This collection takes a cognitive linguistic view on analyzing language and presents innovative contemporary Finnish research to the international audience. The volume brings together nine chapters presenting empirical case studies that rely on various kinds of corpus data and experimental data or combine both types of empirical evidence. The topics vary from semantics to grammatical description, from terminological choices to language acquisition, and they study language from perspectives as diverse as psycholinguistics, comparative linguistics, and translation studies. A multi-methodological approach to linguistic research is promoted in this book. The idea is that language in all its diversity can best be studied by using the entire spectrum of modern quantitative and qualitative methods. It will appeal to academic readers, students, and established researchers, interested in the study of authentic linguistic material especially from the cognitive perspective.

Cognitive Linguistics takes an experientialist approach towards language, emphasizing the centrality of (physical) experience for cognitive development. That is, cognition is regarded as embodied, and language - as part of the human cognitive system - is shaped by how human beings interact with their physical and social environment. Thus, language is usage-based and form-meaning mappings can be explained and systematized on the basis of their conceptual motivation. Despite the pedagogical potential of this theory, Cognitive Linguistic applications in foreign language teaching and learning are still in their initial stages and empirical research testing the effect of Cognitive-Linguistic teaching approaches in real classroom settings is rather scarce. The aim of this monograph is to provide insight into key tenets of the Cognitive Linguistic framework under the premise of their relevance for foreign language pedagogy. Empirical studies are presented focusing on how phrasal verbs can be taught from a Cognitive Linguistic perspective via awareness-raising methods. Based on statistical analyses and considering individual learner variables such as language aptitude, cognitive load and how students evaluated their own learning outcome, the author discusses the merits of a Cognitive Linguistic approach to phrasal verbs.

Methods in Cognitive Linguistics is an introduction to empirical methodology for language researchers. Intended as a handbook to exploring the empirical dimension of the theoretical questions raised by Cognitive Linguistics, the volume presents guidelines for employing methods from a variety of intersecting disciplines, laying out different ways of gathering empirical evidence. The book is divided into five sections. Methods and Motivations provides the reader with the preliminary background in scientific methodology and statistics. The sections on Corpus and Discourse Analysis, and Sign Language and Gesture describe different ways of investigating usage data. Behavioral Research describes methods for exploring mental representation, simulation semantics, child language development, and the relationships between space and language, and eye movements and cognition. Lastly, Neural Approaches introduces the reader to ERP research and to the computational modeling of language.

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.

Cognitive Sociolinguistics draws on the rich theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics and focuses on the social factors that underlie the variability of meaning and conceptualization. In the last decade, the field has expanded in various way. The current volume takes stock of current and emerging advances in the field in short academic contributions. The studies collected in this book have a usage-based approach to language variation and change, drawing on the theoretical framework of Cognitive Linguistics and are sensitive to social variation, be it cross-linguistic or language-internal. Three types of contributions are collected in this book. First, it contains theoretical overview papers on the domains that have witnessed expansion in recent years. Second, it presents novel research ideas in proof-of-concept contributions, aimed at blue-sky research and out-of-the-box linguistic analyses. Third, it showcases recent empirical studies within the field. By combining these three types of contributions, the book provides an encompassing overview of novel developments in the field of Cognitive Sociolinguistics.

Contemporary data analytics involves extracting insights from data and translating them into action. With its turn towards empirical methods and convergent data sources, cognitive linguistics is a fertile context for data analytics. There are key differences between data analytics and statistical analysis as typically conceived. Though the former requires the latter, it emphasizes the role of domain-specific knowledge. Statistical analysis also tends to be associated with preconceived hypotheses and controlled data. Data analytics, on the other hand, can help explore unstructured datasets and inspire emergent questions. This volume addresses two key aspects in data analytics for cognitive linguistic work. Firstly, it elaborates the bottom-up guiding role of data analytics in the research trajectory, and how it helps to formulate and refine questions. Secondly, it shows how data analytics can suggest concrete courses of research-based action, which is crucial for cognitive linguistics to be truly applied. The papers in this volume impart various data analytic methods and report empirical studies across different areas of research and application. They aim to benefit new and experienced researchers alike.

Review text: "Overall, this volume is an important contribution to the development of empirical Cognitive Semantics. This collection of high-quality papers provides the reader with an insight into the most important empirical approaches in corpus-driven semantic research."Natalia Levshina in: Linguist List 20.3011.

Nearly three decades since the publication of the seminal "Metaphors We Live By," Cognitive Linguistics is now a mature theoretical and empirical enterprise, with a voluminous associated literature. It is arguably the most rapidly expanding school in modern linguistics, and one of the most exciting areas of research within the interdisciplinary project known as cognitive science. As such, Cognitive Linguistics is increasingly attracting a broad readership both within linguistics as well as from neighbouring disciplines including other cognitive and social sciences, and from disciplines within the humanities. This volume contains over 20 papers by leading experts in cognitive linguistics which survey the state of the art and new directions in cognitive linguistics. The volume is divided into 5 sections covering all the traditional areas of study in cognitive linguistics, as well as newer areas, including applications and extensions. Sections include: Approaches to semantics; Approaches to metaphor and blending; Approaches to grammar; Language, embodiment and cognition; Extensions and applications of cognitive linguistics."

This series of lectures provides an overview of the author's work on quantitative applications in cognitive linguistics by discussing a wide range of studies involving corpus-linguistic as well as experimental work. After a discussion of how corpus linguistics, cognitive linguistics, and psycholinguistics relate to each other, the author discusses empirical and statistical studies of a wide variety of phenomena including morphophonology (morphological blends and alliteration effects), corpus-based cognitive semantics, frequency and association at the syntax-lexis interface. The book concludes with chapters exemplifying the role that bottom-up approaches can take, the role of statistical methods more generally, and the role of converging evidence from corpus and experimental data.The lectures for this book were given at The China International Forum on Cognitive Linguistics in May 2013. In the e-book version all handouts have been made available at the back. All audio of the lectures as well as the handouts are available for free, in Open Access, here.

In recent years, Cognitive Linguistics (CL) has established itself not only as a solid theoretical approach but also as an important source from which different applications to other fields have emerged. In this volume we identify some of the current, most relevant topics in applied CL-oriented studies – analyses of figurative language (both metaphor and metonymy) in use, constructions and typology –, and present high-quality research papers that illustrate best practices in the research foci identified and their application to different fields including intercultural communication, the psychology of emotions, second and first language acquisition, discourse analysis and translation studies. It is also shown how different methodologies –the use of linguistic corpora, psycholinguistic experiments or discourse analytic procedures– can shed some light on the basic premises of CL as well as providing insights into how CL can be applied in real world contexts. Finally, all the studies included in the volume are based on empirical data and there are some analyses of languages other than English (Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Danish, German and Polish), thus overcoming the contentions that CL-theoretically-based research is often based on linguistic intuition and focused only on the English language. We hope that the present volume will not only contribute to a better understanding of how CL can be applied but that it will also help to encourage, even further, more robust empirical research in this field. Originally published as a special issue of Review of Cognitive Linguistics 14:1 (2016).