The volume presents an up-to-date collection of methodologically sensitive contributions providing mainly enthusiastic, at times also critical support for the cognitive-linguistic enterprise. The book is important for the advancement of cognitive linguistics because the contributions demonstrate the seriousness of its ambitions to develop into a set of testable linguistic approaches. For the same reason, the volume is a contribution to our understanding of language in general, since it puts a promising modern approach on firmer ground. Assets of the book include the wide range of linguistic phenomena studied (individual concepts, fundamental semantic problems like vagueness and polysemy, grammatical issues incl. gender and tense, collocations, constructions and speech acts) and the scope of applied perspectives including lexicographical, computational, developmental and critical discourse ones. The languages investigated are English, German, Dutch, Polish and Italian. Common to the contributions is the desire to bring together observed patterns of linguistic usage with concepts and models established in cognitive linguistics. In addition, all contributions have an empirical basis and emphasize the need to rely on a sound methodology. The linguistic phenomena investigated span the range from the lexico-conceptual and collocational level to constructions, grammatical categories and functions. Two complementary perspectives of language and cognition are represented in the volume: In one group, the established methods of psycholinguistic experimentation, quantitative corpus analysis and computational simulation are exploited to demonstrate the viability and to increase the plausibility of cognitive-linguistic thinking. The second group tests well-known cognitive-linguistic approaches like Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the Theory of Idealized Cognitive Models and Construction Grammar against authentic data demonstrating their applicability and explanatory potential. Both groups include contributions reaching beyond the scope of traditional cognitive-linguistic topics, e.g. by taking a critical stance of reductionist cognitive thinking. The volume is of interest to cognitive linguists, psycholinguists, theoretical linguists, lexicologists, and lexicographers.

There is an increasing awareness in linguistics that linguistic patterns can be explained with recourse to general cognitive processes. The contributions collected in this volume pursue such a usage-based cognitive linguistic approach by presenting empirical investigations of lexical and grammatical patterns and probing into their implications for the relations between language structure, use and cognition.

The volume presents an up-to-date collection of methodologically sensitive contributions providing mainly enthusiastic, at times also critical support for the cognitive-linguistic enterprise. The book is important for the advancement of cognitive linguistics because the contributions demonstrate the seriousness of its ambitions to develop into a set of testable linguistic approaches. For the same reason, the volume is a contribution to our understanding of language in general, since it puts a promising modern approach on firmer ground. Assets of the book include the wide range of linguistic phenomena studied (individual concepts, fundamental semantic problems like vagueness and polysemy, grammatical issues incl. gender and tense, collocations, constructions and speech acts) and the scope of applied perspectives including lexicographical, computational, developmental and critical discourse ones. The languages investigated are English, German, Dutch, Polish and Italian. Common to the contributions is the desire to bring together observed patterns of linguistic usage with concepts and models established in cognitive linguistics. In addition, all contributions have an empirical basis and emphasize the need to rely on a sound methodology. The linguistic phenomena investigated span the range from the lexico-conceptual and collocational level to constructions, grammatical categories and functions. Two complementary perspectives of language and cognition are represented in the volume: In one group, the established methods of psycholinguistic experimentation, quantitative corpus analysis and computational simulation are exploited to demonstrate the viability and to increase the plausibility of cognitive-linguistic thinking. The second group tests well-known cognitive-linguistic approaches like Conceptual Metaphor Theory, the Theory of Idealized Cognitive Models and Construction Grammar against authentic data demonstrating their applicability and explanatory potential. Both groups include contributions reaching beyond the scope of traditional cognitive-linguistic topics, e.g. by taking a critical stance of reductionist cognitive thinking. The volume is of interest to cognitive linguists, psycholinguists, theoretical linguists, lexicologists, and lexicographers.

This is the first volume of a two-volume work that introduces a new and fundamentally different conception of language structure and linguistic investigation. The central claim of cognitive grammar is that grammar forms a continuum with lexicon and is fully describable in terms of symbolic units (i.e. form-meaning pairings). In contrast to current orthodoxy, the author argues that grammar is not autonomous with respect to semantics, but rather reduces to patterns for the structuring and symbolization of conceptual content. Reviews It is impossible within the limits of a review to discuss, or even do justice to, the wealth of information and genuine insights that the book contains. . . . Let us look forward to seeing the continuation of this promising approach to language. Langacker has written a highly stimulating first part; it will be exciting to see the sequel. Canadian Journal of Linguistics It represents important changes in the thrust of linguistic approaches to language. . . . It is rich, full, and thought-provoking. . . . The issues it raises are significant and will be much debated in the future. Linguistic Anthropology Understanding Langacker s grammar is made easier by the fact that, instead of using mathematical formalisms to prove his points, he uses common knowledge of language to persuade the reader. . . . The book is valuable for several factors in addition to its clarification of grammar. The insights into verbal thought and meaning are prime reasons for recommending the book to the semantically inclined. Et cetera"

The papers compiled in the present volume aim at investigating the many fruitful manners in which cognitive linguistics can expand further on cognitive translation studies. Some papers (e.g. Halverson, Muñoz-Martín, Martín de León) take a theoretical stand, since the epistemological and ontological bases of both areas (cognitive linguistics and translation studies) should be known before specific contributions of cognitive linguistic to translation are tackled. Several works in the volume attempt to illustrate how some of the notions imported from cognitive linguistics may contribute to enrich our understanding of the translation process in a general translation problem such as metaphor (e.g. Samaniego), the relationship between form and meaning (e.g. Tabakowska, Rojo and Valenzuela) or cultural aspects (e.g. Bernárdez, Sharifian/Jamarani). Others use translation as an empirical field to test some of the basic assumptions of cognitive linguistics such as frames (e.g. Boas), metonymy (e.g. Brdar/Brdar-Szabó), and lexicalisation patterns (e.g. Ibarretxe-Antuñano/Filipovi?). Finally, another set of papers (e.g. Feist, Hatzidaki) opens up new lines of investigation for experimental research, a very promising area still underdeveloped.

Within cognitive and functional approaches to language structure and grammaticality, analogy and contrast represent two fundamental human cognitive capacities, which, up to now, have mostly been examined separately. This volume seeks to bridge that gap and in doing so it brings together cutting-edge theoretical and empirical research in the field. The chapters in this book examine analogy and contrast across a variety of languages (English, Finnish, Hungarian, Polish, Russian), for different language phenomena (constructions, lexical semantics, morphology, sentence structure, text organization), and with the use of various methods (corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, experimental methods, qualitative analysis, quantitative analysis). This state-of-the-art research presented in the book should be of interest to specialists within Cognitive Linguistics, corpus linguistics, construction grammar, discourse analysis, translation studies, metaphor research, and cross-cultural research.

The volume presents an innovative set of researches featuring theoretical and practical discussions of the proverb in cognition and culture. To date, there seems to be a need for state-of-the-art research into this subject matter. This volume aims at responding to this need. The chapters contribute, from a Cognitive Linguistics interdisciplinary perspective, to the existing body of literature on the proverb. The book begins with a first part containing three chapters concerned with theoretical discussions of proverbs in cognition and culture. The three chapters in the second part ponder proverbs within a cognitive-cross-cultural perspective. The third part of the volume includes three chapters that deal with the proverbs of individual languages and cultures. The three chapters in the fourth part study proverbs and/or related phenomena from a cognitive and cultural perspective: snowclones, idioms, and proverbial phrases. This book will be of interest to academics interested in proverbs within a cognitive linguistic framework and to scholars in the areas of language studies, applied linguistics, language teaching and learning, and Cognitive Linguistics in general, and to those researchers who wish to refine their knowledge about the cognitive activities featuring proverb use and their interaction with sociocultural contextual variables.