Comparison with cognitive semantics

While the assumptions presented in Table 13.3 stand in direct opposition to those adopted within cognitive semantics, there are nevertheless some important similarities between the two approaches. Firstly, both approaches are concerned with explaining sentence meaning and with the nature of the relationships between the words in a sentence, as well as between the words and the grammatical structure in which they occur. Secondly, both formal semantics and cognitive semantics accept the existence of a real external world which bears upon the nature of linguistic meaning. For example, both theories distinguish between entities, properties, processes and relations. Thirdly, both approaches assume that humans have stable knowledge of the external world which is reflected in language, and attempt to model this knowledge. While the earliest truth-conditional models relied upon a direct link between language and external world (referential or denotational models), modern formal semantics attempts to model the system of human knowledge that mediates between linguistic symbols and external reality. Therefore, like cognitive semantics, formal semantics aims to construct a representational model.

Despite these important similarities, the differences remain significant. Beginning with fundamental assumptions, while formal semanticists assume an innate and modular system of specialised linguistic knowledge, cognitive semanticists reject this view in favour of a semantic system that provides ‘prompts’ to the rich conceptual system that it reflects. In adopting an objectivist approach to cognition, truth-conditional semanticists see human thought as ‘disembodied’ because linguistic meaning is conceived in terms of correspondence theory. In contrast, in adopting a broadly experientialist or empiricist approach to cognition, cognitive semanticists conceive meaning as the imaginative projection of bodily experience onto abstract cognitive models.

 Turning to how each model views the nature of linguistic meaning, formal semanticists argue that one of the primary goals of a theory of linguistic meaning is to address the informational significance of language. From this perspective, language is used primarily to describe states of affairs in the ‘world’, which are thus central to the account of linguistic meaning, as we have seen. This idea is represented by Figure 13.3.

In Figure 13.3, the arrow from the object language to the metalanguage represents the translation process, which gives rise to a representation in the unambiguous and universally applicable language of predicate calculus. Meaning then derives from how well the values associated with the metalanguage correspond to a given state of affairs in the ‘world’, real or hypothetical.

In contrast, cognitive semanticists argue that the role of language is to prompt for conceptual representations (including simulations in the sense dis cussed in Chapter 7), so that meaning derives not from an objectively defined ‘world’ but from structured mental representations that reflect and model the world we experience as embodied human beings. According to the view in cognitive semantics, these mental representations are partly stable (stored) know ledge systems and partly dynamic (on-line) conceptualisations. It follows from this view that linguistic meaning resides not within a specialised system of linguistic knowledge but at the conceptual level itself. The cognitive view of the nature of linguistic meaning is represented by Figure 13.4.

Figure 13.4 represents the idea that two basic kinds of experience (sensory perceptual experience of the external world and subjective experience from the introspective ‘world’) give rise to conceptual representations which can lead to simulations. Language prompts for these conceptual representations, serving as ‘points of access’ to relatively stable encyclopaedic knowledge (this is indicated by the arrow from ‘language’ to ‘representation’). Conceptual representations are also subject to further processes of dynamic meaning construction. Meaning-construction can in turn have consequences for language, for example by giving rise to language change (this is indicated by the arrow from ‘meaning construction’ to ‘language’). For example, using the lexical item mouse to refer to a piece of computer hardware that ‘resembles’ a mouse is a consequence of single-scope blending; recall from the previous chapter that this involves the frame from one input space serving to organise the structure projected to the blended space. However, this blend has consequences for language: as a consequence of the perceived resemblance between a mouse and an item of computer hardware, the conceptual integration network that results affects conventional language use. Indeed, the conventional application of the lexical item mouse to the ‘computer mouse’ can be seen as testimony to the impact of blending on language. This illustrates the usage-based nature of the cognitive model, where language both gives rise to (prompts for) conceptualisation (affecting our conceived ‘reality’) and in turn is modified and transformed by the resulting conceptual representations.

A further important difference relates to the nature of the relationship between semantics (context-independent meaning) and pragmatics (context dependent meaning). As we have seen, cognitive semanticists adopt an encyclopaedic view of meaning together with a dynamic context-driven view of meaning construction, which entails that there is no principled distinction between semantic and pragmatic knowledge. In contrast, formal semanticists assume a sharp boundary between the two types of knowledge. According to this view, semantic knowledge is stable, conventionalised knowledge that is expressed by predictable form-meaning correspondences and is contained within the linguistic system. In contrast, pragmatic inferences cannot be predicted from linguistic form; pragmatic knowledge involves more generalised inferencing processes that do not relate specifically to language but operate over the output of the language system together with non-linguistic contextual factors. This is the issue that Relevance Theory addresses, to which we turn directly.

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اخبار العتبة العباسية المقدسة

العتبة العباسية المقدسة: نهج البلاغة مصدر صافٍ للفكر والمعرفة ومحصِّنٌ من الشبهات

العتبة العباسية المقدسة تطلق محاضرات محفل نهج البلاغة الأسبوعي في ذي قار

العتبتان المقدستان الحسينية والعباسية تدعوان للمشاركة في مهرجان الشموع بنسخته السادسة والعشرين

بالتعاون مع مستشفى الكفيل.. قسم الشؤون الطبّية يواصل إقامة البرنامج التدريبي لملاكاته النسوية

المزيد

الآخبار الصحية

الصحة العالمية تكشف حقيقة انتشار فيروس نيباه خارج الهند

متى يصبح محيط الخصر "مؤشر خطر"؟

دراسة تكشف دور "العوامل الوراثية" في تحديد عمر الإنسان

رائحة كريهة في الجسم.. "علامة خفية" أخطر مما تتصور

المزيد

الآخبار التكنلوجية

مايكروسوفت تكشف عن الجيل الثاني من شرائحها للذكاء الاصطناعي

خرافة "ثمانية أكواب يوميا".. كم من الماء يحتاج جسمك فعليا؟

هل توجد حياة خارج كوكبنا؟.. اكتشاف جديد يثير اهتمام العلماء

اكتشاف الخلايا المسؤولة عن فقدان ذاكرة الطفولة

المزيد

مواضيع ذات صلة

Ostensive communication

Relevance Theory

Semantic interpretation and matching

Translating natural language into a metalanguage

Compositionality of meaning

Truth-conditional semantics and the generative enterprise

Sentences and propositions

The inconsistency of natural language

Object language versus metalanguage

Meaning, truth and reality

Truth-conditional semantics

Cognitive semantics in context