Cognitive Linguistics Investigations

The total body of papers presented in this volume captures research across a variety of languages and language groups, to show how particular elements of linguistic description draw on otherwise separate aspects (or fields) of linguistic investigation. As such, this volume captures a diversity of research interest from the field of cognitive linguistics. These areas include: lexical semantics, cognitive grammar, metaphor, prototypes, pragmatics, narrative and discourse, computational and translation models; and are considered within the contexts of: language change, child language acquisition, language and culture, grammatical features and word order and gesture. Despite possible differences in philosophical approach to the role of language in cognitive tasks, these papers are similar in a fundamental way: they all share a commitment to the view that human categorization involves mental concepts that have fuzzy boundaries and are culturally and situation-based.

Ignacy Nasalski, Jagiellonian University of Cracow, Poland, in Cognitive Linguistics, Vol. 21:2 (2010):
Prepared by researchers from universities in Australia, New Zealand, Spain, France, USA, Turkey and Holland, this volume constitutes a significant contribution to the field of cognitive and cultural linguistics. Just as the subtitle 'Across languages, fields and philosophical boundaries' suggests, the fifteen chapters cover an extensive selection of concepts and notions that are of interest for everyone dealing with such fields as language acquisition, video data analysis, gesture, Blending Theory, fictive motion and the like. [...] An important merit of the book is the fact that some papers go beyond mere linguistic investigations, and provide revealing insights into some cultural (Palmer; Goddard; Turner), socio-political (Coulson & Oakley) and psychological (Uehara; Pu) phenomena.