchoł, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland

Agnieszka Wawrzyniak, Adam Mickiewicz University in Kalisz, Poland

Katarzyna Wiśniewska, University of Eastern Finland

25

26

27

28

28

29

30

31

31

32

33

34

34

35

36


4

Scientific Committee

Livia Körtvelyessy P.J. Šafarik University in Košice/University of Rzeszów

Przemysław Łozowski Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin

Hanna Rutkowska Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań

Pavol Štekauer P.J. Šafarik University in Košice/University of Rzeszów

Agnieszka Uberman University of Rzeszów

Organising Committee

Bożena Duda

Anna Dziama

Robert Kiełtyka

Ewa Konieczna

Marcin Kudła


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PLENARY LECTURES


6

Bogusław Bierwiaczonek Jan Długosz University in Częstochowa, Poland

[email protected]

People as points of reference. How famous and infamous individuals become part of

language

I hope we all agree that people, especially famous and influential people are an important

aspect of what we usually mean by context. In fact they are so important that they often

become conceptual points of reference and their names become ordinary words. The talk is

an overview of the numerous ways language uses proper names of people to designate various

conceptual entities related to their referents. Two types of name-based expressions will be

discussed. The first one consists of name-based individual lexical items (either simplex or

derived). Those include the following:

several cases of what is known as eponymous metonymy, whereby the names of

inventors or discoverers become common nouns denoting their inventions or

discoveries, often mediated by the companies that produce them, e.g. (Henry) Ford

(name) – Ford (Motor Company) – Ford (type of car)

the process I call syntonymy, whereby the name of a culturally salient person is

used as a label for a subcategory of people having similar properties, e.g. Mozart

for ‘exceptionally musically talented person’, or Mother Teresa for ‘exceptionally

disinterested and helpful person’

minor name-based derivations, e.g. from proper nouns to abstract nouns, e.g. Marx

>> Marxism.

major name-based conversions and derivations, e.g. proper nouns converted to

verbs in English, e.g. as in (Charles) Boycott >> to boycott, or Polish derivations

like Hamlet >> hamletyzować, (Lech) Falandysz >> falandyzować, and adjectives

derived from proper nouns, e.g. Whitmanesque, Norwidowski

A number of compounding patterns, such as expressions of manner X-style, e.g.

Putin-style (system of government).

The second category of name-based expressions includes more complex multi-word

syntactic (usually phrasal) constructions, all using people as points of reference. Those

include the following:

considerably internationalized French à la X construction, e.g. Witkacy à la

Napoleon

Polish na X , wąsik na Adolfa (Hitlera) [moustache à la Adolf (Hitler)],

(wypróżniać się) na Małysza [to defecate squating like the Polish ski-jumper

Adam Małysz]

a subcategory of comparative prepositional like X construction with X standing for

a personal point of reference, e.g. (to sing) like Freddy Mercury.

a subcategory of comparative as Adj as X construction, again, with X standing for

a personal point of reference, e.g. (Their leader is almost) as ruthless as Stalin.

The genitive XYZ blend with the syntonymic use of proper name as Y, e.g.

Humboldt is the Shakespeare of travellers

All the discussed words and more complex constructions show that people provide an

important class of conceptual points of reference for our cognition and their names often

function as vehicles for metonymy and at times for metaphor as well.


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The conclusion is humanistic and mildly optimistic: in our technological, artefactual and

digital world, people still matter – not only in life, but in cognition and language as well

(even if some of them are bastards).

Małgorzata Fabiszak

Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland

[email protected]

Context and cognitive principles in memorial landscapes

In terms of theoretical underpinnings, this talk draws on three sources: (1) Discourse

Historical Approach to discourse analysis (Reisigl and Wodak 2001), (2) Conceptual

Metaphor Theory (Johnson 1987, Lakoff and Turner 1989, Lakoff and Johnson 1999), in

particular as applied to multimodal data (Forceville 2006, 2008); and (3) Multimodal Critical

Discourse Analysis (van Leeuven 2005, Feng – O’Halloran 2013, Abousnnouga – Machin

2013). This combined approach allows to uncover the cognitive principles motivating the

material semiotic practices of meaning making in collective memory sites through a careful

analysis of contextual factors (cf. Reisigl and Wodak 2001 and Kövecses 2015), visual

semiosis and image schemata, conceptual metonymy and metaphor.

The role of context and cognitive principles in the semiotic potential of the memorial

landscape is discussed on the basis of three illustrative examples: The Memorial Site in

Bełżec, The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, and the 9/11 Memorial in

New York City. The socio-cultural and historical context of the three cases selected for

analysis differs in several respects: the physical location, the instigators of commemoration,

the architects and the commemorated victims. Despite these differences, there are certain

cognitive principles underlying the commemoration design that recur in all three. For

example, the image schema MASS-COUNT motivates the listing of the individual names of

the victims in all three sites. There are also features characteristic for only one of them, such

as the reflecting water pools in the NYC memorial, which contribute to the meaning

construction of the site through the metonymies WATER FOR PURIFICATION and

WATER FOR HEALING.

The results of the analysis go beyond a juxtaposition of three case studies and provoke

a reflection on the role of context and of cognitive principles in the memorial landscapes.

Keywords: context, cognitive principles, memorial landscape

References

Abousnnounga, Gill and David Machin. 2013. The Language of War monuments. London:

Bloomsbury.

Feng, Dezheng and Kay O’Halloran. 2013. “The visual representation of metaphor. A social

semiotic approach.” Review of Cognitive Linguistics 11(2): 320-335.

Forceville, Charles. 2006. “Non-verbal and multimodal metaphor in a cognitivist framework:

Agendas for research.” In G. Kristiansen, M. Achard, R. Dirven and F.J. Ruiz (eds.),

Cognitive Linguistics: Current Applications and Future Perspectives. Berlin/New

York: Mouton de Gruyter, 372-402.

Forceville, Charles. 2008. “Metaphor in pictures and multimodal representations.” In R.W.

Gibbs (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 462-482.


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Johnson, Mark. 1987. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and

Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kövecses, Zoltán. 2015. Where Metaphors Come from. Reconsidering Context in Metaphor.

Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.

Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its

Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.

Lakoff, G. and M. Turner. 1989. More than Cool Reason. A field guide to poetic metaphor.

Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh. New York: Basic Books.

Reisigl, M. and R. Wodak. 2001. Discourse and Discrimination: The Rhetoric of Racism and

Antisemitism. London: Routledge.

van Leeuven, Theo. 2005. Introducing Social Semiotics. Abingdon: Routledge.

Adam Głaz

Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland

[email protected]

On Foci, Contexts, Figures, and Grounds

The talk will rest on and revolve around four key notions: focus, context, figure, and ground.

The idea to “frame” or “translate” (conceptual) focus vs. its context in terms of the figure-

ground configuration is not new (cf. Hanks 1992; a good account is Duranti and Goodwin

1992). What I hope to contribute to this picture is perhaps, with the help of the notions just

enumerated, a more or less systematic take on how sense can be made of that most elusive of

things: the dynamicity of meaning.

To this aim, I will try and harness Langacker’s (1987, 2008) primary and secondary

focus (or trajector and landmark, respectively) as manifestations of variable prominence

within the figure, against contextual ground. In other words, the figure may be internally

complex and involve primary and secondary focus. Contextual ground, in turn, is captured in

terms of Givón’s (2005) “other minds”, i.e. belief(s) of mental states. Context is thus viewed

as inherently dynamic and constructed, rather than just “being there”.

Data to look at come from two rather different accounts of Africa vis-à-vis Europe:

Karen Blixen’s memoir Out of Africa (1985 [1937, 1960]) and Paul Kenyon’s I Am Justice. A

Journey out of Africa (2010 [2009]), a harrowing story of a Ghanaian teenager’s escape from

his native land to Europe. The differences between the two narratives are stark and involve

geography, time, the political and social contexts, relative power status of the participants,

individual life histories, and more. As we move through those contextual grounds, primary

and secondary foci interact with them to a variety of effects.

What one finds in this body of data, as a whole, is that rather than isolating (primary

and secondary) foci in context, or figures against grounds, it is more productive to balance

foci with context (or figures with grounds), both sides being meaning-making factors. Thus,

even if context exhibits a smaller degree of prominence than foci, its contribution to meaning

may be as important.

References

Blixen, Karen (Isak Dinesen). 1985. Out of Africa and Shadows on the Grass. First published

1937 and 1960. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.


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Duranti, Alessandro and Charles Goodwin. 1992. “Rethinking context: an introduction.” In

Alessandro Duranti and Charles Goodwin (eds.) Rethinking Context: Language as an

Interactive Phenomenon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-42.

Givón, Talmy. 2005. Context as Other Minds. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Hanks, William F. 1992. The indexical ground of deictic reference. In Alessandro Duranti and

Charles Goodwin (eds.) Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 43–76.

Kenyon, Paul. 2010 [2009]. I Am Justice. A Journey out of Africa. London: Preface

Publishing.

Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol. 1. Theoretical

Prerequisites. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Langacker, Ronald W. 2008. Cognitive Grammar: A Basic Introduction. Oxford: Oxford

University Press.

Dirk Geeraerts

University of Leuven, Belgium

[email protected]

Cultural models of linguistic variation

Applying the notion of “cultural model” as customary in Cognitive Linguistics to the ideology

of language (and specifically, the evaluation of language diversity, both from an

intralinguistic and an interlinguistic perspective), I will argue that four basic ideologies may

be identified: a rationalist and a romantic one, and a nationalist and a postmodern one. The

two initial ideologies are underlying, antithetically related models. The two final ones are both

synthetical models, in the sense that they try to transcend the initial antithesis. Synthesizing

and expanding the view developed in Geeraerts (2003) and (2008), I will systematically go

over the same set of topics for the various models: the internal logic of the model, the

discursive rhetoric that accompanies it, and (specifically for the two synthetic models) the

tensions that exist within the models. To illustrate how the models surface in actual discourse

about linguistic diversity, I will have a closer look at the arguments appearing in a number of

current debates involving language policy in Europe.

References

Geeraerts, Dirk. 2003. Cultural models of linguistic standardization. In René Dirven, Roslyn

Frank and Martin Pütz (eds.), Cognitive Models in Language and Thought. Ideology,

Metaphors and Meanings. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 25-68.

Geeraerts, Dirk. 2008. “The logic of language models: rationalist and romantic models and

their avatars.” In Kirsten Süselbeck, Ulrike Mühlschlegel and Peter Masson (eds.),

Lengua, Nación e Identidad. La regulación del plurilingüismo en España y América

Latina. Madrid / Frankfurt: Iberoamericana / Vervuert, 43-73.


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PARELLEL SESSIONS


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Rafał Augustyn


[email protected]

The living context or unintended intertextuality in multimodal socio-political discourse

In most theories of meaning construction, including the cognitive approach, context – in all its

possible dimensions – is believed to play a vital role in producing meaning. However, usually

not all contextual cues are picked by conceptualisers when they try to decode the meaning of

a message, different facets of context are highly subjective, situationally constrained and often

temporally limited. However, certain types of messages (such as written texts, street art

works, podcasts etc.) have a longer “lifespan”, which allows for their re-interpretation in an

altered contextual framework, i.e. they are subject to re-contextualisation (cf. Linell 2009) or

re-conceptualisation (cf. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk 2010). In addition, different or new

intertextual references may be established in an altered contextual setting, some of which

were not necessarily intended by the original message producers.

With this in mind, this paper looks into the dynamic nature of meaning construal and

the largely underspecified role of intertextual context. Our analysis is based on the socio-

political discourse taking place primarily in the multimodal setting. In particular, we examine

selected examples of street art works and memes dealing with socio-political topics whose

initial meaning changed significantly after they had to be re-interpreted due to new contextual

(socio-political) circumstances that emerged after their creation (e.g. a Lithuanian mural

depicting Trump and Putin kissing, painted prior to Trump’s victory in the US presidential

elections in 2016). Such messages thus incidentally gained new meanings and often became

the source for new intertextual references. The methodology applied in this study uses the

apparatus developed by cognitive linguistics, focusing in particular on multimodal metaphor

(Forceville 2016; Forceville & Urios-Aparisi 2009) and conceptual blending (Fauconnier and

Turner 2002; Oakley & Coulson 2008; Brandt 2013).

Keywords: intertextuality, re-contextualisation, socio-political discourse, multimodal

communication, conceptual blending

References

Brandt, L. 2013. The Communicative Mind. A Linguistic Exploration of Conceptual

Integration and Meaning Construction. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars

Publishing.

Fauconnier, G. and M. Turner. 2002. The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the

Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books.

Forceville, Ch. and E. Urios-Aparisi (eds.). 2009. Multimodal Metaphor. Berlin: Mouton de

Gruyter.

Forceville, Ch. 2016. “Visual and multimodal metaphor in film: charting the field.” In Kathrin

Fahlenbrach (ed.), Embodied Metaphors in Film, Television and Video Games:

Cognitive Approaches. London: Routledge, 17-32.

Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B. 2010. “Re-conceptualization and the emergence of discourse

meaning as a theory of translation.” In B. Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk and M. Thelen

(eds.), Meaning in Translation. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 105-148.

Linell, P. 2009. “Discourse across boundaries: On recontextualizations and the blending of

voices in Professional discourse.” Text – Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of


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Discourse, 18(2): 143-158. Retrieved 30 Jan. 2019, from

doi:10.1515/text.1.1998.18.2.143

Oakley, T & S. Coulson. (2008). “Connecting the dots: Mental spaces and metaphoric

language in discourse.” In Todd Oakley and Anders Hougaard (eds.), Mental Spaces

in Discourse and Interaction. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 27–50.

Paulina Biały

University of Silesia, Poland

[email protected]

Cultural context adaptation – the case of censorship in translations of English children’s

literature into Arabic

Children’s literature, as the name suggests, is a set of literary genres whose primary audience

are children, although teenagers and adults also enjoy it (O’Connell, 2006: 16). It often tells

children in a pedagogical way what rights or duties they have, how they should behave in

order to be regarded as innocent or sinful, and what values they should appreciate and respect

(Shavit, 1986: 34-39). What is more, it has to be observed that children’s literature is subject

to different kinds of censorship which aims at adapting foreign texts in some way to fit certain

ideology (Mdallel, 2004). Censorship in the Arab world involves the process of domestication

of culturally-marked expressions, which means the elimination of elements characteristic for

the source culture (Oittinen, 2003: 129). Besides, in the opinion of Arab scholars, young

readers are threatened by a cultural invasion from the West that prevents the spread of local

children’s literature (Youssef, 1985: 20). In this case, censorship is a means to preserve Arab

cultural identity and moralizing role assigned to children’s literature. This article focuses on

translations of English children’s literature into Arabic (Snow White fairy tale, The Joining by

Peter Slingsby and Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe). It is aimed at presenting the major

features of Arabic children’s literature (such as moralizing tone or religious/national themes)

as well as constraints which the censorship imposes on translators and the consequences of

such restrictions (e.g. children have limited chance to broaden their knowledge of foreign

cultures). Moreover, some examples of censorship are provided on the basis of the research

conducted by Arab scholars. They compared original English versions with their Arabic

adaptations. The results show that the censorship is still a powerful means of influencing

children’s books.

Keywords: cultural context, domestication, censorship

References

Mdallel, Sabeur 2004. “The sociology of children’s literature in the Arab world.” The Looking

Glass: New Perspectives on Children’s Literature 8: 2.

O’Connell, Eithne. 2006. “Translating for children.” In Gillian Lathey (ed.) The Translation

of Children’s Literature. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 15-24.

Oittinen, Riitta. 2003. Where the Wild Things Are: Translating Picture Books. Meta

Translators’ Journal 48 (1): 128-141.

Shavit, Zohar. 1986. Poetics of Children’s Literature. Athens and London: The University of

Georgia Press.

Youssef, Abdel. 1985. Kutub al-Atfal fi ‘Alamina al-Mu’assir (Children’s Books of Our

Time). Cairo and Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Masri and Dar al-Kitab al-lubnani.


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Edmond Cane

Beijing International Studies University, Beijing, China

[email protected]

Significance of context for human conception system – numeral constructions

It is not uncommon in L2 teaching to see that the formal organized effort for the

establishment of number-related linguistic constructions is based on the acquisition of the L2

numeral sequence. This is compensated somehow with the contribution of large contextual

inputs and schemas supplied in the L2 class and practice, that provide for (unconscious and

unintended) usage-based learning of the said structures. This paper refers to certain

hypotheses and theoretical elaborations regarding the mechanism behind the cognitive

processing of numerals (Hurfurd 1987, Gelman and Gallistel 1978), the shape of the mental

representations – subitizing, cardinality of collections and perception of numerosity without

counting, the Referential Hypothesis, the Conceptual/Verbal hypothesis, the numeral

sequence as yardstick, the successor function, etc.

The argument relies on the concept of the form/content pairing for all linguistic

constructions, numerals included. For numerals, there is earlier establishment of the content

side through the L1, but the new L2 pairings do not just “take the L1 content side for granted”

by simply attaching the L2 form side. Despite facilitation and drawing from the L1 content,

there is a reconstruction of the new L2 numeral-related content to the L2 numeral form, a sort

of new acquisition in many respects.

The paper presents some findings from a running L2 teaching process. It builds on the

hypothetical account that the native speakers develop a complex frame of image schemas

(Lakoff 1990) and a sequential numeral frame, (in terms of Minsky’s frame concept, 1974),

embracing further sub-frames or sub-sequences. This cognitive structure builds on, and also

stands while processing, on usage-based pools/contexts, which form a certain dynamic

immediate memory. While the establishment of the intransitive counting does not contribute

to the intended cognitive behavior, the usage-based and context-based approach proves to be

significantly more effective. The students build the relevant skills when they are presented

concrete number-related contexts, with the latter properly drilled and stored at sufficient level

and time, so that they can contribute to the establishment and the shaping of the complex

numeral sequence. The contexts actually contribute to sub-frames/sub-sequences, and these

gradually lead, in a constructivist pattern, to the larger numeral frame. In the course of the L2

learning, the initial contexts will vanish and/or become insignificant in the face of the huge

flow of L2 practice. The most recent contexts will thereafter variably underlie the further

consolidating numeral sequence, thus making its dynamic exemplar-based memory.

Keywords: L2 acquisition, numerals, usage-based, image schemas, mental representation

References

Benacerraf, P. 1965. “What numbers could not be.” Philosophical Review 74: 47-73.

Corbett, G. 1978. “Universals in the syntax of cardinal numerals.” Lingua 46: 355-68.

Frege, G. 1950. The Foundations of Arithmetic. Translated into English by J. L. Austin.

Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Gelman, R. and C. R. Gallistel. 1978. The Child’s Understanding of Number. Cambridge:

Harvard University Press.

Geeraerts, D. 2006. “A rough guide to Cognitive Linguistics”. In Dirk Geeraerts (ed.)

Cognitive Linguistics: Basic Readings. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1-28.


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Geeraerts, D. 2010. Theories of Lexical Semantics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Greenberg, J. H. 1972. “Numeral classifiers and substantival number: Problems in the genesis

of a linguistic type.” Proceedings of the 11th Congress of Linguists, Bologna.

Hampe, B. and J. Grady (eds.). 2005. From Perception to Meaning: Image Schemas in

Cognitive Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Hurford, J. R. 1975. The Linguistic Theory of Numerals. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Hurford, J. R. 1987. Language and number: The emergence of a cognitive system. Oxford:

Basil Blackwell.

Kövecses, Z. 2015. Where Metaphors Come From. Reconsidering Context in Metaphor.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lakoff, G. 1990. “The invariance hypothesis: Is abstract reason based on image-schemas?”

Cognitive Linguistics 1(1): 39-74.

Locke, J. 1975. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Oxford: Oxford University

Press.

Mandler, G. and B. J. Shebo 1982. “Subitizing: an analysis of its component processes.”

Journal of Experimental Psychology 111: 1-22.

Minsky, M. 1974. Frame-systems. MIT AI Laboratory Memorandum.

Piaget, J. 1952. The Child’s Conception of Number. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Anna Dąbrowska


[email protected]

The role of context in conceptualizing ANGER by means of metaphorical idioms

In the more recent cognitive linguistic view, metaphor is understood as “conceptualizing one

domain of experience in terms of another” (Kövecses 2015: 2; Kövecses 2009; Lakoff and

Johnson 1980; among others). Hence, the domain (target domain) which is usually more

abstract, and less directly experienced, e.g. ANGER, may be understood by means of another

domain (source domain), which, in turn, is more physical and more directly experienced, e.g.

BODY HEAT, HEAT IN A CONTAINER, or PRESSURE. The conceptual metaphor

ANGER IS (BODY) HEAT / PRESSURE has a number of culture-specific linguistic

manifestations, among which metaphorical idioms have become the material of my research.

Indeed, metaphoricity is generally considered an essential property of an idiom (e.g. Cronk et

al. 1993; Gibbs 1980, 1985; Nunberg et al. 1994; and McGlone et al. 1994), and truly “some

types of idioms behave exactly like metaphors” (Glucksberg 2001: 67).

My research aims at analysing the context in which metaphorical idioms pertaining to

anger occur most frequently. The data set of my study comprises the top 50 anger-related

idioms, which first have been extracted from dictionaries of idioms and the COCA Corpus.

The idioms have been compared in terms of their occurrence in five different types of register,

namely those offered by the COCA, i.e. spoken discourse, fiction, popular magazines,

newspapers, and academic texts. The results obtained from my research reveal that the most

popular context in which anger idioms occur is fiction discourse (33%), then spoken discourse

(24%), magazines (22%), newspaper (19%), and the least favourable for idioms are academic

texts (2%). The top frequent anger idioms for all the COCA registers include, e.g. to be up in

arms ‘to be very angry’; to see red ‘to become very angry or annoyed suddenly’; to go

ballistic ‘to become very angry’; to rant and rave ‘to protest noisily and forcefully about

something with anger’; to stick in one’s throat ‘to have something very difficult to accept


15

which makes one angry or resentful’; to eat someone alive ‘to be very angry and criticize

someone severely because of that’; to go off the deep end ‘to become so angry or upset that

one cannot control their emotions’; to go bananas ‘to be very angry’; to blow one’s top ‘to

become suddenly very angry’. The anger-related idioms yielded in the study do function as

metaphors. Yet some further research needs to be made to analyse in detail the colloquial

registers, popular speech and oral culture in which idioms most likely occur. Then, as

expected, colloquial idiomatic phrases may provide deep insight into a writer’s society and

the real language they use, while adding variety to characters, which makes them more

remarkable and unforgettable (cf. Literary Devices Editors 2013).

Keywords: conceptual metaphor, metaphorical idioms, anger, colloquial registers, corpus

study

References

Cronk, Brian C., Susan D. Lima and Wendy A. Schweigert. 1993. “Idioms in sentences:

Effects of frequency, literalness, and familiarity.” Journal of Psycholinguistic

Research 22 (1): 59-82.

Gibbs, Raymond W. 1980. “Spilling the beans on understanding and memory for idioms in

conversation.” Memory and Cognition 8 (2): 149-156.

Gibbs, Raymond W. 1985. “On the process of understanding idioms.” Journal of

Psycholinguistic Research 14 (5): 465-472.

Glucksberg, Sam. 2001. Understanding Figurative Language: From Metaphors to Idioms.


Kövecses, Zoltán. 2009. “Metaphor, culture, and discourse: The pressure of coherence.” In A.

Musolff and J. Zinken, Metaphor and Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan,

11-24.

Kövecses, Zoltán. 2015. Where Metaphors Come From. Reconsidering Context in Metaphor.


Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press.

Literary Devices Editors. 2013. “Colloquialism.” Retrieved January 12, 2019, from

https://literarydevices.net/colloquialism/

McGlone, Matthew S., Sam Glucksberg and Cristina Cacciari. 1994. “Semantic productivity

in idiom comprehension.” Discourse Processes 17: 167-190.

Nunberg, Geoffrey, Ivan Sag, Ivan and Thomas Wasow. 1994. “Idioms.” Language 70 (3):

491-538.

O’Dell, Felicity and Michael McCarthy. 2010. English Idioms in Use Advanced. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Online International Dictionary. Retrieved from http://idict.org.

Online Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved from https://en.oxforddictionaries.com.

The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA). Retrieved from https://corpus.

byu.edu/coca/.

Wielki multimedialny słownik angielsko-polski i polsko-angielski [Great Multimedia English-

Polish and Polish-English Dictionary]. 2005. Oxford: PWN.


16

Bożena Duda

University of Rzeszów, Poland

[email protected]

Cognitive intertextuality in the media of the 21st century

The primary aim of this paper is to conduct a pilot study involving the analysis and discussion

of the issue of intertextuality in the selected English news items relating to current affairs. The

analysis is to focus on how we employ metaphorical and metonymic resources in order to

build intertextual links between individual texts or news items, and how with the help of

intertextuality journalists manipulate the information.

The qualitative analysis of the data is to show how the individual texts interrelate with

one another, and how they may be organized into a larger-scale network of texts. The

methodology employed is based on intertextual frames combined with LCCM Theory by

Evans (2009). It needs to be stressed that intertextuality is understood here in its broad sense

of building external relations of texts (Fairclough 1992, 2003; Bazerman 2004) and employed

in the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA; see Wodak and Meyer 2009) and

complemented by lexical concepts and cognitive models of LCCM Theory. The analysis to be

conducted is expected to show to what extent the authors of the articles relate their texts to

earlier written works or facts, as well as how much the cognitive means for intertextuality

differ from culture to culture.

Keywords: intertextuality, cognitive models, CDA, media

References

Bazerman, Charles. 2004. “Intertextuality: How texts rely on other texts.” In Charles

Bazerman and Paul Prior (eds.) What Writing Does and how it Does it. An Introduction

to Analyzing Texts and Textual Practices, 83-96. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Evans, Vyvyan. 2009. How Words Mean – Lexical Concepts, Cognitive Models, and Meaning

Construction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fairclough, Norman. 1992. “Intertextuality in Critical Discourse Analysis.” Linguistics and

Education 4.3: 269-293.

Fairclough, Norman. 2003. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research.

London: Routledge.

Wodak, Ruth and Michael Meyer (eds.). 2009. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis.

London: SAGE Publications.

Anna Dziama


[email protected]

‘May your feet be twisted’: The Yiddish curse case study

Cursing, swearing, taboo words are used to express various emotions, such as anger, irritation,

annoyance and frustration. The aim of this paper is to present an array of curse words and

taboo expressions in Yiddish as they illustrate Jewish experience with its unique culture and

language conventions. A cognitive socio-psychological framework is used to account for


17

swearing in the field of religion; bodies and their effluvia; diseases, death and killing; and

food as proposed by Allan and Burridge (2006).

In support of this framework, I present words and fixed expressions obtained from

lexical database systems, COCA and Yiddish language dictionaries. It has been observed that

Yiddish swear words are frequently religion-based i.e., Got zol in dir fargesn ‘May God

forget about you’. However, the largest group constitutes body part dysphemisms such as

fardreyen zolstu ‘twisted feet’, boykh ‘belly’, kishkes ‘guts’, leber ‘liver’, nopl ‘navel’, harts

‘heart’, tsurik ‘back’, moyekh ‘brain’, kop ‘head’ and oygn ‘eyes’. As Wex (2006:135) puts it:

“Human anatomy receives considerably more attention than the world of the spirit, and

Yiddish curses cover the whole body, just like leprosy.”

Keywords: Yiddish, cultural linguistics, euphemism, dysphemism, taboo words

References

Allan, K. and K. Burridge. 2006. Forbidden Words. Taboo and the Censoring of Language.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

COCA. Corpus of Contemporary American English. Available at: https://www.english-

corpora.org/coca/.

Wex, M. 2006. Born to Kvetch. Yiddish Language and Culture in All of Its Moods. New York,

NY: Harper Perennial.

Kristine Gevorgyan Yerevan State University, Armenia

[email protected]

Conceptualisation of the concept “EYE” in English and Armenian

The philosopher G-H. Marcel has stated that the body serves as an existential pillar of man in

the world, an absolute mediator, the only source and conductor of information about the world

around us (Marcel 2007: 126-127 cited in Nagornaya 2015: 28-29).

The 20th

century has put human beings, their body, emotions and perceptions in the

centre of scholarly paradigm. The importance of the human body and mentality which

interested ancient philosophers like Aristotle and Plato, has become one of the main

provisions of modern cognitive linguistics. The studies conducted by F. Varela, E. Thompson

and E. Roche (1991) and Philosophy in the Flesh by G. Lakoff and M. Johnson (1999) have

introduced the concept of “embodied cognition” into scholarly studies. The empiricist view of

cognitive linguistics states that the human mind – and therefore language – cannot be

investigated in isolation from human embodiment (Evans and Green 2006:44).

This article studies conceptualisation of the visual concept “eye” in Armenian and

English. Historically “Eye” has been perceived as cultural and religious symbol which

ultimately found its reflection in the language. As N. Boldyrev argues language as one of the

main tools of knowledge, conceptualization and categorization “[...] helps us to bring together

and summarize information which comes through eyes, ears, touch, smell and taste.”

Boldyrev 2002:27). The study is based on the examination of idiomatic expressions and

small-scale online survey.

Keywords: embodiment, perception, cognition, human body, eye, conceptualization


18

References

Boldyrev, N.N. 2002. “Kognitivnaja semantika [Cognitive semantics].” Tambov: Publishing

house TSU named after G.R. Derzhavin.

Evans, V. and M. Green. 2006. Cognitive Linguistics. An Introduction. Edinburgh University

Press.

Nagornaya, A. 2015. “Verbal’naya representatsia interoceptivnyh oshushenij v sovremennom

anglijskom yazyke [Verbal representation of interoceptive sensations in modern

English].” PhD thesis abstract, Moscow. http://ilingran.ru/avtoreferats/nagornaya.pdf.

Ewa Gieroń-Czepczor

State Higher Vocational School in Racibórz, Poland

[email protected]

National culture values in folk wisdom: The Indulgence/Restraint Dimension in Polish

proverbs

Cognitive linguists posit that meaning is “protean, which is to say indeterminate, its semantic

contribution sensitive to and dependent on the context” (Evans 2009: 19). A lot of attention

has been given to the embodied nature of conceptualisations which shape language, yet the

experiential basis of language is not complete without the cultural context (Geeraerts 2006).

This preliminary study traces linguistic evidence with reference to the Indulgence (vs.

Restraint) Dimension (Hofstede, Hofstede & Minkov 2010) as one of cultural parametres

applied in the World Values Survey for corporate purposes. With a distinctly low score of 29

(out of 100), Poland seems to be a restrained culture which favours control of desires and

impulses, undervalues leisure, discourages freedom of speech, prescribes clearly cut social

roles, and imposes traditional norms in public life. In order to test this claim, this paper looks

into the prescriptive and normative linguistic material in the form of proverbs and adages

which – with all their axiological charge – indicate socially accepted patterns of behaviour.

What emerges from the investigation of proverbs and sayings is a linguistic worldview

(Bartmiński 2007) of society guided by rigid rules which define the roles and rights of

individuals, advocate prudence, caution, and reticence. The only area of tolerance towards

indulgence is that of alcohol consumption, which is encouraged and drunken excess jovially

excused. A high premium is placed on friendship understood in terms of mutual trust and

support, as previously noted by Wierzbicka (1997). Overall, the linguistic material

corroborates the findings from wave 6 of the WVS (2010-2014) which show the family-work-

religion triad as top priorities, relegating indulgence to the 5th place.

Keywords: proverbs, linguistic worldview, cultural dimensions, axiology in language.

References

Bartmiński, J. 2007. Językowe podstawy obrazu świata. Lublin: Wydawnictwo UMCS.

Evans, V. 2009. How words mean: Lexical concepts, cognitive models, and meaning

construction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Geeraerts, D. (ed.). 2006. Cognitive Linguistics: Basic Readings. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Hofstede G., G.J. Hofstede and M. Minkov. 2010. Cultures and Organizations: Software of

the Mind (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.


19

Masłowska, D. and W. Masłowski. 2008. Wielka księga przysłów polskich. Warszawa: Klub

dla Ciebie.

Przysłowia polskie dla dzieci (Opracowanie zbiorowe). 2018. Bielsko-Biała: Dragon.

Wielka księga przysłów (Opracowanie zbiorowe). 2010. Warszawa: Arystoteles.

Wierzbicka, A. 1997. Understanding Cultures through Their Key Words: English, Russian,.

Polish, German, and Japanese. New York: Oxford. University Press.

Agnieszka Grząśko


[email protected]

Metaphor in the language of flirtation

The aim of the presentation is to discuss the role of metaphor and various rhetorical devices

(e.g. double entendre, euphemisms or similes) in the language of flirtation. The theoretical

framework adopted in this presentation is that of cognitive linguistics, whose emergence in

the second half of the 20th

century gave a new impetus to semantic research (see Kövecses

2015, Lakoff and Johnson 1980, Langacker 1987). The analysis will be based on the

dialogues from the movies The Big Sleep and Some Like It Hot. We shall prove that flirtation

is a game in which interlocutors are players.

Keywords: metaphor, rhetorical devices, flirtation, game

References

Kövecses Z. 2015. Where Metaphors Come From: Reconsidering Context in Metaphor.


Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago

Press.

Langacker, R. W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Theoretical Prerequisites.

Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Samer Jarbou

University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

[email protected]

Co-speech gestures and conceptualization demands: Persuasive vs. narrative speeches

This study investigates the significance of representational co-speech hand gestures for the

conceptualization of speech in two different communicative contexts; these involve short

speeches intended to persuade in comparison to ones intended to narrate previous experiences.

This study makes use of findings related to the Information Packaging Hypothesis (IPH) (Kita

2000; Alibali 2005; Abner et al. 2015), Levelt’s (1989) stages of speech production, and

relevant findings in neuroscience. The participants in this study (non-native speakers of

English) are university students once delivering narrative speeches and once delivering

persuasive speeches in separate sessions as requirements for a course titled ‘Speech

Communication’ at the University of Sharjah, UAE. Data collection has been performed by

the researcher and two assistants and it focused on observing participants while they delivered

their short speeches to count the number of representational co-speech gestures that they made


20

during each of their speeches. It has been found that the rate of gestures during the speeches

that are intended to persuade is higher than that during the narrative speeches. This result has

been explained as due to the issue that the aim to persuade, in comparison to narration,

presents high demands on the conceptualization and formulation stages of speech production,

and on memory since the speaker has to conceptualize ideas, focus on relevant important ones

and ignore ones that are deemed as less important, and organize them in a coherent and

cohesive order. According to the IPH, the subconscious utilization of gestures is intended to

decrease the cognitive load for the speaker. The structure of a persuasive message is here

considered as a multidimensional information structure that usually demands a higher

cognitive load than a chronological order structure of a narrative speech. It is hoped that the

findings in this study will significantly contribute to research that aims to link linguistics,

cognitive psychology, and neuroscience research focusing on the study of co-speech gestures.

Keywords: co-speech gestures, conceptualization, persuasive vs. narrative speeches,

cognitive load

References

Abner, N., K. Cooperrider and S. Goldin-Meadow. 2015. “Gesture for linguists: A handy

primer.” Language and Linguistics Compass, 9 (11): 437-449.

Alibali, M. 2005. “Gesture in spatial cognition: Expressing, communicating, and thinking

about spatial information.” Spatial Cognition And Computation, 5(4): 307–331.

Kita, S. 2000. “How representational gestures help speaking.” In D. McNeill (ed.), Language

and Gesture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 162-185.

Levelt, W. J. M. 1989. Speaking: From Intention to Articulation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Alevtyna Kalyuzhna and Inna Davydenko

V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Ukraine

[email protected], [email protected]

Conceptualisation across languages: A case for English and Ukrainian synonyms

This presentation focuses on the ways similar notions are categorized in English and

Ukrainian. Both linguistic (lexical synonymy, polysemy) and social (ethnic, historic, cultural)

aspects are relevant (Kalyuzhna 2010) in order to understand the mental process of

conceptualization, but we aim to show that conceptualization rather depends on experience

saved in the form of tradition and accounts for salience, comprehensive semantics and

communicative value of concepts. We argue that in the two languages, conceptual schemes of

similar notions are rather culture specific than linguistically dependent. As illustrative

material for our analyses we chose the English and Ukrainian concepts HOUSE/HOME and

ДІМ [D’IM] which are of polysemous nature in both languages. Particular cross-linguistic

variations are revealed by the linguistic mechanism which underlies the choice of meanings,

their organization into conceptual networks and consequently into domain matrices.

As a result of the conducted analysis, which includes the construction of conceptual networks

of polysemy (Zhabotinskaya 2008), we prove polysemantic and partly synonymous nature of

the English lexemes house (n) and home (n) and identify their most salient and comprehensive

meanings (Davydenko 2011: 90). This indicates their partial intersection in the domain THE

LOCATION OF HUMAN BEINGS, which is not so for Ukrainian where a polysemous дім

[d’im] stands for most of these meanings. Using modelled domain matrices (Bondarenko


21

2019; Langacker 1987: 152) we identify that the HOUSE/HOME matrix contains one integral

(domain THE LOCATION OF HUMAN BEINGS) and two differential zones. The two

differential zones comprise domains MONARCHY, ENTERTAINMENT INSTITUTION,

INSTITUTION (‘house/chamber of the legislative body’), COMMERCIAL

ORGANISATION, VISITORS/STAFF, SPORTS, ASTROLOGY and others. In contrast, in

the Ukrainian domain matrix a similar integral zone formed by various meanings of a

polysemous noun дім [d’im] lacks the domain INSTITUTION. A differential zone comprises

ethnic- and cultural-specific domains RELIGION, PSYCHIATRY while domain

MONARCHY is not salient in Ukrainian.

Keywords: conceptualization, concept, synonym, domain matrix

References

Bondarenko, I. 2019. “Time domain matrix modeling in cognitive linguistic research.” In

Marianna Bolognesi and Gerard Steen (eds.), Perspectives on Abstract Concepts:

From Cognitive Processing to Semantic Representation and Linguistic Expression.

Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 243–262.

Davydenko, I.V. 2011. “Kontseptual’naya set’ polisemii polisemanta home (n.) – imeni

kontsepta DOM / HOME [Conceptual network of polysemy of home (n.) – the name

of the concept HOME].” Visnyk Kharkiv. nats. un-tu imeni V.N. Karazina 953 – V.N.

Karazin Kharkiv National University Journal 953: 87-94.

Kalyuzhna, A.B. 2010. “Vy’znachennya imeni konceptu TAYЕMNY’CYA v anglomovnomu

detekty’vnomu zhanri [Identification of the name of the concept MYSTERY in the

English detective genre].” Visnyk Kharkiv. nats. un-tu im.V.N. Karazina. – V.N.

Karazin Kharkiv National University Journal 896: 22-26.

Langacker, R.W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Vol.1: Theoretical Prerequisites.

Stanford CA: Standford University Press.

Zhabotinskaya, S.A. 2008. “Printsipy lingvokognitivnogo analiza i fenomen polisemii

[Principles of linguistic and cognitive analysis and the phenomenon of polysemy].

Problemy zahalʹnoho, hermansʹkoho ta slovʺyansʹkoho movoznavstva. Do 70-richchya

profesora V.V. Levytsʹkoho: zbirnyk nauk. pratsʹ. Chernivtsi – Problems of Germanic

and Slavic linguistics. A Festschrift for Professor V.V. Levitsky on his 70th Birthday.

Collection of Scientific works. Chernivtsi, 357-368.

Robert Kiełtyka


[email protected]

The role of historical context determining the figurative use of common words derived

from place-names

In the history of English one may encounter numerous cases when the name on the map takes

on its own meaning as a common word. In this account, drawing on lexicographic data

obtained from the Merriam Webster Dictionary and Oxford English Dictionary, I will analyse

a few examples of commonization, that is a mechanism by which various proper names (here

place-names) lose the initial capital letter and start a new life as common nouns (sometimes

verbs or adjectives). Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines commonization as “the formation

or development of a common noun, a common adjective, or a verb from a proper noun”. For


22

example, Shanghai ‘one of the world’s largest seaports on the South China Sea’ is sometimes

used figuratively as a verb to shanghai someone ‘to kidnap a person onto a ship (or, more

broadly, any unwanted position) and force him or her into unwilling labour’. The mechanism

involved in the construal of the figurative verbal sense of Shanghai seems to be that of a

metonymic chain (see Barcelona 2005, Hilpert 2007). First, Shanghai must have been

metonymically conceived of as a place from which people could be kidnapped to be later

forced into unwilling labour and then, by another metonymic projection, the word started to

be used as a verb meaning ‘to kidnap a person onto a ship…”.

The main objective of the paper is to provide evidence supporting the claim that

commonisation may be interpreted as resulting from the working of conceptual metaphor,

metonymy or the joint-operation of the two conceptual mechanisms (metaphtonymy), while

the motivation behind selected figurative developments seems to be determined by broadly

understood historical context. The theoretical framework adopted in the research is that of

Conceptual Metaphor and Metonymy Theory (see, for example, Lakoff and Johnson 1980,

Lakoff and Turner 1989, Goossens 1990, Kövecses 2002, 2015, Bierwiaczonek 2013).

Keywords: place-names, metaphor, metonymy, historical context

References

Barcelona, Antonio. 2005. “The multilevel operation of metonymy in grammar and discourse,

with particular attention to metonymic chains.” In Cognitive Linguistics: Internal

Dynamics and Interdisciplinary Interaction edited by Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez,

Francisco José, Sandra Peña Cervel. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 313–352.

Bierwiaczonek, Bogusław. 2013. Metonymy in Language and Thought. Sheffield: Equinox.

Goossens, Louis. 1990. “Metaphtonymy: The interaction of metaphor and metonymy in

expressions for linguistic action.” Cognitive Linguistics 1 (3): 323–342.

Hilpert, Martin. 2007. “Chained metonymies in lexicon and grammar: A cross-linguistic

perspective on body-part terms”. In Aspects of Meaning Construction, edited by

Günter Radden, Klaus-Michael Köpcke, Thomas Berg, Peter Siemund.

Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 77–98.

Kövecses, Zoltan. 2002. Metaphor. A Practical Introduction. Oxford: OUP

Kövecses, Zoltan. 2015. Where Metaphors Come From. Oxford/New York: Oxford

University Press.

Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we Live by. Chicago: Chicago

University Press.

Lakoff, George and Mark Turner. 1989. More than Cool Reason. A Field Guide to Poetic

Metaphor Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ewa Konieczna


[email protected]

Telicity in English as a contextual phenomenon

Even though telicity, which is a type of lexical aspect, is traditionally considered to be an

inherent property of the verb, in the theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics the verb is

not ascribed to a specific aspectual type (Croft 2012). Instead, aspect is regarded as the

property of the whole predicate, which has the potential to allow multiple construals,


23

depending both on the grammatical and extra-linguistic context. As regards the former,

telicity can be induced by the bounded verb argument, prepositional phrase, or the particle,

encoding the GOAL in the SOURCE-PATH-GOAL schema. All these contextual factors

interact with one another, building telicity in a compositional way. Despite the fact that

grammatical context plays a decisive role in triggering telicity, extra-grammatical context can

alter the default aspectual construal by transforming a telic event into an atelic one.

Keywords: aspect, construal, boundedness

References

Croft, William. 2012. Verbs: Aspect and Causal Structure. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Briton, Laurel J. 1988. The Development of English Aspectual Systems: Aspectualizers and

Post-verbal Particles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Marcin Kudła


[email protected]

On Klauwerts, Fers and Fetterlocks: Cognitive Insights into the Interplay between

Language and Heraldry in the Middle Ages

Recent years have witnessed a marked growth of interest in multimodality (see Jewitt et al.

2016, Bateman et al. 2017, etc). However, while the fascination is new, its subject matter is

not. As a matter of fact, Bateman et al. (2017: 15) argue that multimodal communication

should be perceived as “always having been the norm”. If we adopt this perspective we

inevitably face the question of the importance of non-linguistic context for linguistic research.

This is especially visible in the case of communication in medieval Europe, whose cultures

were semi-oral (see Bäuml 1984). It was then that a specific means of communication

emerged, known as heraldry. Its main function was to identify an individual and signal his or

her social status, yet it was also often employed to mark group identity and even to convey

specific messages (see, for example, Friar and Ferguson 1993). The primary mode employed

by heraldry was the image, yet it could also use pageantry, architecture and language, both

spoken and written.

The aim of the present paper is to investigate the interaction of language and heraldry

in its various forms. The corpus consists of linguistic data taken from English, French and

Dutch, as well as non-linguistic data related to the users of those languages. The methodology

adopted here is that of cognitive linguistics, whose analytical tools allow for an integrated

approach to multimodality. In particular, the author focuses on the study of multimodal

metaphor and metonymy (cf. Forceville 1996, Forceville and Urios-Aparisi 2009, etc) and

image schemas (cf. Johnson 1987) with a view to identifying cognitive mechanisms employed

in heraldry.

Keywords: cognitive linguistics, heraldry, metaphor, metonymy, multimodality

References

Bateman, John A., Janina Wildfeuer and Tuomo Hiippala. 2017. Multimodality: Foundations,

Research and Analysis. A Problem-Oriented Introduction. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.


24

Bäuml, Franz H. 1984. “Medieval texts and the two theories of oral-formulaic composition: A

Proposal for a third theory.” New Literary History 16 (1): 31-49

Forceville, Charles. 1996. Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising. London/New York: Routledge.

Forceville, Charles and Eduardo Urios-Aparisi (eds.). 2009. Multimodal Metaphor.

Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Friar, Stephen and John Ferguson. 1993. Basic Heraldry. London: Herbert Press.

Carey Jewitt, Jeff Bezemer, Kay O’Halloran. 2016. Introducing Multimodality. Oxford:

Routledge.

Jewitt, Carey, Jeff Bezemer and Kay O’Halloran. 2016. Introducing multimodality.

Routledge: London.

Johnson, Mark. 1987. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and

Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Karolina Kurowska


[email protected]

Idealised, Sexy and Dissolute – The Portrayal of Contemporary Women in the Context

of American Pornographic Magazines (on the example of “Penthouse”)

The main aim of this paper is to provide an account of the representation of women in the

contemporary American pornographic magazines and to investigate the specific role

stereotypes, prototypes, and idealized cognitive models (ICMs) play in determining how

woman – as a word and a concept – functions in the press. The analysis is carried out in the

spirit of Cognitive Linguistics, with particular emphasis on the notion of Lakoff’s (1987)

ICM. It is predominantly based on the assumption that the ICM of a woman is a metonymic

model comprising several submodels. More importantly, the ICM presented in the analysed

material, actually does not have a complicated structure. We can assume that the “Penthouse”

magazine clearly popularizes one kind of women based mostly on the submodels such as

LOVE AND SEX, BODY, PHYSICAL TRAITS and PSYCHOLOGICAL FEATURES AND

PROCESSES which take dominance over the others and lead to discriminatory assumptions

and generalizations.

Keywords: man, woman, pornography magazine, ICM

References

Lakoff, G. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the

Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Inna Livytska

Taras Shevchenko National University, Kyiv, Ukraine

[email protected]

Narrative discourse as an emergent system: Poetics of intentionality

Following Ludwig Wittgenstein quotation, taken as a motif for the conference, the author of

this paper will put it like this: “A sign is dead, but the text is alive”. The significant evidence


25

in favor of this statement comes from biosemiotic domain, stating that any organism (a life

form) is a carrier of life and thus, any sign is “a necessary element of any semiotic system”

(Kull 2002). Being a part of a bigger system, signs (as a unity) are surrounded by other signs,

and form “a biotext” as a semiotic whole. The process of text interpretation, therefore, is

viewed here as a continuous semiosis, as the interpretation of one sign through another

(Krampen et al. 1987). Recognition that any text is a composition of signs (Kull, 2002), puts

an end to the contradiction between “sign semiotics” and “text semiotics” (Lotman, 2002),

and makes it possible to assign the text such qualities as stability, linearity, and fixity.

Furthermore, adherence to biosemiotic view provides us with the methodology for analysis of

semiosis in certain parts of a text (where a new meaning emerges) and semiosis of the whole

text (as a self-referring entity). Multiple levels of the text, when analysed with the tools of

biosemiotics, turn into a self-referring and “purposeful behavior” (Alexander, 2009),

mediating discourse development. By micro-processes of discourse development we

understand “icons” and “indices” as purely poetic tools, grounded on the principles of

metonymic contiguity and metaphoric similarity. In this paper, we will focus on micro-

processes of meaning emergency in a literary text, treating it as a holistic self-organizing

whole, capable of functional differentiation as a requirement for umwelt (Hoffmeyer 1999).

Keywords: meaning, emergency, agency, semiotics, biosemiotics.

References

Alexander, V.N. 2009. “The poetics of purpose.” Biosemiotics 2: 77–100.

Hoffmeyer, J. 1999. “The vague boundaries of life.” In E. Taborsky (ed.) Semiosis, Evolution,

Energy: Towards a Reconceptualization of the Sign. Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 151–169.

Krampen, M., K. Oehler, R. Posner, T.A. Sebeok, T. von Uexküll. 1987. Classics of

Semiotics. New York: Plenum Press.

Kull, K. 2002. “A sign is not alive – a text is.” Sign Systems Studies 30 (1): 327–336.

Lotman, M. 2002. “Umwelt and semiosphere.” Sign Systems Studies 30 (1): 33–40.

Przemysław Łozowski

Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Poland

[email protected]

Expanding the context in translation: Hamlet’s to be, or not to be in a prototype

perspective

Langacker’s (2016ab, 2017ab) understanding of the prototype as a “baseline” is employed for

the sake of experimenting on translation possibilities of Hamlet’s soliloquy into Polish. The

research point is to see how different the Polish rendering of the opening "to be, or not to be"

may be once we place it in three different contexts: the word context, the sentence context,

and the text context. Thus, for a given source element to be translated, it can be related to,

examined on, and, then, rendered according to several levels of language material

organization, of which the word-sentence-text appears to be the standard from-the-local-to-

the-global progression. If so, doing translation in terms of prototypical considerations requires

identifying the prototype, and, thus, its corresponding category, on the levels of, respectively,

the word, the sentence, and the text. Two 19th c. and two 20th c. Polish translations of

William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” are consulted in the study. The analysis shows that the more

the linguistic context expands, the more of cultural considerations need to be taken into


26

account. This entails a change of a translation perspective: while the Polish “być, albo nie

być” appears to be a projection of (systemic) English-Polish intra-linguistic considerations,

and, as such, it may well satisfy the original “to be, or not to be”, it misses the intended

import of the original on the sentence and the text levels, which invites (cultural) extra-

linguistic factors to play their role.

Keywords: translation, word-sentence-text contexts, source gap vs. target token, Hamlet’s

soliloquy, prototype theory

References

Langacker, Ronald W. 2016a. “Baseline and elaboration.” Cognitive Linguistics 27 (3): 405-

439.

Langacker, Ronald W. 2016b. Nominal Structure in Cognitive Grammar. The Lublin

Lectures. Edited by Adam Głaz, Hubert Kowalewski and Przemysław Łozowski.

Lublin: Maria Curie-Skłodowska University Press.

Langacker, Ronald W. 2017a. “The functions of trees.” In Przemysław Łozowski, Adam Głaz

(eds.) Route 66: from Deep Structures to Surface Meanings. A Festschrift for Henryk

Kardela on his 66th Birthday. Lublin: Maria Curie-Skłodowska University Press, 73-

92.

Langacker, Ronald W. 2017b. Ten Lectures on the Elaboration of Cognitive Grammar,

(Distinguished Lectures in Cognitive Linguistics 18). Brill.

Justyna Mandziuk

Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin, Poland [email protected]

How proverb cartoons mean: A cognitive linguistic perspective

The aim of this presentation is to develop a cognitive analysis of the linguistic and visual modes

of communication involving creative and jocular proverb cartoons. Following Charles

Forceville’s (2014) relevance theory-based approach (cf. Sperber and Wilson 1995, Wilson and

Sperber 2012), combined with Fauconnier and Turner’s (2002) Conceptual Blending Theory, the

presentation undertakes to analyze selected proverb cartoons whose jocular modifications require

a great deal of contextual knowledge. The (modified) proverbs to be investigated include

examples such as: All work and no play makes you a valued employee All work and no play

makes Jack a dull boy; You can lead a man to the mall, but you can't make him shop You can

lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink; Different smokes for different folks

Different strokes for different folks; Do unto him as he is doing unto you Do unto others as

you would have them do unto you. In addressing the multimodal nature of proverb cartoons, the

analysis seeks to account for the cognitive link between the visual and verbal modes involved in

the context-based interpretation of such creations.

Keywords: proverb cartoons, modified proverbs, blending, relevance, visuals, multimodality

References

Fauconnier, G. and M. Turner. 2002. The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s

Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books.

Forceville, C. 2014. “Relevance theory as a model for multimodal communication.” In D. Machin

(ed.), Visual Communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 51–70.


27

Sperber, D. and D. Wilson. 1995. Relevance Theory: Communication and Cognition. 2nd.

Oxford: Blackwell.

Wilson, D., and D. Sperber. 2012. Meaning and Relevance. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Agnieszka Mierzwińska-Hajnos


[email protected]

Context-dependent or context-detached? A multimodal analysis of selected commercials

for Żubr beer

The aim of this paper is to offer a multimodal analysis of selected instances taken from a

series of commercials for Żubr beer, an advertising campaign that has received wide acclaim

among Polish audience in recent years. It seems that the overwhelming success of the series

inheres in two aspects: firstly, by relegating the advertised product to a secondary place, the

commercials for Żubr beer do not activate alcohol-related issues in a straightforward way.

Secondly, by assuming the form of ‘mini-narratives’ in the sense of Forceville (2009), they

adopt various modes (visual, verbal and aural) which become ‘the cue to resolving the

puzzling message of the ad’ (Pérez–Sobrino 2017: 124). Seemingly, the way in which

commercials for Żubr beer are constructed inheres in the incongruity between what is offered

in their visual and/or aural elements and the actual message encoded in the verbal mode, and

depicted at the end of each commercial. After in-depth scrutiny however, it appears that all

commercials for Żubr beer form a context-dependent BEER IS WISENT metaphor scenario

(Musolff 2006), with the visualized WISENT as the secondary subject (Black 1979,

Forceville 1996, also Fabiszak 2017), or the source in Lakoff and Johnson’s (1980) parlance,

and the hidden BEER as the primary subject, or the target.

Keywords: multimodality, metaphor scenario, commercials

References

Black, Max. 1979. “More about metaphor.” In Andrew Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and thought.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19-43.

Fabiszak, Małgorzata. 2017. “Komunikacja Multimodalna z perspektywy językoznawstwa

kognitywnego.” In: Przemysław Łozowski and Adam Głaz (eds.), Route 66: From

Deep Structures to Surface Meanings. A Festschrift for Henryk Kardela on his 66th

Birthday. Lublin: Maria Curie-Skłodowska University Press, 267-276.

Forceville Charles.1996. Pictorial Metaphor in Advertising. London/New York: Routledge.

Forceville, Charles. 2009. “Non-verbal and multimodal metaphor in a cognitivist framework:

Agendas for research.” In Charles Forceville and Eduardo Urios-Aparisi (eds.),

Multimodal Metaphor. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 19-42.

Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we Live by. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press.

Musolff, Andreas. 2006. “Metaphor scenarios in public discourse.” Metaphor and Symbol, 21,

23–38.

Pérez–Sobrino, Paula. 2017. Multimodal Metaphor and Metonymy in Advertising.

Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.


28

Małgorzata Paprota


[email protected]

History in the metaphors of the British welfare state

An important part of the British political settlement, the welfare state has several unique (as

well as some not so unique) figurative conceptualisations that can be gleaned from the British

political discourse. This proposed paper outlines those metaphors of the welfare state in four

British newspapers where the historical context is an important point of reference, and

analyses the role of this context as a factor contributing to the argumentative function of the

metaphors.

Keywords: metaphor, welfare state, historical context

Bogdan Pavliy

Toyama University of International Studies, Japan

[email protected]

Bilinguals and multilinguals in a foreign linguistic environment: A case study on

language use of Ukrainians in Japan

Life in a foreign country with its diverse language environment brings new linguistic choices

for bilinguals and multilinguals in their communication both offline and online. Language

priorities remain constant or evolve depending on changes in users’ lifestyles, their academic

or working environments, and other factors. Based on our previous research, it has been found

that in online communication (Twitter and Facebook) in Ukraine, the Russian language is

significantly prioritized (Pavliy and Lewis 2016, 2017). This case study aims to investigate

the current linguistic priorities of Ukrainians in Japan. The researcher addresses the changes

in their language use, and describes the factors which brought forth these changes. This

qualitative research deals with the data taken from interviews with the Ukrainian bilinguals

who have lived in Japan for more than one year. The current use of English, Japanese,

Ukrainian and Russian by interviewees in their daily life in Japan is discussed in relation to

demographics, education, academic background and current occupation of the interviewees.

The constraints for their linguistic choices are taken into consideration (Buda 1991; Ritchie

and Bhatia 2004). This research also deals with personal circumstances of the individuals

(such as changes in family or other relationships) and the impact of political events which

fostered changes in language preferences.

Keywords: bilingualism, language use, language choices, identity, online media

References

Buda, J.K. 1991. “Language choice.” Otsuma Review 24, 1-7.

Pavliy, B. and J. Lewis. 2016. “The performance of Twitter’s Language Detection Algorithm

and Google’s compact language detector on language detection in Ukrainian and

Russian tweets.” Bulletin of Toyama University of International Studies Faculty of

Contemporary Society 8: 99-106.


29

Pavliy, B. and J. Lewis. 2017. “Issues in identifying the age of Twitter users in Ukraine.”

179-190.

Ritchie, W.C. and T.K. Bhatia. 2004. The Handbook of Bilingualism. Oxford: Blackwell.

Bartosz Pietrzak

Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland

[email protected]

I pierced his honor – conceptual metaphors of honor in pre-Classical Arabic within their

macro- and medial context

Both Western orientalists and modern Arabic historians ascribe pre-Islamic Arabs with a great

interest in protection of their honor by all means necessary. This mentality has been preserved

despite Islamic teaching and may still be found in modern Arabic society.

The aim of the paper is to juxtapose data from observations on conceptual metaphors

being employed in pre-Classical Arabic conceptualization of phenomena of ˁayb ‘dishonor,

disgrace’ with macro- and medial context of the use of lexical items referring to the concepts

related to these phenomena. The macro-context is understood here according to Culpeper

(2010: 74) as “belief systems of particular social groups” and corresponds to the socio-

cultural environment of the pre-Classical Arabic variety users. Whereas, the medial context is

seen as the social situation of the use of this variety (Culpeper 2010: 73) and in the study

might be identified as the predominant type of its use as a poetry dialect.

The goal was achieved based on application of the following methods. First, the

lexical items used in reference to the ˁayb related phenomena were selected using medieval

topic-based dictionaries (Ibn as-Sikkit 1998; al-Hamaḏ n 1991). Next, the items were

analyzed from the perspective of conceptual metaphors employment. The analysis included

observations on unambiguous lexemes, which were described in terms of radial networks and

idiomatic expressions. The observations were made on the basis of Classical Arabic medieval

dictionaries (al-H al l ibn Aḥmad 2003; Ibn Durayd 1987; al- awhar 2009; Ibn Manḏ r 2009)

and subsequently, were refined using a corpus of pre-Classical Arabic texts.

In conclusions, the study suggests existence of the conceptual metaphor ʕIR

(HONOR) IS BODY, which might be seen as corresponding to pre-Islamic society

researchers’ view on protection of one’s honor at all cost. As such, it demonstrates how the

socio-cultural factors shaped the lexicon of pre-Classical Arabic. Moreover, it implies that the

lexicon consists of highly figurative means of expression, pointing towards the medial context

being the major agent of constituting these characteristics.

Keywords: pre-Classical Arabic, pre-Islamic poetry, conceptual metaphors, medial and

macro-context, pragmaphilology

References

al- awhar . 2009. Aṣ- iḥ ḥ. al- hira (Cairo): D r al- ad ṯ.

al-Hamaḏ n . 1991. Kit b al-Alf al-Kit b yya. Bayr t: D r al-Kutub al-ˁIlm yya.

al-H al l ibn Aḥmad. 2003. Kit b al-ˁAyn murattabᵃⁿ ˁalà ḥur f al-Maˁğam [The Book of ˁAyn

Arranged in the Alphabetic Order]. Bayr t: D r al-Kutub al-ˁIlm yya.

Ibn Durayd.1987. amharat al-Luġa [Compilation of Speech]. Bayr t: D r al-ˁIlm li-l-

Mal y n.


30

Ibn Manḏ r. 2009. Lis n al-ˁArab [The Language of Arabs]. Bayr t: D r al-Kutub al-

ˁIlm yya.

Ibn as-Sikkit. 1998. Kit b al-Alf . Bayr t: Maktabat Lubn n N ir n.

Culpeper, Jonathan. 2010. “Historical Sociopragmatics”. In Irma Traavitsainen, Andreas H.

Jucker (eds.), Historical Pragmatics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 69-34.

Anna Shershnova

Kyiv National Linguistic University, Ukraine

[email protected]

Meaning-making in English-Language Haiku

According to Eisenstein (1934), one of the greatest film directors of the 20th century,

montage is the main aesthetic principle of not only cinematography but art in general. He

defined montage as an idea that arose from the collision of independent film shots, often

opposite to one another (Eisenstein 1929). Surprisingly enough, his theory of montage was

fueled by the dynamics of Japanese haiku, a lyrical poetic form known for its ability to

convey experience and feeling through a very limited number of words. Research has shown

that the key principles of Eisenstein’s theory of montage are applicable to exploring the

process of meaning-making in haiku written in English. Although English-language haiku is

developing in its own linguocultural context, it has retained such characteristics of its

Japanese counterpart as shortness, suggestiveness, simplicity as well as the technique of

juxtaposing a couple of images whose interaction results in the Aha! moment (Swede 2000).

In a normative English-language haiku (a three-lined verse), the cut between two semantically

independent parts is placed either after the first or second line of the verse. The emergent

‘tense’ relationship between seemingly unrelated images prompts the reader to establish

connections between the two parts. From a cognitive perspective, this process entails

recognizing image schemas, skeletal patterns recurring in our daily bodily and social

experiences (Johnson 1987). The relationships between juxtaposed poetic details, embodied

by image schemas, remind of the parallels that exist between the source and target domains in

metaphorical mapping while the effect of such juxtaposition is similar to the one arising from

the collision of shots in montage. Thus, meaning-making in English-language haiku can be

viewed as poetic montage, a cognitive process of mapping activated by the juxtaposition of

two or three independent images in a given poem.

Keywords: English-language haiku, juxtaposition, montage

References

Eisenstein, S. 1929. “The cinematographic principle and the ideogram.” In J. Leyda (ed.) Film

Form: Essays in Film Theory. New York: Hartcourt, 28-44.

Eisenstein, S. 1934. “Through theater to cinema.” In Film Form: Essays in Film Theory. In J.

Leyda (ed.). New York: Hartcourt, 3-17.

Johnson, M. 1987. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and

Reason. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Swede, G. 2000. “Foreword.” In G. Swede (ed.). Global Haiku: Twenty-five Poets

Worldwide, 5-7. Ontario: Mosaic Press.


31

Iryna Shevchenko

V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Ukraine

[email protected]

Impoliteness in a historical social context: A case for restoration comedies

In pragmatics, (im)politeness has been mostly treated on the basis of face theory (Brown,

Levinson 1988), relevance theory, etc. (Culpeper 2009). To understand how impoliteness

interpretations are arrived at by on-stage hearers in drama, a classification of basic impoliteness

strategies is needed. To this end, a cognitive pragmatic view of impoliteness is taken. In this

presentation, first, parameters of impoliteness such as context, situation, and others are identified.

The decisive parameter is perlocution (emotional offence of the hearer) (Culpeper 2009), and the

contextual trigger of ‘impolite’ sense-making is violation of social norms. All impoliteness

parameters are context-driven and comprise socio-cultural (participants’ roles, face, norms,

power, social distance) and linguistic-pragmatic issues (intention, emotion, ranking of imposition,

perlocution).

Second, a set of impoliteness strategies is defined. A semantic analysis of the concept

name ‘impolite’ and its synonyms provides a basis for a lexical semantic field ‘Impoliteness’

which has six micro fields motivated by their hypersemes. It is argued that a set of impoliteness

strategies is determined by the conceptual scheme IMPOLITENESS. At a higher level of

abstraction, being based on this semantic field the scheme proves to be a unity of five slots which

specify the concept (DEVALUATION, INTRUSION, EXCLUSION, IMPOSITION,

IMPROPRIETY), and slot MOCK IMPOLITENESS which is analogous to it (Shevchenko,

Petrenko 2018). Conceptual slots and their elaborations correspond to particular discourse

strategies and tactics of impoliteness.

There are three main scenarios of impolite sense-making depending upon the contextual

configuration of impoliteness markers (obscene lexemes, dramatist’s remarks, etc), its triggers and

perlocution. They correspond to historical cultural and social norms and mores of Restoration

England and prove the context-driven nature of impoliteness strategies.

Keywords: cognitive pragmatics, impoliteness strategy, conceptual scheme IMPOLITENESS,

social context, restoration

References

Brown, P. and S. Levinson, S. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge

University Press.

Culpeper, J. 2009. “Impoliteness: Using and understanding the language of offence.” ESRC

project website. http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/projects/impoliteness/

Shevchenko, I.S., O.M. Petrenko. 2018. “Dyskursyvni stratehii nevvichlyvosti u kohnityvno-

prahmatychnomu vymiri. [Discursive strategies of impoliteness in cognitive-pragmatic

perspective]”. Visnyk Lvivskoho Natsionalnoho Universytetu. Seriia Filolohiia 68.

Slaměníková Tereza and David Uher

Palacký University in Olomouc, Czech Republic

[email protected], [email protected]

The visible world in sinograms

One of the Chinese writing system's characteristic is the fact that the connection between its basic

units and Chinese language involves the semantic dimension, i.e. each sinogram carries a


32

minimum of one meaning. Moreover, graphic form of each sinogram also contains a kind of clue

to its meaning. With the exception of a relatively small group of sinograms based on the

pictographic or symbolic representation of the object, this semantic connection is established

through graphic components with their own meanings, so called determinatives. Although the use

of them was primarily motivated by graphic differentiation of sinograms, the whole system also

provides a unique insight into human categorization of the world. A map of this world has been

preserved in the oldest known grammatological monograph Xu Shen’s Shuo Wen Jie Zi [The

Meaning Explanation of Primary Characters and Structure Analysis of Secondary Characters]

collecting the lexicon of the written language of Han Dynasty (206 B.C. – 220 A.D.). Its inner

system is unintentionally constructed on the basis of relationship between three mutually

connected semantic levels: semantic domains – determinatives – sinograms. Based on a thorough

analysis of the Shuo Wen Jie Zi, this paper illustrates complexity of the horizontal, respectively

vertical relations within or between these levels. As a result of exemplary demonstrations, it links

the findings of traditional Chinese grammatology with the methods of cultural and cognitive

linguistics and sheds light on the comprehensive semantic network encoded in the Chinese writing

system.

Keywords: grammatology, Chinese writing system, Shuo Wen Jie Zi, semantic domain and

determinatives, semantic structure and sonograms

Konrad Szcześniak

Univerzita Palackého, Olomouc, Czech Republic

University of Silesia, Katowice, Poland

[email protected]

Variation motivated by analogy with fixed chunks

I wish to analyze the variable use of two related forms, namely the reflexive construction (The

defendant talked himself into trouble) and the way construction (The actress danced her way

to stardom). Despite their differences, the two constructions are often used in ways that can be

described as one taking over the other’s expressive functions. Following Mondorf (2011), I

assume that the variation results in part from the historical competition between the two, and

from the fact that the process of specialization is not yet complete. I present another factor

responsible for the overlap, which may keep the specialization from ever being concluded.

Specific uses of a construction can be chunked into phrases which may then be used against

the specifications of the construction they are based on. That is, the kind of variation

discussed here is set in motion by the same mechanism observed in novelty motivated through

local analogies with specific expressions and low-level instances of a construction.

Keywords: resultative constructions, chunking, implicature

References

Mondorf, B. 2011. “Variation and change in English resultative constructions.” Language

Variation and Change 22: 397-421.

Szcześniak, K. (to appear). “Meaning hides in the confusion of the construction.” Cognitive

Linguistic Studies.


33

Aleksandar Trklja

University of Vienna, Austria

[email protected]

Distributional lexicon and the cultural evolution of cognition

According to the dominant view in cognitive linguistics lexical meaning is conceptual (e.g.

Jackendoff, 1983; Talmy 1983; Pinker and Levin, 1991; Johnson and Lakoff, 2002). Machery

(2009) challenges this view and demonstrates that no clear evidences can be found for the

claim that concepts are fundamental units of thoughts. He suggests instead that prototypes,

exemplars, and theories as distinct cognitive processes can be used to provide a more reliable

explanation of cognitive mechanisms. Following the latter view, I propose a model of

Distributional Lexicon for the study of cognitive semantics that approaches linguistic

constructions in terms of a ‘non-reductionist semantic theory’ (Croft, 2001: 62).

The model combines the distributional semantics approach (e.g. Harris, 1957;

Sahlgren, 2008; Baroni, 2013) with usage-based theory (e.g. Tomasello, 2003; Bybee, 2010)

and the theory of cultural evolution of cognition (e.g. Christiansen and Chater, 2008, 2016;

Suddendorf and Corballis, 2007).

I will first demonstrate how lexical domains can be identified and described by using a

statistically-informed corpus linguistics approach to local grammars. These lexical domains

consist of constructions associated with specific local lexico-grammatical relations. Local

grammars are described in terms of ad hoc categories identified through the observation of the

distributional properties of lexical items. Cognitively, the lexical domains will be regarded as

exemplars with specific internal structures.

In the second part of my talk, I will follow the ‘Now-or-Nevr bottleneck’ hypothesis

(Christiansen and Chater, 2008) to discuss how constructions from lexical domains emerge

and how they are processed by language users. In particular, it will be argued, that these

constructions are products of the cumulative cultural evolution of language. In addition, it will

be suggested that this process is underlined by the human ability to semantically

decontextualize expressions and constructions and integrate them into new linguistic and

socio-cultural contexts.

Keywords: lexicon, cognition, corpus linguistics, Distributional Lexicon

References

Baroni, M. 2013. “Composition in distributional semantics.” Language and Linguistics

Compass 7(10): 511–522.

Bybee, J. 2010. Language, Usage and Cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Christiansen, M. H. and N. Chater. 2008. “Language as shaped by the brain.” Behavioral &

Brain Sciences 31: 489-558.

Christiansen, M. H. and N. Chater. 2016. Creating language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Croft, W. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological

Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Harris, Z. S. 1957. “Co-occurrence and transformation in linguistic structure.” Language

33(3): 283-340.

Jackendoff, R. 1983. Semantics and Cognition. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.

Johnson, M. and G. Lakoff. 2002. “Why cognitive linguistics requires embodied realism.”

Cognitive linguistics 13(3): 245-264.


34

Machery, E. 2009. Doing without Concepts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pinker, S. and B. Levin. 1991. Lexical and Conceptual Semantics. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT

Press.

Sahlgren, M. 2008. “The distributional hypothesis.” Rivista di Linguistica 20 (1): 33–53.

Suddendorf, T. M. and M. Corballis. 2007. “The evolution of foresight: What is mental time

travel, and is it unique to humans?” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 30 (3): 299-313.

Talmy, L. 1983. “How language structures space.” Reprinted in Toward a Cognitive

Semantics – Volume 1. Cambridge: MIT Press 2000. Originally printed in H. and L.

Acredolo (eds.), Spatial Orientation: Theory, Research, and Application. New York:

Plenum Press.

Tomasello, M. 2003. Constructing a Language: A Usage-based Theory of Language

Acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Agnieszka Uberman


[email protected]

Knowledge-related metaphors and proverbs in English and Polish

Figurative language use is common in daily discourse. The presence of metaphorical

extensions as well as proverbs is considered as the reflection of the linguistic worldview and

culture of a given speech community. The article aims at researching whether the perception

of the concept of knowledge, as embedded in English and Polish, is convergent or if

significant differences can be noted. The comparative analysis of knowledge-related proverbs

in English and Polish (Manser 2007; Speake 2008; Stone 2006; Hermann and Syjud 2008)

intends to show possible meaning discrepancies which might mirror cultural differences.

Keywords: knowledge, worldview, metaphor, proverb

References

Hermann, B. and J. Syjud. 2008. Księga przysłów. Chorzów: Videograf Edukacja.

Manser, M.H. 2007. The Facts On File Dictionary of Proverbs. New York: Facts On File,

Inc.

Speake, J. (2008). The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Stone J.R. (2006). The Routledge Book of World Proverbs. London and New York:

Routledge.

Adam Warchoł


[email protected]

The power of metaphor’s vividness in a culture-specific context

Seen through the prism of figurative language, the opposition: “conventional-novel” is believed to

constitute “a cline of metaphoricity” (cf. Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Stefanowitsch and Gries 2006;

Urquidi 2015: 221-222). Indeed, conceptual metaphors vary along two major dimensions:

intercultural (cross-cultural) and intracultural (within-culture) (Kövecses 2005, 2009: 24). Taking

John Henry Newman’s (1801-1890) vision of university education, formulated almost two


35

centuries ago in his The Idea of a University (1852), the aim of this presentation is twofold. First,

the presentation discusses the conceptual metaphors that appear to structure Newman’s

conception of university as laid down in his series of lectures delivered at the Catholic University

of Ireland. Second, it tries to establish which of these metaphors are “valid” even today and can

thus be thought of as relating to contemporary university education, being pursued in a completely

different culture-specific context, namely in Poland. My Corpus-based study appears to indicate

that some of Newman’s metaphors, e.g. UNIVERSITY AS A BATTLE FIELD, KNOWLEDGE

IS TRUTH, KNOWLEDGE IS BEAUTY seem to be valid in the Polish context as well. A

number of metaphors are novel though, e.g., UNIVERSITY IS A PLACE TO PRESERVE RARE

SPECIES, UNIVERSITY IS AID TO THOSE IN NEED, UNIVERSITY IS AN OASIS OF

TOLERANCE, etc. Importantly, many present-day metaphors seem to be active not only in Polish

culture, but also in other cultures as well, forming coherent wholes, networks of ideas (Kövecses

2015). As far as linguistic metaphors are concerned, they add vividness to speech (cf. Gibbs 1994:

125f; Goatly 1997: 163f; Sopory and Dillard 2002: 408).

Keywords: conceptual metaphor, context, culture, John Henry Newman university education

References

Gibbs, R. W. 1994. The Poetics of Mind. Figurative Thought, Language and Understanding.

Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.

Goatly, A. 1997. The Language of Metaphors. London: Routledge.

Kövecses, Z. 2005. Metaphor in Culture: Universality and Variation. New York: Cambridge

University Press.

Kövecses, Z. 2009. “Metaphor, culture, and discourse: The pressure of coherence.” In A. Musolff

and J. Zinken (eds.), Metaphor and Discourse. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 11-24.

Kövecses, Z. 2015. Where Metaphors Come from? Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lakoff, G. and M. Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Newman, J. H. 1852. The Idea of a University. London: Longmans, Green and Co. Online version

available at http://www.newmanreader.org/works/idea/in dex.html.

Sopory, P. and J. Dillard. 2002. The persuasive effects of metaphor. A meta analysis. Human

Communication Research 28 (3): 382-419.

Stefanowitsch, A. and S. Gries. 2006. Corpus-Based Approaches to Metaphor and Metonymy.

Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Urquidi, A. 2015. “Meaning construction in creative metaphors: Conventional meaning

integration through generic interfacing in a blend, and conditions of propagation and

lexicalization.” Catalan Journal of Linguistics 14: 219-237.

Agnieszka Wawrzyniak

Adam Mickiewicz University, Kalisz, Poland

[email protected]

ME faith and soth – cultural concepts and discourse markers in Chaucer’s Canterbury

Tales

The aim of the paper is to focus on the conceptual construal of ME faith and soth in The

Canterbury Tales in order to reconstruct the discourse marking, culture in Chaucer’s world, as

well as key values and key words linked with the mediaeval society. The analysis is based on

The Canterbury Tales (The British Library Copies edited by Barbara Bordalejo), online

Middle English Dictionary (MED) and on the online Etymological English Dictionary. The

paper will illustrate how the two concepts differed semantically when juxtaposed with their


36

PDE apparent equivalents. It will attempt to show to which extent the Mediaeval and Present

Day English concepts were overlapping, but also how divergent they were. The aim of the

study analysis is also to analyse various morphological forms related to faith and soth, such as

sothly, unsothly, faithful or unfaithful among others, as well as fixed phrases that encoded

them, such as in faith or by faith. Furthermore, the attempt is also to juxtapose Middle English

and Present Day English concepts of SOTH and FAITH thereby reflecting on two distinct

cultures and hence on two distinct worldviews. In my study I will refer to works by

Wierzbicka (1991, 1992) in an attempt to recreate world out of words (Bartmiński and

Tokarski 1993).

Keywords: mediaeval, ideology, identity, culture, concept

References

Bartmiński, J. and R. Tokarski. (eds.). 1993. O definicjach i definiowaniu. Lublin:

Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-skłodowskiej.

Bordalejo, B. 2003. Caxton’s Canterbury Tales Project: The British Library Copies.

Birmingham: University of Birmingham.

Etymological Dictionary Online. Available at: http://www.etymonline.com.

Middle English Dictionary (MED) online. Available at: http://quod.lib.umich.edu./m/med.

Wierzbicka, A. 1991. Cross-cultural Pragmatics: The Semantics of Human Interaction. New

York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Wierzbicka, A. 1992. Semantics, Culture and Cognition: Universal Human Concepts in

Culture-specific Configurations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Katarzyna Wiśniewska

University of Eastern Finland

[email protected]

Cognitive description of translation: Description of force dynamics and cognitive

retention in literary and audiovisual translation

My PhD dissertation is part of the project, Cognitive Description of Translation, carried out at

the University of Eastern Finland which aims at constructing a systematic and empirically

justified description of translation at the sentence level, following the theoretical framework

put forward by Talmy (2001) and Croft (2004). The project lays the foundations of major

conceptual structuring in language to be configurational structuring, attention, as well as force

and causation. The results of the empirical work carried out so far include evidence on the

dissociation of linguistic and cognitive retention in translation in terms of Figure-Ground

alignment and Force Dynamics with reference to the English–Finnish translation pair

(Mäkisalo and Lehtinen; 2014, 2017 and 2018).

I would like to present my contribution to the project which is my thesis on retention

of force-dynamic event structures in literary and audiovisual translation. The study follows

the schema coined by Mäkisalo and Lehtinen in which the linguistic and cognitive

information retention level is distinguished. The objective is to explore the extent to which

information is retained in both literary and audiovisual translation at both these levels. At the

same time, the study aims to test the results against Mäkisalo and Lehtinen’s Cognitive

Retention Hypothesis, according to which translation is likely to retain more cognitive than

linguistic similarities.


37

The stated issues are to be investigated based on small-scale self-compiled corpora of

fragments of literary texts and subtitles, comprising English, Finnish and Polish materials, by

taking an approach in which the stated hypothesis is to be validated or discredited with the use

of quantitative data obtained, whereas the qualitative part of the study is to analyse how Force

Dynamics is expressed if retained in the translation process. The primary sources, i.e. English

originals as well as Finnish and Polish translations, listed below, are tentative.

Keywords: audiovisual translation, cognitive description, cognitive linguistics, cognitive

retention hypothesis, force dynamics, literary translation

References

Croft, W. and A.D. Cruse. 2004. Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Mäkisalo, J. and M. Lehtinen. 2014. “Dissociation of linguistic cognitive description in

translation: The cognitive Figure-Ground alignment”. In H. Paulasto, L. Meriläinen,

H. Riionheimo and M. Kok (eds). Language Contacts at the Crossroads of

Disciplines, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 191–211.

Mäkisalo, J. and M. Lehtinen. 2017. “Changes in Figure-Ground alignment in translation:

Condensing information in subtitling”. In M. Luodonpää-Manni, E. Penttilä and J.

Viimaranta (eds). Empirical Approaches to Cognitive Linguistics: Analysing Real-Life

Data. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 49–74.

Mäkisalo, J. and M. Lehtinen. 2018. “Voimadynamiikan kognitiivinen rakenne ja sen

säilyminen käännettäessä”. [The cognitive structure of Force Dynamics retained in

translation]. Poster in the XVI Symposium for Translation and Interpreting, KäTu

2018: The Price of Translation, University of Turku, Finland, 13–14 April 2018.

McEwan, I. 2001. Atonement. London: Jonathan Cape.

McEwan, I. 2002/2018. Pokuta. Translated from English by Andrzej Szulc. Warsaw:

Wydawnictwo Albatros.

McEwan, I. 2002. Sovitus. Translated from English by Juhani Lindholm. Helsinki: Otava.

Pokuta [Atonement]. 2009. [DVD]. Warsaw: Universal Studios.

Sovitus. [Atonement]. 2011. [DVD]. Solna: Universal Pictures Nordic AB.

Talmy, L. 2001. Toward a Cognitive Semantics: Vol. 1. Concept Structuring Systems.

Cambridge: MIT Press.

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