Get fulltext from our e-platform
Cognitive Sociolinguistics
Social and cultural variation in cognition and language use
Editors
This volume is intended to be a contribution to the rapidly growing field of research into Cognitive Sociolinguistics which draws on the convergence of methods and theoretical frameworks typically associated with Cognitive Linguistics and Sociolinguistics. The papers in this volume, written by internationally renowned scholars in the fields of sociolinguistics (e.g. Labov) and cognitive sociolinguistics, seek to explore and systematize the key theoretical and epistemological bases for the emergence of this socio-cognitive paradigm. More specifically, the papers, originally published in Review of Cognitive Linguistics 10:2 (2012), focus on terms and concepts which are foundational to the discussion of Cognitive Sociolinguistics such as the role of cognition in the sociolinguistic enterprise; the social recontextualization of cognition; variability in cognitive systems; usage-based conceptions of language; pragmatic variation and cultural models of thought; cultural conceptualizations and lexicography as well as cognitive processing models and perceptual dialectology. All the papers are anchored in instrumental empirical data analysis.
The volume provides a welcome contribution to the field for anyone interested in Cognitive Linguistics and its new developments. The seven papers included in this book were originally presented at the 34th International LAUD Symposium on Cognitive Sociolinguistics, which took place in March 2010 at the University of Koblenz-Landau (Germany).
The volume provides a welcome contribution to the field for anyone interested in Cognitive Linguistics and its new developments. The seven papers included in this book were originally presented at the 34th International LAUD Symposium on Cognitive Sociolinguistics, which took place in March 2010 at the University of Koblenz-Landau (Germany).
[Benjamins Current Topics, 59] 2014. v, 214 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 18 April 2014
Published online on 18 April 2014
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- The emergence of Cognitive Sociolinguistics: An introductionMartin Pütz, Justyna A. Robinson and Monika Reif | pp. 1–22
- Articles
- What is to be learned: The community as the focus of social cognitionWilliam Labov | pp. 23–51
- Variation, structure and normsPeter Harder | pp. 53–73
- Flexibility and change in distributed cognitive systems: A view from Cognitive AnthropologyDavid B. Kronenfeld | pp. 75–105
- Pragmatic variation and cultural modelsKlaus P. Schneider | pp. 107–132
- Cognitive Sociolinguistics in L2-variety dictionaries of EnglishHans-Georg Wolf and Frank Polzenhagen | pp. 133–160
- Spread of on-going changes in an immigrant languageA. Seza Doğruöz and Stefan Th. Gries | pp. 161–186
- Defining the cognitive mechanisms underlying reactions to foreign accented speech: An experimental approachAndrew J. Pantos | pp. 187–212
- Index | pp. 213–214
“Since their very inception, Cognitive Linguistics and Cognitive Grammar have explicitly recognized the fundamental role of social, cultural, and interactive factors. Yet because this recognition has been more a matter of principle than actual practice, the full potential for the mutual enrichment of descriptive-theoretical concerns on the one hand, and sociolinguistic investigation on the other hand, has only begun to be realized. This volume on Cognitive Sociolinguistics points the way toward their meaningful integration. The contributions combine a keen awareness of higher-level issues with the insight that only comes with immersion in the details of usage and variation. One can only be impressed by the quality of the research, the variety of questions addressed, and the range of empirical methods employed.”
Ronald W. Langacker, University of San Diego
“This fascinating collection shows cognitive linguistics gradually coming to terms with social aspects of cognition - how familiar cognitive processes such as categorization apply to the people and situations in which we interact, how variation and attitudes might be modelled cognitively, and how intimately the social context is embedded in our cognition for language and meaning. Indeed, Labov’s contribution argues that our ‘outwardly bound’ language learning capacity is programmed to be sensitive to such things. Hopefully, this collection will persuade other sociolinguists to explore a more cognitive orientation in their work too.”
Richard Hudson, University College London
“This collection contains important contributions in the new field of cognitive sociolinguistics, an interdisciplinary theory aimed at understanding cognitive, social and cultural constraints on linguistic variation. Moving beyond modularity to viewing language variation as an integrated part of general cognition provides a solid foundation for a fruitful new alliance between cognitive linguistics and sociolinguistics capable of achieving significant insights into language use and social meaning.”
Suzanne Romaine, University of Oxford
“Cognitive Sociolinguistics: Social and Cultural Variation in Cognition and Language Use should be a fascinating read for both cognitive linguists and sociolinguists along with anyone else who might be interested in the language-cognition-culturesociety intersection.”
Kim Ebensgaard Jensen, Aalborg University, on Linguist List 26.1176 (02/03/2015)
Cited by (23)
Cited by 23 other publications
Barua, Suranjana & Dimple Choudhury
Degani, Marta
Altakhaineh, Abdel Rahman Mitib, Aseel Zibin & Lama Ahmed Khalifah
Keškić, Kader Baş
2023. Conceptualization of goat in West African Englishes. In Cultural Linguistics and Critical Discourse Studies [Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 103], ► pp. 105 ff.
Christensen, Tanya Karoli & Torben Juel Jensen
Joshi, Swati & Claire Jeantils
Robinson, Justyna A. & Julie Weeds
Tincheva, Nelly
2022. Political speeches. In Figurativity and Human Ecology [Figurative Thought and Language, 17], ► pp. 85 ff.
Tincheva, Nelly
Wu, Shuqiong & Qiaoling Liang
2022. Review of Kristiansen, Franco, De Pascale, Rosseel & Zhang (2021): Cognitive Sociolinguistics Revisited. Interaction Studies. Social Behaviour and Communication in Biological and Artificial Systems 23:2 ► pp. 341 ff.
Bakrim, Noury
Morin, Cameron, Guillaume Desagulier & Jack Grieve
杨, 松
Benczes, Réka & Bence Ságvári
Condamines, Anne
2018. Is “to fish in a river” equivalent to “to fish a river”?. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 5:2 ► pp. 208 ff.
Serrano, María José
Shibuya, Yoshikata & Kim Ebensgaard Jensen
Callies, Marcus & Alexander Onysko
2017. Metaphor variation in Englishes around the world. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 4:1 ► pp. 1 ff.
Onysko, Alexander
2017. Conceptual metaphor variation in meaning interpretation. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 4:1 ► pp. 7 ff.
Dąbrowska, Ewa
Romano, Manuela & Maria Dolores Porto
2016. Discourse, cognition and society. In Exploring Discourse Strategies in Social and Cognitive Interaction [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 262], ► pp. 1 ff.
Millar, Neil & Susan Hunston
2015. Adjectives, communities, and taxonomies of evaluative meaning. Functions of Language 22:3 ► pp. 297 ff.
Robinson, Justyna A.
2014. Quantifying polysemy in Cognitive Sociolinguistics. In Corpus Methods for Semantics [Human Cognitive Processing, 43], ► pp. 87 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 march 2026. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.